Political Influences on Heirloom Tomatoes

I’m curious about the influences political considerations have had over the years on the genetics of agricultural crops with emphasis on tomatoes.
In the recent past, many varieties of tomatoes from the former Soviet Bloc have arrived in North America for testing, evaluation, and comparison. From the early twentieth century to the late twentieth century, very little agricultural genetic exchange occurred between the former Soviet Union and North America.
In North America, it seems we were taking two separate but distinct paths in agricultural genetics. We were experimenting with and modifying genetics for commercial purposes. At the same time, we continued the old tradition of maintaining genetic purity by passing plant seeds down from families or communities through generations. The handing down of old and proven genetic material helped to maintain specific genetic traits that would have been lost otherwise.
In the Soviet Union, at the same time; only one track had official approval and that was the commercial track. The official commune system encouraged manipulating genetics for the common good. Growing food for one’s personal use was discouraged. That made it difficult for families or communities to pass genetics through generations separate from the approved official system.
I’ve noticed in discussions on this forum, many new arrivals of tomato varieties from Russia or other former Soviet members have the title “originally a commercial variety” attached. Many of those varieties have excellent qualities, especially those with the black color trait. I don’t understand why or how commercial varieties in North America evolved into beautiful but tasteless genetic traits while the former commercial varieties in the Soviet Bloc are beautiful and supposedly a great pleasure to eat.
Just curious! Comments please.
Ted

[nctomatoman]

Ted, I actually garden to escape politics!

I will take a different tact....thinking of the evolution of the tomato (from a commercial perspective) in the US from the late 1800s until today - the development of new varieties prior to the sales of actual hybrid seeds went up until the 1940s, after which the focus increasingly was on hybrids, for any number of reasons - company profit/exclusive, specific inclusion of genes for disease tolerance, breeding for how we tend to now grow and distribute (machine harvest, pick green, gas as they ship). It is only due to the efforts of the Seed Savers Exchange and companies like Gleckler early on (and many to follow) - then avid seed savers themselves - that led to a plethora of great varieties available to gardeners to grow along side of, or instead of, hybrids.

My take is not so much politics, but commercial farming and food distribution. Then of course we get the genetic modification story - but that's another tact that I don't want to take.

So much more could be said, but it is late and I am tired!

[eyolf]

While I am not and never have been in any former soviet countries, a few aquaintances have. A fellow from a former church spent time with a missionary couple in Belarus, and another couple was part of a cultural exchange program with the Russkies and travelled there 2 or 3 times.

Many people there accept a different form of communal living than we're accustomed to: the home is in a village or even a large town, while crops are farmed surrounding it; the "farmhouse" concept we know is uncommon there. Many non-agricultural workers still have access to a plot of ground somewhere as well, sometimes erecting shelters and treating them a little like a weekend retreat.

I gather that major commercial crops have been heavily controlled to the point that many landraces and varieties were confiscated, but lesser-known crops and many ornamentals were often ignored. While there is little chance of a decent heirloom potato coming from the former Soviet Union, there may well be leafy brassicas or pigmy sunflowers.

Further, commercial production likely meant something different there: while some tomatoes certainly were intended to ship long distances, others only had to hold up for a couple of hours before they got to town. I;m certain that tasteless, plastic shipping tomatoes wouldn't sell any better there than here.

Yes, me to. I'm not really interested in the political part of the question. I'm trying to understand how a system that should have been detrimental to genetic quality actually improves it while a system that should have improved genetic quality didn't. I'm wondering if the fact that the North American system designed genetics that would allow for long term storage and long distance shipment. At the same time the Soviet system didn't provide transportation for distant shipments or long term storage. Maybe all markets for tomatoes were local markets allowing them to improve or at least maintain consumption qualities.

Ted

[Wi-sunflower]

I had a customer last Sat at the market who was from the former USSR. She was surprised to see so many varieties with Russian names, especially in the Pinks and Blacks. I mentioned the work of SSE when they first went there.

She said that about 20 years ago (pre fall of USSR) the only tomatoes they could get in the stores were RED. But if they were able to grow anything for themselves at their own Dacha those tomatoes were usually Pink.

Since the USSR was a HUGE area, I don't know if it was like that all over, but at least in some parts.

Carol

[nctomatoman]

To me, this leads to a larger, broader point about expectations. In the US (perhaps many countries?), there is an expectation that we can walk into a store and find ripe examples of all fruits and vegetables 365 days a year. So instead of enjoying the heck out of things seasonally and preserving to ensure some form of a crop is available outside of its prime condition period, we've settled for generally awful tasting things that were bred for long distance shipping and mechanical harvest.

The shame is realizing how many people don't garden or don't frequent a farmer's market - what must they think of the inherent quality of apples or tomatoes if they stay confined to a grocery store?

