In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, as India’s COVID-19 crisis continues, we look at what’s holding back the country’s vaccination rollout and how a shift in strategy on distribution and pricing is causing concern. And we speak to a researcher who went hunting for fungi in the world’s largest seed bank.
India’s catastrophic COVID-19 crisis shows little sign of improving. On May 12, the country reported 348,421 new cases and a record 4,205 new deaths from COVID, taking the total number of deaths to over 250,000. Many observers think these official figures could be substantial underestimates as hospitals struggle to provide the sick with oxygen and beds, and crematoriums overflow.
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“All seeds are sacred, these seeds are connected to 10,000 years of human relationship to the land,” says Owen Taylor, co-founder of Philadelphia-based Truelove Seeds, who sells vegetable, herb and flower seeds that tell ancestral and regional stories. He adds, “seedkeeping refers to not just the saving of seeds, but also the keeping of seed stories, cultural information, traditions, recipes, rituals and so on.”
Taylor says many of the varieties in Truelove’s seed catalogue are seeds that farmers and gardeners have collected from others, through seed exchanges and family lineages. “Most of our growers are on their own search for their beloved varieties and to provide an outlet for some of the crops from home,” he says. Seeds from Syria to the African diaspora, those that tell the story of Philadelphia’s history and a wide variety of other culturally important seeds are included in the catalogue.