Having given pickacarrot.com a brief Nibble, I feel duty bound to report at greater length on the new online exchange of Seed Savers Exchange. The arrival of the SSE Yearbook, with its hundreds of pages of densely printed listings, heralds, for many, a winter of wondering, speculating, dreaming and, occasionally, frustration. It lists all the varieties offered by members of SSE, from whom you request seed directly. If you are after lots of different seeds, from lots of different members, that means lots of different requests.
The online exchange, while probably not as comfortable to curl up with in front of a fire (I haven’t tried it on a tablet computer) is equally enticing and a lot easier to use. At least, I think it is. In the old days, you actually had to write to someone asking for seed, and if you were doing so from outside the US, as I was, you had to find International Reply Coupons and all that stuff. The online exchange has a wishlist to which you can add your requests, so to test it I thought I’d look for Cherokee Purple, a tomato I’ve grown successfully in the past and that might amuse my Italian neighbours.
I found it easily enough, and then had to choose a member to ask for it. I decided on Neil Lockhart, in Illinois, for no good reason. Then I pressed the button to complete my order, and nothing happened. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to pay the $3 handling fee (plus, I hope, a little more to account for additional postage to me), or what happens next. Perhaps that’s because the online exchange is still in beta test. Perhaps nothing is supposed to happen. Of course, had I read all the details in advance, I would have learned that the online exchange is actually just streamlining the process of requesting seeds, by sending an automatic email from me to Neil. Now it is up to us mutually to sort out delivery and payment. It also streamlines the whole business of listing seeds members may have to offer, which is probably going to be very helpful too.
All in all, SSE’s online exchange has, I think, enormous potential. One of the most interesting and diverting aspects is the Seed Stories, which give a glimpse into the personal histories behind some of the varieties, and to which SSE is adding all the time. The online exchange has some glitches still to be ironed out, and I’m sure they will be. There might even be ways in which it could be improved but that would take inordinate amounts of human time. For now, though, especially if you are in the US, it seems like a wonderful gateway to a wealth of agricultural biodiversity.
Of course, you do have to be a member of SSE, but that’s no bad thing.
Never used a seed / variety catalog before, so I got curious and looked at the different varieties of leeks. From the point of view of a database modeler, the SSE catalog provides disparate and patchy information on the varieties.
Most pages have absolutely no descriptive attributes (just a code), others have only their morphology (?) described, and again others, only how they taste, or tolerance to environmental conditions. All varieties featured in this web database should use a common data model and ask breeders to provide info on as many attributes as possible: taste, time of planting, time to maturity, growing conditions, tolerance, cooking info, etc.
It’s very likely any producer/member can provide the info on demand, so why not put it on the website for the neophyte?
You can be a grassroot, ‘informal’ exchange network and a make good database for your products. It is possible.
This is an example, not perfect by far, of another take on catalogue
http://www.kultursaat.org/sortenliste.php?gruppe=SGHA
https://exchange.seedsavers.org/catalog/results.aspx?type=browse&cat=59
I think you are rather missing the point here Cédric. The printed Yearbook had exactly the same issues as you describe. It is, essentially, utterly dependent on what information the members wish to supply. I’m sure the structure of the database is just fine; what you are having problems with is the content, and that’s what I was hinting at when I said “There might even be ways in which it could be improved but that would take inordinate amounts of human time”.
As with any such effort, the data in this type of database are only ever going to be as good and consistent as the people supplying it.
True. I have problems with the lack of content and I also understand your point. However, all suppliers of varieties/information are showing initiative by being part of the network. SSE could provide a data template (a structural improvement) to them to fill in: not all fields need to have information but at the least when info is made available it can be easily compared between varieties or suppliers.
If I want to grow leek, I’ll choose seeds from the guy who has given some info and ignore the other one with its blank page. I won’t be the only one. The consequence: one supplier is favoured over the other one simply based on the lack of online data.
In which case, maybe the person who provides information and thus gets many requests will be encouraged, and the others discouraged, and natural selection will give you what you want.
Agriculture is about favouring one species over others in a given area. The curse of biodiversity. It would be sad though that a heirloom variety maintained but not documented on SSE would disappear simply because of that, no documentation or incentive to better document that variety.
I doubt that that would happen, but I agree it is a possibility.
