EXPR 341 Seed Sovereignty and Citizen Action
Seed-saving is an important community resilience skill. Over 75% of the world's commercial seed is owned by three agrichemical companies. This course will cover the history of seed patent law in the U.S, the Plant Variety Protection Act, the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology, seed politics, and citizen seed movements from Seed-Savers Exchange to the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance and the Open-Source Seed Initiative. You will learn about seed genetics, germination testing, pollination and seed-saving techniques, including hand-pollination and wet-processing. Every student will build their own winnowing screen and students at the 300 and 400 levels will be assigned community action projects as well.