Since Coming Home to Eat was first published in 2001, the local food movement has exploded, and more people than ever are “going green” in an effort lead healthier, more eco-friendly lives.

Gary Nabhan's year-long mission to eat only foods grown, fished, or gathered within 220 miles of his Arizona home offers striking, timely insights into our evolving relationship with food and place—and encourages us to redefine “eating close to home” as an act of deep cultural and environmental significance.

As an avid gardener, ethnobotanist preserving seed diversity, and activist devoted to recovering native food traditions in the Southwest, Nabhan writes about his long campaign to raise awareness about food with contagious passion and humor.

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What is the Relevance of Vavilov in the Year of 2010?
By Gary Nabhan, founder/facilitator, Renewing America's Food Traditions
January 20, 2010

(Gary Nabhan was recently given the honor of presenting the biennial Vavilov Memorial Lecture in Moscow and offering a similar lecture in Saint Petersburg, and was further honored with the gift of the Vavilov Medal. These are his reflections after years of retracing Vavilov through the centers of food diversity, while writing the book Where Our Food Comes From, and after spending time with the staff of the Vavilov General Genetics Institute in Moscow, and VIR in Saint Petersburg.)

I sit overlooking Saint Isaac’s Square, a few hundred meters where Nikolay Vavilov managed the first and perhaps the most massive effort in human history to document and conserve the world’s food biodiversity. I have had the rare opportunity of seeing the seedback in the basement of Vavilov’s institute, and of leafing through the herbarium where one can see the master’s hand on collections of plants from the deserts, the steppes and the rainforests. And I have seen the photos there of those who perished while protecting the seeds for the benefit of all of humankind

I have also spoken with his surviving descendants: his own living son, Yuri; and VIR’s director, Nikolay, who continues to manage the tremendous scientific effort begun many decades ago. They remain committed to Nikolay Vavilov’s vision, but why? Political and economic support for such conservation has waxed and waned over the years, and there are always new challenges and frustrations.

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