Seed Stories

I started blogging as A Woman Who Goes Places over a year ago in order to share with colleagues, friends and family some of the more fascinating, thought-provoking, and even inspiring things about agriculture that I’ve learned as I work as a communications consultant in this field. I wanted to help people see, understand, and care just a little bit more about this crucial part of our lives.

Over the past year, I’ve rechristened my business “Seed Stories”, based on the idea that simple stories about plants and people can become the seeds of greater curiosity, understanding and support for agriculture – no matter how complicated the science or policy issues might become.

My work with clients and my own personal travels continue to reinforce this belief while teaching me different ways of seeing the world around me. And so I intend to keep sharing these stories through a new Seed Stories blog, as well as on a new website for Seed Stories that will be launched soon.

Please follow me here if you’d like to hear about my work to help agriculture organizations communicate and build support for the important work they do.

P.S. I still plan to be a “Woman Who Goes Places” – but I’m not sure what direction I’ll take. Check in every now and then to find out!

"A Farm is not just a clever crop"

There is a very short but interesting opinion piece, "Attack of the Really Quite Likable Tomatoes" in the Economist, reflecting on the latest statistics about biotech/GM crop adoption. In 2009, 14 million farmers planted 134 million hectares (the size of Peru!?) of ag biotech / GM crops in 25 countries. 90% of them were small and resource-poor farmers from developing countries.

But what I really like about this piece in the Economist is last paragraph, making the point that, in addition to biotech, there is a lot of other agricultural research that still needs doing. "A farm is not a just a clever crop: it is an ecosystem managed with intelligence. GM crops have a great role to play in that development, but they are only a part of the whole..."

Couldn't have said it better myself.