The Seed Farmer: A Complete Guide to Growing, Using, and Selling Your Own Seeds

The comprehensive grower’s guide to seed production

The Seed Farmer is required reading for any grower who cares about being part of a truly sustainable local food system.

Whether you’re interested in growing your own seeds for on-farm use, or scaling up for retail or commercial sales, this comprehensive manual will help you ensure reliable access to quality seed stock adapted to your own climate and bioregion. Coverage includes:

• The journey to self-sufficiency--how to extricate yourself from the modern seed distribution industry and develop varieties adapted to your location and climate
• When to worry about cross-pollination, crop timing, and poor seed genetics and when to ignore these issues on your small farm or market garden
• Detailed profiles and practical, hands-on growing and harvesting techniques for dozens of vegetable and flower crops
• The economics of seed production, and the business case for scaling up and selling seeds into local, retail, or wholesale channels
• Farm planning, sowing schedules, projected crop yields, and other considerations.

With everything you need to help integrate seed production into your small-scale farm or market garden simply, profitably, and successfully, this unique and exciting guide proves that going to seed is easier than you think!

Dan Brisebois is a founding member of Tourne-Sol co-operative farm, which supplies weekly farm baskets for 500 families and operates a thriving retail and wholesale seed business. He earned a B.Sc in Agricultural Engineering from McGill University and has over two decades of experience as both a market farmer and a seed producer. Dan is a founding member of the Eastern Canadian Organic Seed Growers network, former board member of SeedChange, and past president of Canadian Organic Growers. As well as writing and teaching extensively, he mentors farmers in the art of effective planning, systems design, and time management at the Farmer Spreadsheet Academy, and hosts the popular Seed Growers podcast. Dan is co-author of the COG Practical Skills Handbook Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers. He lives and farms in Les Cèdres, Quebec.