Join us for a special GundxChange with Ira Wallace, gardner, teacher, author and owner of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. We anticipate wide interest in this event, so please RSVP via this form so that we have the right-ish number of seats and food.  

In an interview followed by an audience Q&A, Ira Wallace will talk about her life’s work in the organic food movement and regional seed systems. In recent years, many of her projects have been focused on cooperatives for land acquisition and increasing BIPOC participation in farming and seed saving. Her work has been dedicated to widening the places, times, and varieties celebrated in the storytelling of heirloom and local varieties in our food system.

Ira Wallace is a worker/owner of the cooperatively managed Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, which offers over 700 varieties of open-pollinated heirloom and organic seeds selected for flavor and regional adaptability. She was named a 2019 Great American Gardener by the American Horticultural Society and is a 2023 James Beard Foundation Leadership Award winner. Ira serves on the board of the Virginia Association for Biological Farming. She is also a founder of Acorn Community, which farms over 60 acres of certified organic land in Central Virginia. She is the author of the Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast and the Southeast state-specific Grow Great Vegetables 5-book series. Her current work is focused on supporting BIPOC farmer and community engagement in every aspect of our seed system.

This event is co-sponsored by the Gund Institute for Environment; Department of Agriculture, Landscape, and Environment; Food Systems Graduate Program; Institute for Agroecology; and the Sustainable Development Policy, and Economics, and Governance program.