Seed Saving and Sharing in the Southwest: Elemental Wisdom from Pre-Contact to Today

A deft exploration of seed preservation in the Southwestern Borderlands, perfect for anyone seeking to understand and participate in regional seed-saving and seed-banking efforts. Landscape architect Susannah Abbey’s Seed Saving and Sharing in the Southwest: Elemental Wisdom from Pre-Contact to Today surveys the politics, philosophy, and ecology of seed preservation in the American Southwest and northern Mexico from pre-European contact to the present. Abbey presents a cultural history of seed saving and plant domestication, introducing the dryland farming traditions of Indigenous, Hispanic, and American farmers. She examines modern industrial agriculture and its impacts on small farmers, biodiversity, and food systems. Abbey explores the contemporary seed-banking movement—its philosophies, key figures, and intersections with art and community practice—while also addressing seed ecology and crops suited to dryland farming. By tracing connections between past and present, local practices and global initiatives, Abbey demonstrates how individual actions carry social, scientific, and cultural significance. She shows how the kitchen gardener using locally sourced heirloom seeds stands in continuity with ancient Puebloan farmers in the Southwest and with scientists safeguarding global biodiversity at the Svalbard Global Seed Bank in Norway. An essential resource for small-scale farmers and home gardeners in desert climates, Seed Saving and Sharing in the Southwest offers an engaging entry point into a vital and growing movement.