NORTHAMPTON — Inside a greenhouse at Grow Food Northampton’s community farm, a variety of crops have been put up for display, with placards posted by each one explaining its cultural and historical significance, with some even containing QR codes for listening to interviews.

This “living museum,” as its creators at Grow Food Northampton describe it, is meant to highlight the importance of seed preservation of crops as a form of sovereignty and resistance, for both the local community and other cultures worldwide, in the face of a economically interconnected world dominated by large agricultural firms.

“The idea behind this project is that seeds travel, and in a number of ways the seeds are telling stories,” said Grow Food Northampton’s education manager Molly Aronson. “Farmers on a smaller scale are really holding these acts of resistance by preserving these seeds and preserving their culture, which oftentimes comes under threat.”

Inside the greenhouse, known as the “Stories of Seed Sovereignty Garden,” the crops featured have some form of connection to various social movements, or to the history of Northampton. It includes a strain of tomato that can be traced back to a Black man fleeing slavery in the U.S. South via the Underground Railroad, the secret network of homes and routes used by slaves to escape to the North and Canada.

The city of Northampton featured prominently within that network, and where Grow Food Northampton’s community farm now stands was the former site of the Northampton Association for Education and Industry (NAEI), an abolitionist community that made alternative products to encourage divestment from slavery-produced cotton and sugar.

“Prior to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Northampton was seen as a destination, or ‘terminus’ of the Underground Railroad,” the placard by the tomato strain states. “Florence’s NAEI promoted ‘equality or rights and rank for all,’ and attracted free and formerly enslaved Black people such as Basil Dorsey, David Ruggles and Sojourner Truth.”

The garden also contains crops related to present-day conflicts, such as the Palestinian molokhia, a crop similar to okra, and the Lebanese za’atar, a variety of wild thyme. The placards in the garden relate these crops’ significance as part of the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, describing the story of a Palestinian chef who prepared molokhia in a refugee camp in Gaza and how Israel has banned the foraging of za’atar for Palestinians living in the West Bank.

“Seeds have been an important means of survival, and this garden highlights the stories of people claiming sovereignty over their destinies and narratives by saving seeds for the future,” said Grow Food Northampton’s Piyush Labhsetwar during an opening ceremony event for the garden on Thursday. “The act of saving seeds, especially in the context of oppression, is a belief in the future, belief in endurance and a belief in liberation.”

The idea behind the seed sovereignty garden originates from Grow Food Northampton’s free mobile market, where food from the community farm is brought to public housing sites across the city, according to the organization’s food access manager, Erin Ferrintino.

“A lot of the people in the communities we serve are newly immigrated, and we bring local fruits and vegetables every week,” Ferrintino said. “But people started asking me to bring foods from where they’re from, so that was sort of the spark.”

Following the opening ceremony on Thursday, those visiting were also invited to a community meal featuring locally grown products including some of the items grown in the new garden, such as pita bread flavored with za’atar.

Once the crops grown in the garden have reached maturity, they will be used as part of a seed preservation workshop, one of several workshops the farm organizes. Other coming workshops at Grow Food Northampton include dealing with invasive plant species as a result of climate change and how to build soil health as the winter season approaches.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.