Earth Mover: Ken Greene
“I always tell people, when you plant a seed, you’re growing a story,” says Ken Greene, who began circulating seeds like books while working at the Gardiner, New York, public library more than a decade ago.
That notion blossomed into the Hudson Valley Seed Company, founded by the 44-year-old and his partner, Doug Muller, 37, in 2008. But Greene’s influence extends far beyond his company’s four-acre farm. The vocal organic-seed advocate has already changed a few minds. “Consumers who care about how their food is grown are starting to ask the same questions about seed,” he notes. “It used to be an invisible part of agriculture.”
He teaches and preaches. “Being an educator is a big part of my work,” says Greene, who sits on the board of the Organic Seed Alliance and crisscrosses the country hosting seed-saving workshops at farmers markets. He also gives lectures at events such as the Seed Savers Exchange conference in Iowa and the national Heirloom Expo in California.
He nurtures native crops. Last year, Greene worked with the Hudson Valley Farm Hub and the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe to establish the Native American Seed Sanctuary in Kingston, New York. “The goal,” he explains, “is to repatriate the tribe’s indigenous corn, beans, and squash, while also arming them with the skills to steward these sacred varieties.”
He shares the bounty. Hudson Valley Seed Company donates edibles left over after its harvest to soup kitchens in upstate New York and Brooklyn. “We get to keep the seeds, and they’re able to serve fresh local food to hundreds of families,” Greene says.
He moonlights as a curator. Instead of slapping stock photos on seed packets, he commissions original works of art to convey each plant’s essence. A Georgia O’Keeffe”“esque scratchboard illustration embodies the ornamental glory of ‘Burgundy’ okra. A humble cross-stitch pattern captures the old-fashioned appeal of balloon vines. “I’ve been called the match.com of the plant and art worlds,” Greene says. “I’ll think, ‘That plant and that artist have a lot in common. They really need to hook up.’”
Follow us
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].by Lynne Palazzi, Modern Farmer
April 12, 2017
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreExplore other topics
Share With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
SubmitNecessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and are used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies.