Our work at Organic Seed Alliance has always focused on hope and resilience: the hope inherent in every seed and the resilience of farmers and food systems relying on seed that can be saved, improved, adapted and shared.
As we all adapt to the slowing of activities and economies needed to ease the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers continue to plant the seeds that grow our food. OSA is committed to serving the needs of these farmers while mitigating impacts to our staff, partners, friends and neighbors. We are incredibly fortunate to be part of a seed community that is decentralized and self-reliant. OSA will do all we can to support the health of our communities by:
- Postponing or cancelling public events, in-person meetings and staff travel
- Following social distancing recommendations while conducting on-farm research and field work
- Requiring all staff to work from home when not in the field
- Developing contingency plans to creatively deliver virtual summer and fall field days
- Advocating for Congress to include support for farmers and small agricultural businesses in stimulus packages
- Supporting local farmers markets, food co-ops and on-farm food distribution systems
- Donating research farm produce to food banks and hospital cafeterias
While workshops will be on hiatus, technical support is available to farmers anytime through our free online resources, including OSA’s downloadable publications and the many webinars available on eOrganic. Farmers with specific questions about seed, variety trials and variety improvement are encouraged to email them to this address. Farmers with questions about policy advocacy issues, please contact Kiki Hubbard.
As we all wait out this pandemic, there’s one thing farmers can do TODAY to influence the future of organic agriculture. We are asking all farmers reading this to complete one of the surveys below to inform a national organic research agenda. This survey is only conducted every five years, and hearing from your operation is critical to our efforts. (Learn more about the survey project here.)
If you are a certified organic farmer/rancher, please use this survey link:
https://www.opinion.wsu.edu/organicproduction/
If you are a farmer/rancher transitioning to certified organic production (this means no land currently certified organic), please use this link:
www.opinion.wsu.edu/transitionproducers
In solidarity,
The Organic Seed Alliance team
