Native Seeds/SEARCH volunteers Ken Porter, left, and Edward Hacskaylo examine trays of black-eyed peas. The group is a Tucson-based nonprofit that preserves and distributes seeds of indigenous crops.

Dean Knuth / Arizona Daily Star

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In the 1990s, the farm where Terrol Dew Johnson's grandparents used to grow crops native to the Sonoran Desert was overgrown with weeds and mesquite trees.

The unused land, on the Tohono O'odham Reservation 60 miles west of Tucson, hadn't been used to harvest native foods such as tepary beans, cholla buds and O'odham squash in more than 30 years.

"We lost traditional foods for a while," said Johnson, 33, the co-founder of Tohono O'odham Community Action, a nonprofit group that promotes cultural revitalization and sustainable development on the reservation.

"When I was growing up, the traditional foods we ate were hard to find. I only really remember seeing them at special events. Now we can eat them every day."

The return of native crops to the Tohono O'odham diet is helping the tribe combat diabetes and the loss of cultural traditions on the reservation, and is one of the success stories of Native Seeds/SEARCH, a Tucson-based nonprofit that preserves and distributes seeds of indigenous crops.

SEARCH stands for Southwestern Endangered Arid Lands Resources Clearinghouse.

Since Native Seeds began collecting seeds of native crops from elders and farmers of tribal communities 23 years ago, it's gathered more than 2,000 native crop varieties, making up 99 species and representing 17 tribes in Arizona.

Native Seeds distributes seeds free to indigenous communities in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, and sells seeds and American Indian crafts at its retail store, 526 N. Fourth Ave.

Now, struggling to meet a 10 percent annual growth in demand for seeds, the organization is asking the tribes it serves and the Tucson community to contribute the financial seeds it needs to grow its operations.

"We're victims of our own success," said Kevin Dahl, executive director of Native Seeds, which stores its rare seeds on Alvernon Way and grows them on a 60-acre farm in Patagonia. "We've completely outgrown our space, which is really just a small adobe home on Alvernon."

So far Native Seeds has raised $280,000, about half of what it needs to build a new seed bank in Tucson and allow it to give native seeds to people around the world, said Dahl. Last year it distributed more than 5,000 packets of seeds to more than 46 tribal communities.

Contributions to the expansion include $100,000 from an anonymous donor, $70,000 from Native Seeds' board members and employees, and a $50,000 grant from the Tohono O'odham Nation. Native Seeds is also requesting grants from the Gila River Indian Community and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Dahl said.

In 2002, Tohono O'odham Community Action started a four-acre garden that has expanded to 1,800 acres, yielding 46,000 pounds of tepary beans last year that are packaged and sold with other native crops on the reservation, said Johnson.

"Without Native Seeds /SEARCH I don't know where we would have gotten the seeds to start our garden," said Johnson, who added that Native Seeds also shared information on modern farming techniques. "For us to grow these foods and make them accessible to anyone on the reservation is great."

Now the farm of Johnson's grandparents is growing traditional crops again and serves as a model community farm.

The collaboration between Native Seeds and the Tohono O'odham has forged a powerful weapon against diabetes. The Tohono O'odham have the highest rate of type 2 diabetes in the world, according to the National Institutes of Health; an estimated 50 percent to 80 percent of the population is affected.

Johnson said traditional foods have properties that regulate the body's blood sugar. "In the early '60s no one on the reservation had diabetes," said Johnson, who was diagnosed with the disease in his 20s. "Now kids 7 years old have type 2 diabetes."

The search for native seeds by the Tohono O'odham inspired Mahina Drees and Gary Nabhan to co-found Native Seeds in 1983. The two were volunteers with Meals for Millions, supporting gardening projects on the reservation, when elders told them that the seeds they really wanted were the ones their grandparents used to harvest.

"They didn't want to grow broccoli," said Dahl, the Native Seeds executive director. "They wanted to grow that great-tasting melon their grandmother used to grow or that squash they hadn't had since they were little."

Now traditional O'odham foods have made their way onto Bashas' Supermarkets and specialty-store shelves on the reservation, and into personal and community gardens.

The crops also play a vital role in reviving cultural traditions, Johnson said. Native foods often form part of traditional Tohono O'odham stories, he said, like one that describes the Milky Way as spilled tepary beans a coyote stole and dropped as he ran away.

"When I show people these beans I say, 'These are not just beans. They represent the whole entire Tohono O'odham culture,' " said Johnson.

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