National Bioneers Conference 2018 - October 18-22, 2018

In the face of an increasingly unstable climate and the continued collapse of global agricultural biodiversity, the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) has engaged in a project involving mixing and planting together over 2,000 varieties of bread-wheat from all over the world in a process called “Evolutionary Plant Breeding.” The goals of this ambitious project are to: create unique, place-adapted, resilient mixtures of our most important food crops; increase agricultural biodiversity; put seed-breeding back into the hands of farmers and gardeners; and generate a seed supply that can thrive in a changing climate. With: Mark Schapiro, investigative environmental journalist, lecturer at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, author of Seeds of Resistance; Cooper Freeman, OAEC’s Program Manager; Leonard Diggs, Manager of SRJC Shone Farm, a 365-acre self-sustaining college farm. Hosted by Arty Mangan, Director of Bioneers’ Restorative Food Systems Program.