Vegetable varieties down 98 percent

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... nt%27.html

Some 98 per cent of vegetable varieties have disappeared over the past century and regulations are hastening the decline, according to an organic charity.

Garden Organic, which is dedicated to researching and promoting organic gardening, said 95 per cent of the vegetables eaten come from just 20 species of plants.

Remaining traditional species from Britain and abroad are facing extinction due to European Union regulations that ban the sale of seeds unless the variety is registered on a national or EU list.

Garden Organic said the loss of species threatened the diversity and of our food. Relying on a few species also threatened the security of supplies

Garden Organic runs a heritage seed library that aims to conserve and make available varieties that are disappearing. It said it had saved 800 types of vegetable that were on the verge of extinction.

They include oddities such as the Afghan purple carrot, Colonel Murphy beans and another bean called Ryder's top o'the pole, which are grown by volunteer "seed guardians" to produce the quantities of seeds needed for the library and to keep the varieties adapting to new conditions.

Colonel Murphy beans are a variety found in the colonel's garden in Porton, Wilts, where he grew them after obtaining them from a French girl who smuggled them out of a secret breeding station in France in her stocking during the Second World War.

Ryder's top o'the pole was from the seed company of Samuel Ryder, who donated the trophy for golf's Ryder Cup.

The seed was donated by a woman who had grown the discontinued variety for more than 30 years.

The Afghan purple carrot was donated by a UN project manager in Kabul. It is believed that cultivated carrots originated in the country.

A pea called carlin has been around since Elizabethan times, and the donor's great-great-grandfather was given the variety as a wedding present. It is traditionally eaten in northern England on the Sunday before Palm Sunday.

Bob Sherman, the director of gardens and gardening at Garden Organic, said: "The 800 endangered varieties in our living collection include all types of common vegetables such as tomatoes, carrots, beans, peas and onions - staple foods for millions of people around the world.

"And it's not just vegetable varieties we are losing but it's the local history, culture, tradition and skills that go with them. Once the varieties are extinct, we will never be able to get the seed or the heritage back."

He added: "Multiple varieties are imperative to protecting the food security of the nation, both now and in the future."

Members of the public are being urged to support the scheme by becoming seed guardians or by "adopting" a vegetable for a year.

Extinct vegetables

Crimson flowered broad bean, Champion of England pea, Bath cos lettuce, Rowsham park hero onion

Most endangered vegetables

Runner bean McCoy Hill, Dwarf French bean Colonel Murphy's Kale Daubenton

Rare vegetables on protection list

Afghan purple carrot, Red elephant carrot, Shetland cabbage, Walla Walla sweet onion, Giant tree tomato, Macedonian sweet pepper, Crimson giant radish, Salford black runner bean, Boothby's blond cucumber, Colossal leek, Loos tennis ball lettuce

This is awful! People should start planting them right away. or whoever can, should anyway. This is devastation.

My granddad used to grow something called red peas that I have never seen anywhere else. He used to go up to the mountains in Georgia to get the seeds. All I know is it looked like a black-eyed pea but the it was pink with a red spot or eye on it. It sure tasted good too.

For those old enough to remember:

For the list of extinct fruits and vegetables don’t forget to add tomato that used to smell like a tomato and banana that used to smell like a banana.

You can say that again

Peace

that's exactly why I support GMOs