SPRING 2013 www..org VOLUME 24, NUMBER 1 Seed Saving on a Global Scale CARY FOWLER is the Heritage Harvest Festival’s Keynote Speaker

homas Jefferson had a worldwide effort to save seeds. Cary genuine enthusiasm for seed Fowler, American agriculturalist exchange and preservation and the former executive director of Tand was passionate about passing the Global Crop Diversity Trust and along seeds to fellow gardeners. His current senior advisor to the trust, excitement for botanical discover- will speak at the 7th annual festival, ies may have germinated with the September 6-7, 2013. Lewis and Clark expedition. From Fowler’s international career in the this expedition, he received a con- conservation and use of crop diver- siderable number of seed varieties, sity spans almost 40 years. In the including highly improved corn and 1990s, he headed the International bean varieties from Northern Plains Conference and Programme on Indian tribes. Plant Genetic Resources at the Food The gardens of Monticello served and Agriculture Organization of Cary Fowler, American as a laboratory for the exchange of the United Nations (FAO), which Agriculturist and Senior new and unusual plants with family produced the UN’s first-ever global Advisor to the Global Crop members, neighbors, and a national assessment of the state of the world’s Diversity Trust. and international network of plant plant genetic resources. He drafted explorers and plantsmen. Jefferson and supervised negotiations of FAO’s Fowler and his team work to ensure himself served as a missionary of Global Plan of Action for Plant that the world’s food supply has the seeds for his novel collection of fruits, Genetic Resources, adopted by 150 diversity needed to address the omni- flowers, vegetables, and ornamen- countries in 1996. That same year present threats of pests, diseases, and tal plants. He once wrote to André he served as special assistant to the climate change. Thoüin of the Jardin de Plantes in Secretary General of the World Food Fowler has been profiled by CBS’ 60 Paris that his seeds “came safely to Summit. Minutes, The New Yorker, and the New hand and were committed to our best Currently he is a member Scientist, and is the author of several seedsmen, in order that they might of the boards of the New York books on the subject of crop diversity be preserved and distributed so as to Botanical Garden Corporation and and more than 100 articles on the become general.” , and he chairs the topic in agriculture, law, and develop- Each year a “Seed Swap” is held International Advisory Council of the ment journals. at the annual Heritage Harvest Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The Vault Festival at Monticello to celebrate provides a secure safety backup for this pioneering spirit of seed shar- the world’s seed collection and is the ing and cultivation. This year’s single largest collection of crop diver- featured speaker is an expert on the sity worldwide. Inside the Seed Vault,

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