Carla Lefebvre

 

Dave Christensen, a regular attendee at the Big Timber SDA church, did not start out to change the world, so he never dreamed how his life would turn out. Dave grew up in rural southern California, working on his uncle’s large ranch from time to time. Growing into his late teens, he ended up at an agricultural college (Cal Poly), after which he enlisted in the Air Force. A few years later, he met some guys in Indiana who were developing a “frontier” movement hobby of making Old Western costumes—Dave even learned to tan buckskin (hides) from the Indians.

 

When he got out of the service, Dave and his family moved to the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. Their goal was to live off the land and to feed themselves. So they started a garden, and tried to find early-maturing corn varieties for northern Montana’s short growing season. He started talking to older guys in the area, who introduced him to “squaw corn,” which came from some of the first homesteaders in the region who originally procured their corn from the Mandan Indians.

 

One thing led to another, and before long Dave found himself developing some of the most drought-resistant, early-maturing, high-producing corn varieties in the world–corn that does not even need irrigating! He discovered that an astounding 75% of the world is turning into desert, and poor families / small farmers around the globe are facing severe crop-growing conditions and food shortages. Colder climates also pose a problem due to short growing seasons. Dave strongly felt that people trying to survive in these environments need crops that can withstand severe climate challenges.

 

Over the years, Dave kept cross-breeding different lines of corn using natural breeding methods until his organic farm grew into a 16-acre-operation known as SeedWeNeed®, which includes 5 lines of heirloom corn.* He has been continuously refining these genetically-diverse lines from dozens of stress-hardy native American heirloom corn varieties that have been grown for centuries in arid regions of the western United States (and Canada)—from the 8,000-foot mountains of New Mexico to the north side of the Black Mesa, Arizona. He has put at least 70 different lines into his founding population, the Painted Mountain Corn.

 

What is unique about this corn is that while these native plants are fairly short—only about 4-6 feet tall—they typically produce large, 7-10 inch cobs! Even in Montana’s northern climate they mature to dry, harvestable seed grain 100 days after planting, which is basically unheard of in the north. This is a great advantage in areas with harsh growing seasons. Most of these corn varieties cannot be machine harvested, but this is not a problem for the people groups Dave has been developing the seeds for (poor families/farmers).

 

Some of the most amazing qualities of these native heirloom corn lines are. . . 

​

Click HERE for the full story!