2025 Programs Update

Education

Webinar Series

Joseph, Shane, Holly, and Julia organized and hosted monthly podcasts on various topics relevant to adaptation gardening. Topics included selling diverse produce, traditional farming in Ukraine, and Zero-Input Agriculture. Guests included Mark Shepard, Dan Brisbois, and members of the Going to Seed Community. 

Seed Saving Guides for Seed Libraries

In response to community feedback, we transformed our digital crop guides into printable seed-saving zines between December 2024 and February 2025, distributing over 2,000 guides to 24 seed libraries nationwide. We paired regional seeds with guides whenever possible: Florida libraries received squash grown in Florida, Wisconsin libraries got broccoli from a Wisconsin Farmer Support Project grantee, and Mendocino County libraries distributed coastal-adapted sweet corn to over 100 people. With help from 4 volunteer writers and 7 volunteers who assembled and shipped materials, we've reached an estimated 3,200 people. In 2025, we secured an additional $5,000 from the Foundation for Sustainability and Innovation to cover printing and distribution for the 2026 season, allowing us to expand our reach with larger print runs and create materials for additional crop species. 

An update from Debbie, Going to Seed treasurer and collaborator with the Salt Lake City Libraries: 
Local seed libraries are our direct link to communities. They play an invaluable role in distributing seeds and educational material to home gardeners. At the moment, many libraries rely on commercial seed companies that donate their unsold expired seeds, which were likely grown in regions far from the community. As a pilot project, we are partnering with the Salt Lake City Public Library to grow relationships with local farmers to produce seed that will be distributed by the Library through its 9 branches. We ask the farmers to grow several varieties of a crop together so that cross-pollination can take place. The farmer can sell most of the produce as usual, but will save seeds from the best plants/fruits for distribution by the library. Home gardeners will have access to fresh, local, genetically diverse seed to start their own adapted crop lines should they choose to save seeds. To support this project, Going to Seed and the Salt Lake City Public Library have submitted a grant application to the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation requesting funds to compensate farmers and provide educational materials to home gardeners in 2026. 

Course Development

We developed a partnership and content-sharing agreement with Land Together and Edovo to adapt both Adaptation Gardening and Center of Origin courses for prison tablets, reaching approximately 1 million people in half of the U.S. prisons. Prisons present a unique and compelling case for adaptation gardening: security restrictions make it nearly impossible to bring in materials from outside, and prison gardens are typically located in hot climates with extensive pavement, compacted soil, and other challenging growing conditions. These constraints make them ideal testing grounds for developing truly resilient, locally adapted seeds. We're excited about the unique genetics we hope will emerge from these environments and grateful for the opportunity to support incarcerated individuals in developing valuable agricultural skills while contributing to seed sovereignty. Debbie is continuing the work of adapting the Adaptation Gardening course for the tablet platform, which we believe will provide both practical growing knowledge and a meaningful connection to the natural world for participants. 

 

Community Building

Local Seeds Coalition

Starting in May 2025, we launched the Local Seeds Coalition exploratory campaign, training a 9-person interviewer team who completed over 100 interviews with seed farmers, librarians, breeders, and food system organizers across the U.S. and Canada . We're now synthesizing these insights to support our 40+ coalition members and organizations and develop materials that help advance the visibility and viability of regional seed work. More is to come as we finalize a strategy with our advisory committee this fall.

International Collaboration

Joseph participated in the International Farmer Seeds Gathering, "Sow Your Resistance," held from October 1-5, 2024, in Antibes, France, where he presented alongside Salvatore Ceccarelli. We coordinated a recording project to capture the workshops for wider distribution. The French videographers are currently finishing subtitles on the videos, with release expected later this year. We're also actively participating in Let's Liberate Diversity's international mapping project and survey, which aims to connect seed organizations around the world and create platforms for facilitating sharing and collaboration across borders.

California Grange Resolution

The “Growing a Regional Seed Future” resolution was passed by community granges in Mendocino and Sonoma County, then passed by the California State Grange on October 12th, 2025.  We look forward to using this as a platform to secure funding for implementation in  California communities to create regional seed hubs.  Read the Resolution Here, and if you’re a member, consider proposing this resolution at your next community grange meeting. 

 

Farmer Support

The Farmer Support Program, with funding primarily from the Clif Family Foundation, is in its second year of helping farmers adapt crops to their local ecosystems. In 2024, we supported thirteen farmers in the U.S., Canada, and India as they developed locally adapted crops, including squash, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, and more. In the 2025 season, nine of those farmers continued the projects they began in 2024, and seven new farmers were added. The 2025 cohort includes farmers in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. The program offers financial, technical, and marketing assistance that mitigates the risks of developing diverse, locally adapted crops.  

 

Seed Distribution

We expanded our online seed share from 2400 packets of 21 crops in 2023 to 4100 packets of 26 crops in 2024. In 2025, we simplified contributions, added new seed stewards, launched a dedicated Canadian program, and organized grow-outs of some special melon seeds from the USDA Seed Bank. With these efforts, our distribution jumped to over 6000 packets of 41 crops! Last year, about 12% of those who received seeds also contributed seeds to the program. And about half of the individuals who sent in  seeds included ones that originated with one of our mixes – after selecting ones that performed well in their conditions with minimal inputs –  helping the quality of those mixes to improve over time. Our main goals for this program are to increase the diversity, quantity, and quality of seeds we distribute.

During the 2025 growing season, we provided stipends to a group of growers across the country for producing large grexes of a few of our most popular crops: moschata squash, watermelon, and muskmelon. Other farmers have grown out some rare seeds obtained from the USDA, including runner beans, fava beans, carrots, kale, and spinach. These seeds were selected for diversity and for key traits such as earliness and disease resistance.  Now in October, we’ve started to receive seeds from all of these efforts, and can’t wait to share the diversity with all of you when we launch the 2026 Seed Share in January.