Heirloom plant
[3] Many heirloom vegetables have kept their traits through open pollination, while fruit varieties such as apples have been propagated over the centuries through grafts and cuttings.
These varieties are often selected for their productivity and their ability to ripen at the same time while withstanding mechanical picking and cross-country shipping, as well as their tolerance to drought, frost, or pesticides.
[6][7] While heirloom gardening has maintained a niche community, in recent years it has seen a resurgence in response to the industrial agriculture trend.
Heirloom varieties are an increasingly popular way for gardeners and small farmers to connect with traditional forms of agriculture and the crops grown in these systems.
Heirloom roses are sometimes collected (nondestructively as small cuttings) from vintage homes and from cemeteries, where they were once planted at gravesites by mourners and left undisturbed in the decades since.
progress has been made in the UK to set up allowances and less stringent tests for heritage varieties on a B national list, but this is still under consideration.
[17] In 2014, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture caused a seed-lending library to shut down and promised to curtail any similar efforts in the state.
[19] In disputed Palestine, some heirloom growers and seed savers see themselves as contributing a form of resistance against the privatization of agriculture, while also telling stories of their ancestors, defying violence, and encouraging rebellion.
[20] The Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library (PHSL), founded by writer and activist Vivien Sansour, breeds and maintains a selection of traditional crops from the region, seeking to "preserve and promote heritage and threatened seed varieties, traditional Palestinian farming practices, and the cultural stories and identities associated with them.
"[20] Some scholars have additionally framed the increasing control of Israeli agribusiness corporations over Palestinian seed supplies as an attempt to suppress food sovereignty and as a form of subtle ecocide.
The scandal further escalated with a series of hearings held by agency officials, during which residents called for a reexamination of seed registration laws and demanded greater citizen participation in legal and political matters relating to agriculture.
These genes have been investigated for their usefulness in increasing drought and salt tolerance and disease resistance, as well as improving flavor, in commercial tomatoes.
In 2004, DNA fingerprinting techniques were used to demonstrate that 'Enola' was functionally identical to a yellow bean grown in Mexico known as Azufrado Peruano 87.
Native communities in the United States and Mexico have drawn particular attention to the importance of traditional and culturally appropriate seed supplies.
[29] Activism surrounding food justice, farmers' rights, and seed sovereignty frequently overlap with the promotion and usage of heirloom crop varieties.
[30] Numerous other organizations and collectives worldwide participate in food sovereignty activism, including the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, Food Secure Canada, and the Latin American Seeds Collective in North and South America; the African Center for Biodiversity (ACB), the Coalition for the Protection of African Genetic Heritage (COPAGEN), and the West African Peasant Seed Committee (COASP) in Africa; and the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), Navdanya, and the Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE) in Asia.
[31] In a 2022 BBC interview, Indian environmental activist and scholar Vandana Shiva stated that "Seed is the source of life.
"[32] Other writers have pushed back against the promotion and proliferation of heirloom crop varieties, connecting their usage to the impacts of colonialism.
Quoting American author and educator Martín Prechtel in his article in The Guardian, Chris Smith writes that "'To keep seeds alive, clear, strong and open-pollinated, purity as the idea of a single pure race must be understood as the ironic insistence of imperial minds.
'"[33] Writer and journalist Brendan Borrell calls heirloom tomatoes "the tomato equivalent of the pug—that 'purebred' dog with the convoluted nose that snorts and hacks when it tries to catch a breath" and claims that selection for unique size, shape, color, and flavor has hampered disease resistance and hardiness in heirlooms.
Over many crop cycles these plants develop unique adaptive qualities to their environment, which empowers local communities and can be vital to maintaining the genetic resources of the world.
[38] Nevertheless, heirloom varieties may still contain the genetic basis for useful traits that can be employed to improve modern crops, including for human nutritional qualities.
Monocrop systems tend to be vulnerable to disease and pest outbreaks, which can decimate whole industries due to the genetic similarity between plants.
[41] Some writers and farmers have criticized the apparent reliance on seed vaults, however, and argue that heirloom and rare varieties are better protected against extinction when actively planted and grown than stored away with no immediate influence on crop genetic diversity.
