Joseph Lofthouse

SEEDKEEPER & COMMUNITY BUILDER

SEEDS OF BELONGING & KINSHIP

GROWING SEEDS, GROWING COMMUNITY

Joseph Lofthouse is a seed steward, storyteller, and teacher rooted in the high mountain desert of Utah. Known widely as the “father of landrace gardening,” he has dedicated his life to rewilding our relationship with food crops by letting plants cross-pollinate freely. Through this process, Joseph trusts the Earth’s intelligence to select for resilience, nutrition, and beauty, allowing seeds to adapt to their specific places and communities. 

His books, Landrace Gardening and Adaptation Gardening, are guides to this living practice—inviting gardeners and farmers everywhere to embrace adaptation as a path toward greater freedom, resilience, and joy. In this vision, gardening becomes less about control and more about relationship: with nature, water, microbes, ancestors, and the living Earth itself. 

Joseph’s path also weaves together yoga and storytelling. As a yoga teacher, he embodies a practice of presence and breath that mirrors the patience and trust of his gardening philosophy. As a community storyteller, his presentation Belonging to the Natural World arises as both prayer and practice—a reminder that we are not separate from the Earth but integral to its living body. 

Through his teaching, writing, and way of life, Joseph Lofthouse offers a vision of agriculture—and humanity—that is rooted in kinship, resilience, and reverence for the natural world.