[creister]

It also depends on your definition of improvement. To the farmer, ease of production, harvest, and shipping maybe considered an improvement at the cost of taste.

[discrepancy]

Originally Posted by creister

It also depends on your definition of improvement. To the farmer, ease of production, harvest, and shipping maybe considered an improvement at the cost of taste.

It's partly the consumers' fault for purchasing the tasteless but picture-perfect stuff, too. If demand shifted away from just pretty and towards tasty, the breeders would chase the money into making a stab at figuring out how to genetically engineer a result that's shippable over long distances and tastes good.

[Parcgreene]

Originally Posted by discrepancy

It's partly the consumers' fault for purchasing the tasteless but picture-perfect stuff, too. If demand shifted away from just pretty and towards tasty, the breeders would chase the money into making a stab at figuring out how to genetically engineer a result that's shippable over long distances and tastes good.

Exactly! Supply and demand!

[Andrey_BY]

Actually there were no Walmarts and other huge grocery stores in USSR where I've been lived for 15 years since 1976 till 1991. Most of vegetable and fruit production were held by kolkhoz and sovholz state system of collective agricultural enterprises and vegetables have seeb sold on open air agricultural markets and at a special State owned vegetable-fruit stores. Hybrids were so difficult to bred and re-produce so our Agricultural institutes prefer to bred a lot of OP varieties with the best taste and/or storage abilities for so many years till the the early 1990s when hybrids had became popular here. Before that we even use the term "hybrid" not with a proper scientific meaning but as "a cross" between two OP varieites. That's why there are quite many popular OP varieites with "hybrid" in it's name, but they are OPs and not F1 Hybrids.
Amateur gardeners used to improve commercial varieties and made crosses using them so these were the main two sources for OP tomato vareities from former Soviet republics.

Andry,

Thank you for the information. I would think under the czarist government, citizens had the right to grow their own food and probably maintained some heirloom varieties of tomatoes for many generations. If I understand your statement, the collective system simply took the best of those varieties and spread them around to the collectives rather than invest in breeding hybrids. The heirloom tomatoes became the commercial tomatoes. At the end of the Soviet system and collective farming, do you think the heirloom varieties from the collective system were the same as when they entered the collective system? Are many people involved today in the former Soviet bloc countries in maintaining and rediscovering the heirloom varieties?

I think I understand that the term hybrid now can mean simply a variety resulting from a cross between two or more OP varieties which is itself an OP variety, but not necessarily an heirloom variety. I personally would tend to label it a modern OP or just an OP variety. At the same time, labeling a variety as a commercial variety does not imply it is not an heirloom variety.

Thanks again!

Ted

[habitat_gardener]

There was a fascinating thread last year that addressed what tomato varieties may have been grown in (or survived from) tsarist Russia.
http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=10418

Also, NPR aired a report on new attempts to breed flavorful, productive commercial tomatoes last week.
http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=14642

[PaulF]

Here's my take on the American consumer: As we have slowly but surely evolved into an urbanized society, millions of people have no recollection what "real" fruit and vegetables taste like. We see on TV and hear on the radio and read (if any reading is done any more) that we should eat fruits and vegetables. While consumption of "healthy" food is increasing, most people are eating the "idea" of that food not the real thing.

When an inner city kid is asked where a tomato comes from the answer is often that all fruit and vegetables come from the grocery store. If all that can be obtained is the idea, that is what the reality becomes. Like it or not we who know what flavor and texture is are a small minority.

Until there is a push to sell flavor, much like the push to sell organically grown food, no one will see flavorful food in the stores. Unfortunately organics and flavor do not match ..... yet. Somehow profit needs to get into the picture before the average consumer can expect to taste the flavor of "real" tomatoes or apples or ........

Originally Posted by PaulF

Here's my take on the American consumer: As we have slowly but surely evolved into an urbanized society, millions of people have no recollection what "real" fruit and vegetables taste like. We see on TV and hear on the radio and read (if any reading is done any more) that we should eat fruits and vegetables. While consumption of "healthy" food is increasing, most people are eating the "idea" of that food not the real thing.

When an inner city kid is asked where a tomato comes from the answer is often that all fruit and vegetables come from the grocery store. If all that can be obtained is the idea, that is what the reality becomes. Like it or not we who know what flavor and texture is are a small minority.

Until there is a push to sell flavor, much like the push to sell organically grown food, no one will see flavorful food in the stores. Unfortunately organics and flavor do not match ..... yet. Somehow profit needs to get into the picture before the average consumer can expect to taste the flavor of "real" tomatoes or apples or ........

Yep! (the program just told me that my message must be at least fifteen characters long so here goes)

Yep! Yep! Yep! Yep!

Ted