한국국제교류재단

Byun began farming because she wanted to save people. After years dedicated to civic activism, she reached a point where she herself was becoming an urban poor person. That’s when she decided to be a farmer. Around 2004, she met female welfare beneficiaries in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, and helped establish a self-supporting community. The goal was to achieve economic independence for low-income women by farming crops for sale.

“One time, we harvested corn and replanted the seeds, but nothing grew. That’s when I realized something was wrong,” she recalls. The corn seeds were commercial F1 hybrids sold by seed companies. These varieties produce high yields of consistent quality all at once, but they are bred to make replanting impossible. In other words, farmers must buy new seeds every year.

“A single corn plant produces at least three ears, and each ear has about 120 kernels. If twenty kernels sell for 2,000 won, selling seeds is much more profitable than selling the corn. Farmers have no choice but to buy seeds, and since they can’t harvest any seeds for the following year, it becomes a vicious cycle.”

Burdened by the high cost of farming, Byun shifted to an ecological approach — limiting fertilizers and avoiding machines. “Using minimal chemicals and pesticides, weeds became a major problem. One day, I was staring at the weeds covering the field and muttered, ‘How am I supposed to pull all of those? Maybe I should just eat them.’ A passing elderly woman overheard and said, ‘You can eat that.’ They weren’t weeds at all, but dayflower, whose young leaves and stems can be eaten as namul [cooked and seasoned greens].”

Byun’s interest in native crops began on multiple fronts. As she studied plant guides, her curiosity expanded to traditional herb manuals — first the Chinese classic Ben Cau Gang Mu: Compendium of Materia Medica (1596), then the Korean medical encyclopedia, Donguibogam: Principles and Practice of Eastern Medicine (1613), and finally the ancient Chinese medical text Huang Di Ne Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon, ca. 3rd century BCE). Along the way, she managed to cure a nail infection by eating pork belly wrapped in clover instead of lettuce and discovered a natural sleep aid by adding hop vines to salads.

“In the end, I realized the truth of the saying ‘medicine and food share the same origin.’ To grow and spread indigenous crops is to carry on the wisdom and culture of our ancestors.”

Produce sold in supermarkets tells only half the story. For example, radish and siraegi (dried radish leaves) originally come from a single crop. Nowadays, radish varieties are split: some are exclusively grown for their leaves, with the radish thrown away; others are grown for the radish, with the leaves discarded. It may seem wasteful, but it stems from modern crop breeding for higher yields, a practice that began in the early 1900s.

“During the late Joseon period [1392–1910], Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry recorded 450 varieties of Korean rice. By 1930, fewer than a hundred remained. During Japanese colonization, native crops were replaced with Japanese varieties, including the winter squash and sweet potatoes we eat today.”

A traditional drying method is used for upland glutinous rice. Hanging the rice upside down on bamboo racks allows the moisture and nutrients in the stems to move to the grains, which makes the rice tastier.

Besides Japan, other major powers also appropriated native Korean seeds, notably soybeans. Today, most soybeans sold and processed worldwide are GMO varieties developed by large seed companies, yet Byun’s farm still cultivates around thirty indigenous varieties. “In the 1950s, the Korean War left our land devastated. To support a growing population, high-yield varieties were developed. That’s how Tongil rice was created in the 1970s,” she says.

From then on, commercial and traditional farming diverged sharply. While commercial farming relied on buying seeds to mass-produce a few varieties, traditional farmers saved seeds and grew diverse crops in small quantities. Resolving food scarcity and prioritizing productivity inevitably led to the gradual disappearance of native seeds.

“I once tried growing native varieties using commercial farming methods. Today’s [Korean] cabbages are very dense, so they’re hard to stuff when making kimchi. But traditional cabbages are not like that — they’re looser, greener inside, and richer in calcium.”

Red peppers, radishes, and many other vegetables have likewise changed dramatically due to breeding focused on maximizing yield.

As Byun explained the importance of diversity, she toured the fields and picked plants like shepherd’s purse or silkworm thorn, handing them over to taste. She mentioned that she had planted several trees and is worried about them dying due to extreme weather patterns.

“History teaches us. Look at the Irish potato famine. When a single variety dominates the fields, crops fail altogether when the environment changes. If we plant many different varieties, at least some will survive. Preserving native seeds and diversifying crops is the true path toward sustainability.”

Aging chive being dried before seed collection. Native seeds have adapted to the surrounding environment over a long period of time and have a high survival rate amid the changing climate. Byun has already shared more than ten thousand native seed varieties with farms.

On her initial trip for seed collection in the early days of Native Seedream, Byun discovered a plant that looked like wild foxtail grass but was slightly different. A local grandmother told her it was called ttoljo. The prefix “ttol” is attached to the names of some wild plants, and by ttoljo she was likely referring to the uncultivated, ancestral form of millet. If Korea once had 450 varieties of rice, Southeast Asia has roughly the same number of millet varieties. Byun explains that millet is one of the oldest grains of the grass family and will likely outlast climate change.

In 2001, while working for a media outlet, Byun interviewed the Indian scholar and environmental activist Vandana Shiva, a well-known advocate for seed sovereignty. Meeting the woman known as the “Gandhi of grain” was a turning point. Byun realized that if the universe began with a single element, then the genesis of all life could be found within a simple seed.

“All the principles of life are embedded in the work of preserving native seeds. After moving to Gokseong, the first subject I studied was physics. Then I moved on to earth science, biology, physiology, and even pathology. To farm, you must first understand nature.”

Byun also roasts or dries the flowers, leaves, and seeds of native plants, such as Korean chrysanthemum, cockscomb, and lotus, and stores them separately. She uses them to make tea, reflecting her belief that medicine and food share the same origin.

Incredibly curious by nature, when Byun was young she could not rest until she saw things with her own eyes. She traveled the world alone and experienced her fair share of culture shocks. “The world I saw in books was completely different from the real world. If no one is there to teach you, isn’t it natural to be curious?”

Whenever Byun receives new native seeds, she plants them immediately. She even believes GMO soybeans will eventually return to their original form if planted continuously — because she has seen it with her own eyes. “Over seven years, I harvested red beans, pink beans, yellow beans, black beans, and white beans all with my own hands. Genetic traits appear and disappear depending on the environment. In the end, everything begins from a single seed.”