Writer, activist, and naturalist Janisse Ray will give a talk about her new book The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook on November 16. Her book discusses a missing piece in the renaissance of local food, farming, and place-based culinary traditions happening across the country: seeds. She presents a staggering statistic—out of the thousands of seed varieties available at the turn of the 20th century, 94 percent have been lost. Ray, a gardener who co-owns and lives on Red Earth Farm in Georgia, which organizes health, sustainability, and homesteading workshops, looks to save endangered varieties, like Old Time Tennessee muskmelon and Long County Longhorn okra. Along with her own story, Ray tells of people across the country who remind us of the weighty impacts of the loss of seeds, including health, food security, and our heritage and history.
