Our 82nd @realfarmercare recipient is Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds @seedkeeping in Philadelphia, PA.
Owen writes, “Truelove Seeds is a farm-based seed company offering culturally important and open pollinated vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. Our seeds are grown by more than 20 small-scale urban and rural farmers committed to community food sovereignty, cultural preservation, and sustainable agriculture. We share our profits directly with our growers: 50% of each packet sale goes back to the farmer who grew it! It is our third year selling seeds, and sales were already up from last year.
In mid-March, demand for seeds skyrocketed due to people returning to the land in record numbers due to this pandemic. This increase in sales means that our growers will benefit greatly since they get a large portion of our sales! We LOVE supporting our amazing growers and their families and communities through this project. Unfortunately, we had to move our whole order fulfillment operation to my house and I’ve had to fill huge volumes of orders by myself. At first, I worked every waking hour seven days a week. Two coworkers work from their homes filling seed packets. One works from the farm getting our seed crops going for next year’s catalog and I’m now able to go twice a week as well. We started closing our web orders three days a week to catch up and this feels more humane. One of our long-term coworkers, Amirah, has had to go back home to be with family during this difficult time, and so we are sending this Real Farmer Care donation to her, and we hope she comes back safely and soon!! We hope that people are only ordering the seeds they will plant and share with others: our seeds are grown by farmers who truly love them, and usually because of their ancestral or regional connections to the particular crops - no seed should be wasted! Thank you to Real Farmer Care for the work that you do supporting us farmers! Photo is of me and the wonderful folks who worked at Truelove last season - all but one are still here with us this year still!” #realfarmercare #trueloveseeds #seedsaving #foodsovereignty #culturalpreservation #sustainableag #bipocfarmers #communitycare
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