Ajaan Abram Bicksler (current Food Systems and Rivers professor at ISDSI) and Ajaan Laura Meitzner Yoder (past Forests professor) recently completed a publication entitled “Strengthening Indigenous Informal Seed Systems in Southeast Asia.” The research, which was completed over the past year with colleagues from Pennsylvania State University (USA), the ECHO Asia Impact Center (Chiang Mai), and MaeJo University (Thailand), and funded by the USAID HORT CRSP program, combines original participatory social science and natural science research in an effort to identify indigenous vegetable crops, seed saving methodology, and seed pathways. Some of the research took place in the villages where ISDSI students spend time during their Sustainable Food Systems course. This finished work is available here as a PDF and summarizes the findings of the study and gives practical advice about how indigenous seed systems can be strengthened, with the hope that cultural and biodiversity will be maintained and smallholder farmer sustainability will be improved.

Sorghum seeds drying in the sun near a traditional home in Baan Dang Nauk, one of the villages our students visit during their Sustainable Food Systems course.