I’m not talking here about which supermarket or grocery you shop in, or whether your food was grown locally or comes from overseas, but rather where the crop plants we eat were first discovered and developed as food. Now that we can pretty much eat whatever we want, from wherever we want, whenever we want – do you know where the food you eat first evolved and originated from?
The use of local seed is widely advocated for habitat restoration and is based on the premise that locally sourced seed will be the best adapted for the local conditions at restoration sites.
However, a ‘local is best’ seed sourcing practise (where seed for planting establishment is only sourced from native habitat within a few km of the restoration site) misses two important points, which may be seriously impacting on restoration outcomes, particularly resilience in the face of future environmental and climate change.
Prof Andy Lowe 