Meredith Kahn
Co-founder Ann Arbor Seed Company Ann Arbor, Michigan www.a2seeds.com
Meredith Kahn is co-founder of Ann Arbor Seed Company — launched in 2012 to bring sustainable, small-scale, local agricultural principles to the business of saving and selling seeds. Meredith, along with her business partner and husband Eric Kampe, grow and process open-pollinated seeds in Washtenaw county to give gardeners an alternative source for vegetable and ornamental crops. The daughter of dairy farmers and the granddaughter of general store owners, Meredith is responsible for the company’s business planning, marketing, and web presence. When she is not working with seeds or at her day job at the University of Michigan Library, you can find Meredith relaxing with a cup of coffee and the Sunday New York Times. Meredith resides in Ann Arbor with her husband Eric and one very large cat.
FAVORITES
Book: I’ve been on a Margaret Atwood kick of late. Her retelling of the Odyssey as The Penelopiad is phenomenal, and benefits from repeated readings.
Seed: Brassicas (cabbage, kale, mustards) have tiny spherical seeds that feel incredibly pleasing while running through your fingers. While their shape is consistent, the colors can range from deep black to brown to brick red.
Most prized possession: Home. Our front yard is the best growing location we have.
Motto: It’s not a motto per se, but The Cult of Done Manifesto keeps me on track.
THE QUERY
Where were you born?
I grew up in Northern Michigan — specifically Alpena and Alcona counties — and I still have family up north. With the exception of two stints in Boulder, Colorado, I’ve lived in Ann Arbor since 1999.
What were some of the passions and pastimes of your earlier years?
I volunteered in a local election while I was still in high school, and got involved in various political campaigns up through the 2004 presidential election. I spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s with a (film) camera around my neck, and at one point devoted a lot of time to alternative process techniques for photography. Polaroid transfers were my favorite project, and I still have a (long unused) Daylab if anyone has some old Polaroid peel-apart pack film in their fridge they’d like to use.
What led to the decision to launch the Ann Arbor Seed Company?
When we returned to Ann Arbor in 2011, Eric knew he wanted to continue working in agriculture and small-scale farming. He had worked on a farm in Boulder that did farmer’s markets, a large CSA, and seed work. We joke that it was the Tantré Farm of Boulder county, but that’s a pretty apt comparison. Since Eric would be working (mostly) solo, we decided that focusing exclusively on seeds, without growing produce for sale, made the most sense.
Eric is trained as an engineer, and you’re a librarian. What do your backgrounds in those fields allow you to bring to the work of growing and selling seeds?
From Eric’s perspective, farming is lot like engineering — full of problem solving and design challenges. As a librarian, spending Saturdays at the Farmer’s Market feels a lot like working a reference desk at times. I talk to people, ask them lots of questions, and try to connect them with the right seeds for what they want to accomplish and the resources they have at hand. In my work as a librarian, I build collections and services to meet the needs of a community. I see our work on the farming side of things as very similar. We’re building a catalog of seeds for the home gardener and small farmers, which influences what we grow and the scale at which we work. Ann Arbor Seed Company will never be a huge, corporate seed retailer with hundreds of varieties, and that’s just fine. It’s funny, but we know a surprising number of librarian/farmer couples, so there must be something more to this connection.
Tell us about your catalog of vegetables and ornamentals. And where can we find your seeds?
We have about three dozen varieties of vegetables and flowers. We try to focus on things the home gardener would be most interested in growing — tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, greens, and the like. This is the third year we’ve been selling seeds, and you can find them for sale on our website, at local retailers from Detroit to Grand Rapids, and every Saturday at the Farmer’s Market in Kerrytown.
What do you find most satisfying about being part of the local food and farming scene in Ann Arbor?
What I love about Washtenaw county is that we have such a vibrant, engaged community at every stage in the food chain. We have not one but two local seed companies (hello, Nature and Nurture Seeds!), Tilian Farm Development Center training new farmers, too many great farms to name for everything from produce to fruit to meat, retailers who allow small-scale growers to connect with consumers, and restaurants who source locally. Local food isn’t a fad here.
When you read about food, which authors do you typically turn to?
If I need to know how to make a pie crust, cut up a whole chicken, or something else that’s not an everyday task, I turn to my 1997 edition of Joy of Cooking. For the basics, Mark Bittman really can teach you how to cook everything. The last two cookbooks I bought were Fuchsia Dunlop’s Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking and Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s Japanese Farm Food. Both books are incredibly beautiful and extremely practical. If you read one book about food this year, Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace should be on your list. And I’m a sucker for the equipment and ingredient reviews in Cook’s Illustrated.
Is there a seed variety that you are especially excited about right now?
We have two varieties of kale available (Rainbow Lacinato and Red Russian) and that was a major accomplishment for us. Kale is a biennial, which means it seeds in its second year. This requires us to plan at least two years of planting, harvesting, and storage. We couldn’t leave the kale in the ground over the winter because deer would eat it down to nothing. And if it survived the deer, it might not survive the record cold winters we’ve had. Our first root cellar flooded, so last year we built a walk-in cooler to store our biennials, and after two years of biennial failures, that finally did the trick.
What do you think is the future of farming?
It has to get smaller, more distributed. We have to get interested in local food beyond a superficial level. If farming (not industrial monoculture) is going to survive and thrive, we have to start eating food, and eating it in season. Does this mean we can’t have coffee, chocolate, and olive oil anymore? No. But the majority of our diets (including meat) have to come from small farms. And the only way those small farms can survive is if you vote with your dollars and stomachs. It’s not just farmers who have to invest in this future to make it possible — eaters have to, as well.
What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from the land?
Get comfortable with death and failure.
Tell us about your commitment to provide only non-genetically modified seeds?
The single biggest thing most people can do to avoid GMOs is to reduce the amount of processed food in their diets. Our objection to GMO seeds is based on three core beliefs:
1. The best food comes from plant varieties and animal breeds selected for flavor, vigor, and culinary use. You grow a tomato to eat it, not to transport it thousands of miles while unripe.
2. Exclusively corporate control of seeds benefits corporations not consumers. Seeds are cultural not intellectual property.
3. Fewer seed companies and seed savers results in a less diverse diet.
Who in your life would you like to thank, and for what?
Our grandmothers, Ruth Kahn and Sylvia Kampe, for making everything possible.
Where do you find inspiration?
I get to most places I need to go by foot, which gives me time to think. Some of my best ideas come to me while walking.
Is there a book or film that has changed you?
I’m Not There by Todd Haynes and Diary of a Teenage Girl by Phoebe Gloeckner have each made me realize that sometimes the most beautiful things are also incredibly sad.
What drives you these days?
A lot of K-pop (current favorite is Beautiful EP by Amber) and dreaming of u-pick fruit this summer (raspberries, cherries, and blueberries, oh my)!