Think about the last time you were at the grocery store…

Do you know where the food came from?

Do you feel connected to it?

Do you know what it took from the earth?

Radicle shares the stories of plants and people through the exchange of endangered, rare, and heirloom seeds. Growing food builds a bond between humans and nature, fostering appreciation for natural resources and deconstructing the perception of perfect produce. Exchanging and storing seeds builds biodiversity and resiliency for future generations.

Food systems today are over-capitalized and heavily reliant on a limited selection of bio-engineered seeds. Many people today don't know where their food comes from and don't feel a meaningful connection with food they purchase. As the climate changes and the population grows, it is increasingly important to ask ourselves how will we feed ourselves while taking better care of the earth?

Radicle is a seed sharing service that aims to foster a deeper respect for the land that sustains our food production so that we can feed ourselves for years to come. This services works to bridge the gap between farmers and consumers who share a common interest in cultivating and preserving rare, heirloom, culturally significant, and endangered plant seeds. Through Radicle, we aim to increase awareness, accessibility, and knowledge surrounding these unique plants. By empowering more individuals to grow and utilize these varieties, we strive to challenge the structures of an overly commodified system that prioritizes food perfection above all else.

Our project seeks to explore the complex problem space encompassing food waste, climate-smart agriculture, and environmental stewardship. We approach this challenge through the lens of small- and mid-sized farmers as well as every day gardeners, aiming to inspire a shift in how people perceive their role in the food value chain. By embracing an environmental stewardship approach and fostering stronger connections between consumers, producers, and the natural world, we aspire to bring about positive change. With time, as more people engage in growing their own food, we envision a reduction in food waste and a more mindful approach to utilizing environmental resources. Through fostering a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness between our food choices and the well-being of the planet, we aim to promote a more sustainable and conscious approach to nourishing ourselves.

"When we have commodified food, we have damaged the relationship between grower and consumer, and... we've also damaged relationship between the grower and land."– Eli Wheat, regenerative farmer, SME Interview

Save seeds, share seeds, stay Radicle

Radicle shares the stories of plants and people through the exchange of endangered, rare, and heirloom seeds. Growing food builds a bond between humans and nature, fostering appreciation for natural resources and deconstructing the perception of perfect produce. Exchanging and storing seeds builds biodiversity and resiliency for future generations.

Radicle is a seed exchange service that aims to foster meaningful growing experiences and cultivate deeper connections to food through the collaborative exchange of rare, heirloom, and culturally diverse seeds. Our goal is to spread knowledge, skills, and stories that contribute to the preservation of agricultural heritage and biodiversity within our food system.

By promoting mindful food production and consumption, Radicle encourages growers of all levels, from seasoned farmers to hobbyists, to engage in a future-oriented food system that values community collaboration, appreciation of food, and the celebration of diverse vegetation. Leveraging rich seed legacies and genome mapping, we strive to create a sustainable and inclusive environment.

Our service begins with curated partnerships with farmers, botanists, and other knowledgeable sources who provide access to rare, heirloom, and endangered seeds, along with their unique stories. These seeds are then grown by our partner farms with the sole purpose of increasing seed supply.

Once we have a sufficient seed supply, growers can choose to purchase seed collections or subscribe to receive a curated selection of seeds automatically. Each shipment is personalized to the grower's specific climate and growing zone. It includes unique seeds accompanied by their stories, a nature-based activity that fosters a connection with the natural world, and a community zine.

What sets our service apart from existing seed supplies is the two-way exchange it facilitates. Growers are not only encouraged to save their seeds but also to share a portion of their seed harvest with Radicle. The returned seeds undergo gene sequencing to understand how individual plants are adapting and evolving. Additionally, seed samples are stored along with their genetic records. Our hope is that by tracking and storing the micro- evolutions of various foods, we can create access to the knowledge future generations may need as we continue to adapt to a changing climate.

Overall, Radicle aims to be a transformative force in the seed exchange landscape, empowering growers to actively participate in preserving agricultural diversity and advancing our collective understanding of adaptation in the face of environmental changes.