This is exactly why something like this should be open source and free on the Internet. When you think about ‘inordinate amounts of human time’, trust me, it’s all out there on the Internet. In fact I’m absolutely sure that, eventually, this is what the future holds for the SSE and their online system. The only thing that’s keeping this from happening now is that computer people tend not to be seed people, and seed people tend not to be computer people. Us bloggers and associated communities are sort of the exception to this.
There’s really nothing preventing a small group of computer hackers from getting together and creating a functionally equivalent system to the of the SSE. Then people could sign up and use it without paying the membership of the SSE, which is quite a lot of money these days. If it were an open system, set up for developers to create new modules or interfaces, there would be an ongoing free development effort.
The only thing that the SSE could do to prevent this from happening is to create a sort of Facebook for seed trading, a free closed social network system that offered some unique perks. I don’t see the SSE going in this direction. This would be a huge development effort.
If would be nice if the SSE reached out to the free software community, and created an open system. If the SSE doesn’t do this, it would also be nice if someone offered some ‘seed money’ to pay some software developers to get this started. It’s really only a matter of time anyway.
Again, I think you’re missing the point, which is not the database but the information. How is open source going to give you equivalent levels of detail for two varieties grown by two different people. The database is the easy part. Getting two professionals to use the same descriptors in the same way is the sticking point, let alone people who are doing it for love.
Plenty of developers start without seed money, because they believe there will be a market of some sort for the product they develop. Why should a seed exchange be different?
I think Patrick’s point is in part about “open source” seeds; he doesn’t like that you have to be a paying member to participate in the exchange (please correct me if I am wrong…on reading a second time I still think that is at least part point). As to that…the membership is $40 – and $25 if you are “reduced income”, or three years for $100. While free is nice, you also get what you pay for, and with SSE part of what you are paying for is the overall work they do to preserve their collection, educate seed savers and the public at large, etc.
While I do understand that even $25 can be prohibitive for some people, and while I am a fan and user of many “free” internet products (well, but often I do pay with my personal information), I think “self-taxing” (via several seed nonprofits I support) is one of the best public investments a person can make. I recently interviewed one longtime (and tight budgeted senior) SSE member, and the way he put it was that he paid to join and distributed seed through SSE because it was a “cheap insurance policy” to ensure that the one of a kind varieties he had collected over the decades did not pass away with him.
I can see how membership and a printed seed listing would be attractive to some people who are not computer or Internet people. I certainly would not want to lose the resources or commitments of those people.
For those of us who don’t live in the US, a $25 membership is not available. Non-us/Canada/Mexico membership is $55/yr, depending on the exchange rate with the dollar, this can be very expensive for some people. I don’t see why there shouldn’t be an Internet only option, that takes into account the savings in postage, and costs the same for everyone the world over. In fact, this could arguably be done for free or at very low cost, especially if free human Internet resources could be made good use of.
While I think there’s an argument to be made in support of the work the SSE does, I think the Internet has a lot to offer too and has also been something of a revolution in education and promotion of seed saving. What I understand from what the SSE themselves say, is that selling seeds and plant materials constitutes most of their income.
It might benefit everyone if the Internet part of what they do became an open architecture and free for everyone to access. This might save the SSE money, and at the same time give more people access to the seeds. I think the good aspects of their current online system could be preserved if they did this. My point is more that I think this will happen no matter what, one way or another.
Jeremy, some plant breeders work simply for the love of what they do too. Sometimes giving someone enough money to meet basic expenses means they have a lot more resources to commit to the things they love and are good at.
You’re right, Patrick, a cheaper form of membership that did not involve physical goods would be a good idea. SSE would need to calibrate it carefully, to ensure it isn’t going to lose on the deal, but it ought to be doable.
And I still think you are conflating the database etc development and plant breeding. Of course there are plant breeders who do what they do out of love. As there are developers. We can all choose to support them if we wish to, as Matthew has suggested.
Welcome to Genebank Database Hell. Good to have some company down here.
I am nor sure of my facts here but is seems that SSE is an oddity in seed distribution. Most of their collection is in the Svalbard seed vault and, under the debatable Art. 7 of the Svalbard `Depositor Agreement” the `home’ samples are therefore covered by the ITPGRFA conditions for distribution. I don’t think membership charges and distribution charges are in order under the Treaty/SMTA. I hope things are not going to get more complicated that they already are.
The ITPGRFA is silent on distribution charges.
How pleasant for something to be silent about something.