Growth from natural selection

SANTA FE, N.M. — Howard-Yana Shapiro was walking down a street in the Vietnamese countryside when he noticed a spectacular zinnia growing among other flowers. He particularly liked the color and shape of the petals.

“So I asked the local farmer whose farm I was visiting if he minded if I took some seed heads,” Shapiro said, speaking by telephone from Tokyo. “I brought them back and worked on them for five years, and they will be in the catalog this year. It’s a new introduction called Peggy’s Delight.”

The catalog is that of Seeds of Change, an organic-seed company based in Santa Fe, N.M., of which Shapiro is vice president of agriculture.

It’s not unusual for Shapiro to be visiting Tokyo or Vietnam or Africa. In all of those places and others, he’s looking for new flowers, vegetables and herbs to bring home.

Last season’s new introductions in the Seeds of Change catalog included a South African Pearl Daisy, an Iceland Poppy, Yellow Lavender and a Bull’s Blood Beet.

It won’t be long before Seeds of Change mails its catalog for the next planting season, bringing gardeners more than 600 varieties of flower, vegetable and herb seeds to beautify their gardens, please their palates and cure their ailments.

Seeds of Change specializes in the production and sale of open-pollinated, organically grown, heirloom and traditional vegetable, flower and herb seeds. Unlike most conventional seed companies, which sell hybrid and genetically modified seeds, Seeds of Change seeds are naturally pollinated in the field and will reproduce true to form, meaning seeds from the parent plant are viable, unlike that of hybrid seeds.

In addition to the seeds for home gardeners, Seeds of Change also has 125 varieties of seed for sale in bulk for commercial growers. It’s the largest organic-seed company in the United States.

The organic-seed industry, as an important part of the organic-food movement, is growing at an annual rate in excess of 11 percent to 12 percent a year, Shapiro said, adding, “I don’t think there’s an end in sight.”

Seeds of Change was founded in 1989 by Gabriel Howearth and Kenny Ausubel, who are no longer affiliated with the company. Shapiro and other farmers who grew seeds for Seeds of Change took over the company in 1995.

In 1997, the company was acquired by Mars Inc., a privately held business based in McLean, Va., best known for its candy products.

The seeds sold by Seeds of Change are grown by 40 or so contract growers around the country, many of whom have been suppliers to the company for years. All of those seeds are tested at the Seeds of Change research farm, which is north of Espanola, N.M., along the Rio Grande.

Both the farm and the seed-processing facility are certified organic by Oregon Tilth, a longtime organic-certification agency.

At the processing facility, workers sift the seeds, using fans to separate them from chaff and prepare them for packaging and sale. Before the seeds are sent to customers, they must pass U.S. Department of Agriculture germination tests, meaning the seeds are viable and will sprout when planted.

Customer orders by phone and mail go to a Henderson, Nev., firm, which then sends the orders to Santa Fe, where they are filled and shipped to customers.

One of the major growth areas for Seeds of Change is the sale of bulk seed, which goes to market growers around the country. According to federal National Organic Standards passed in 2001, certified organic growers now must use organic seed.

“A lot of organic farmers used to use conventionally produced seeds and claim to be organic,” Renaud said. Thanks to the new law, “They can’t do that now.”

As for the future, Shapiro sees the shape of things to come when he visits the research farm’s seed room.

“It represents an extraordinary amount of human knowledge and activity,” he said. “It represents who we are and demonstrates we are in the forefront of the organic-agricultural movement.”