Text from back of book cover: Thousands of years ago Demeter, the Goddess of Agriculture, taught the annual ‘Mystery School’ throughout the area now called Greece. Farmers and regular folk were given the knowledge about the power of seed and regeneration. Today agribusiness controls what varieties of crops can be sold and make it illegal for farmers to become involved in saving seed of crops that don’t need chemicals to produce food. They develop secret processes of producing food by genetic alteration and allow only their chosen into their mystery school. They also decide if there is surplus or shortage of seed and food, regulate commodity prices and also provide the services for delivering food aid. It is a circle that provides profit for a few at the expense of the environment and life, and is not regenerative.

The global Abundance includes seed of heritage varieties of plants that have fed people for centuries and don’t need chemicals. There are traditional practices and ways of working in collaboratively in communities. This book shares a reality and vision that honors the old Mystery School symbol of wheat and all it can provide for humanity. It includes practical 'how to plant' as well as history, philosophy, insights and inspirations.

Sharon Rempel is the founder of ‘Seedy Saturday’ community seed exchanges in Canada and the UK, the designer of the Bread and Wheat Festival in Victoria, BC, and the Godmother of Red Fife Wheat.

Table of Contents

Part One: Society and Systems
Redefining Value
People, Plant and Place – Historic Relationships
Agriculture and Change
Cost of Agricultural Progress
Lamarkian and Reductionistic Sciences
Uniformity and Stability; Power versus Force
Bringing Culture Back to Agriculture
Voice for the Seed
Community Roots
Mysteries Past and Present
Red Fife Wheat
Transformational Power of Seed

Part Two: Wheat
Types of Wheat
Landraces and Hybridization
Seed Saving
Uses of Wheat
Flour
Other Marketing Possibilities for Wheat
The End and the Beginning; Spiral and Sphere
Seedy Saturday
Food Security
Slow Seed

Contacts and Resources
Poems
Canadian Heritage Wheats