Heritage and Heirloom

Sustainable farming and ranching relies heavily on heritage breeds of animals and heirloom varieties of plants.

Often you will see the words heritage and heirloom used interchangeably, for both animals and plants.  The meanings are virtually identical.

A heritage breed is a traditional breed that has been raised and improved slowly, over time by pre-industrial farmers.

Similarly, an heirloom variety plant has been produced the old-fashioned way, with farmers selectively raising plants with the characteristics they want or need. Again, this is a pretty slow process.

In both cases the characteristics breed true, meaning that the defining features come back every generation.

Hybrid animals and GMO plants will not have the same characteristics in the second generation, so ranchers and farmers have to go back to the suppliers every year for new stock and seeds. This is an added expense as well as a dubious process.

When every farmer produces the same strain of corn or the same breed of chicken, we are playing a risky game. Blights can wipe out harvests and we also risk losing those heritage/heirloom varieties forever. Diversity is an important feature of our food that we are losing to the industrial food system.