Research

Research question: What is the relationship between people's actions and behaviors within the food production and consumption system with their mental models of their relationship to the natural world?

We conducted primary research involving individuals who engage with various aspects of the food value chain. In addition to consumers, we also identified three types of subject matter experts to participate in our research, producers, distributors, and other experts. Each group had specific research questions tailored to their expertise, allowing us to gather in-depth insights that collectively contributed to addressing our main research question.

Our research methods included literature review, SME interviews, contextual inquiry, survey, and a co-design session. The literature review set the foundation for the rest of our research inquiries, we reviewed and synthesized scientific articles, market reports, white papers, and news publications to understand current challenges and opportunities in food and farming systems. The SME interviews were conducted with professionals work in agriculture, soil science, grocery distribution, nature conservation, and food activism to deepen our understanding of goals, activities, challenges, and perspectives along each stage of the food value chain. Contextual inquiry site visits at local farms gave us first hand experience of conservation projects and agricultural practices in real world contexts. Learning about the professional side of food systems allowed us to curate a quantitative online survey to gather general consumer perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors for obtaining, consuming, and disposing of food. Lastly, we conducted a co-design session with individuals who identify as growers and consumers to generate ideas and solutions that addresses over-commodification of food and lack of food and land connection.

Our research uncovered a network of themes across actors in the food value chain.

Over-commodification

Over-commodification of food places an emphasis on capitalistic gains and ideals of food perfection throughout the food value chain. Profit and power are centralized around distributors while producers bear the burden of loss of profit and risk. Consumers are subject to prices set upstream and absorb costs, despite reporting values around affordability and quality.

Soil Health

Soil health is foundational to sustaining the resiliency of agricultural land and by extension, the ability to feed ourselves. Presently, topsoil degradation is occurring at a rate higher than existing replenishment efforts.

Biodiversity

General patterns towards homogenization, limited selection of food products at grocery retailers, and narrow range of seed varieties contribute to lack of biodiversity and food illiteracy amongst consumers.

Food & Land Connection

Consumers report a lack of meaningful connection to the food they purchase and eat, which is exacerbated by urban-rural divide, inaccessible farm infrastructure, and gaps in understanding of wild food sources.

Food Waste

Food waste is a significant problem at multiple levels of the food value chain, primarily driven by food standards set by distributors and consumer expectations. There is lack of awareness or transparency around food waste by various actors in the chain.

Values

Based on our research, we honed in on a guiding statement and four values that our service should be centered around. By defining these values, we were able to evaluate if our design concepts were aligned to the project vision.

Guiding statement

How might we enable producers and consumers to overcome the commodification of food and build a deeper, more direct connection with the land and their local food systems?

Environmental stewardship

Our service advocates for more-than-human stakeholders that make up the foundation of the food value chain (soil and water health, local flora and fauna) by giving them equal stake in the design of our service.

Community Collaboration

Human and non-human stakeholders in the system currently lack meaningful relationships. Our service aims to better connect stakeholders with each other and with the process of food production. Through this we strengthen community networks and align stakeholders along the chain to close the loop.

Sustainable food systems

We aim to revamp the current food system by introducing circularity so that waste can be reduced at all stages of
the food value system. A new system should offer diverse opportunities to create and receive value that co-exists with environmental stewardship.

Action awareness

Our goal is to reshape expectations around food variety, availability/seasonality, and quality through pairing awareness with individual actions. Education and awareness builds empathy and drives behavior change to bring about impact.

Prototype

Our Vision with Radicle is to create a cooperative system that embeds farmers into self-sustaining communities where food is grown closer to home. The system embraces community collaboration to achieve goals of food diversity and seasonality. We hope to foster behavior change at scale in an attempt to address systemic problems that we've identified to be at the core of our ecosystem: lack of connection to food and land, and commodification of food.

To bring this service to life we created a curated package that a Radicle seed service subscriber would receive. This package includes a collection of seeds, a community newsletter, produce-adorned postcards, and a nature activity. These individual items were carefully curated and designed to instill knowledge and excitement for members to get hands on in the garden, kitchen, and out in nature.