By the author of The Seed Detective, a BBC Radio 4 Food Programme ‘Book of the Year’

Across the world, chefs, farmers, plant scientists and everyday growers are doing something extraordinary: creating new generations of fruit, vegetables and cereals that will flourish locally, taste delicious, increase diversity and contribute to a sustainable and robust food future.

In The Accidental Seed Heroes, Adam Alexander dons his seed-detective homburg to meet these twenty-first century seed heroes, who are not only championing traditional varieties but also breeding delicious new ones that will be more resilient and better-equipped to deal with the shocks of a changing climate.

Taking us around the world to meet some of the most inspiring seed heroes – from Rajasthan, India, to his own back garden in Wales, across Europe to the remote regions of southern Albania, and into Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley – Adam reminds us that Indigenous cultures and rural communities have been expertly breeding seeds for millennia.

At its heart, The Accidental Seed Heroes is a celebration of locally and sustainably grown produce, whether traditional or innovative, that is the foundation of all our food cultures. Adam shows that the ability to save and adapt seeds should be a right for all, not something to be controlled by corporations patenting seeds for profit; that everyone who grows food, whether amateur or professional, can be a seed hero – building resilience and returning fertility to our soils and biodiversity to our land.