In a field near Corfu, New York, multiple varieties of “heri­tage” grains—grown before the rise of modern plant breeding methods—are thriving together. The ancient varieties draw on memory embedded deep in their cells, shaped by millennia of surviving floods, droughts and other extreme conditions.

Ancient Grains and Biodiversity

For Emily Savage, this scene crystallizes the role biodiversity plays in creating a more resilient local food system that is better adapted to natural cycles. It’s a way of farming that could move food communities away from a dependence on monocropping and industrial processing that she sees as harmful to the health of humans and the land—if farmers like her can access these comparatively rare seeds.

Through her Savage Wheat Project, the professional pastry chef turned farmer is working to help reintroduce older grain varieties to Western New York, partnering with other local farmers to cultivate biodiverse, organic wheat in harmony with the land while also running a bakery that transforms these heritage grains into affordable, nutrient-dense breads and pastries. Her approach integrates every aspect of farming and food production: the Savage Wheat Bakery creates demand for the wheat she will grow, while farming practices support each other naturally—chickens provide both eggs and manure for composting, wheat straw becomes mulch for other crops, and diverse plantings attract beneficial insects while deterring pests. “You need a little bit of everything synergistically working to­gether,” says Savage.

Starting the Journey

The Savage Wheat Project began with six pounds of rare seeds, but Savage’s journey toward regenerative farming started years earlier.

In 2016, while often working 80-hour weeks as a pastry chef, Savage contracted Lyme disease. The illness devastated her health and she developed a debilitating reactivity to flour and sugar—ingredients central to her craft. During her recovery, she started to question everything about her relationship with food.

Over time, through extensive research and changes to her diet, Savage experienced something of a personal awakening and overall improvement in her health. But her journey to heal­ing led her even further—to developing a relationship with the land. The spark happened after she had left her job as a pro­fessional chef and began working at Thorpe’s Organic Family Farm in East Aurora.

“I not only was working outside, I was getting sun. I was in my bare feet a lot, learning how to grow things, and I was working in their bakery, too,” Savage recalls. “So, I was seeing what was being grown and then using that inside the bakery and helping them expand their pastry options.” From there, she began planning the Savage Wheat Project, where she would cultivate her own heritage grains and transform them in her own kitchen.

But sourcing heritage seeds is difficult. And that brings us back to those six pounds of rare seed that launched Savage’s farming journey.

Sourcing Seeds

Savage’s search for heritage grain led her to Elizabeth Dyck, founder of the Organic Grow­ers’ Research and Information-Sharing Network (OGRIN). Through projects like Organic Grains for the Northeast, Dyck and OGRIN nurture connections between farmers, millers and bak­ers to grow regional grain communities. While OGRIN has helped increase grain production in the Northeast over the past decade, sourcing high-quality heritage seed and grain processing capacity remains challenging. For Savage, though, those first six pounds of rare seed from Dyck—little more than a half-pound or pound per seed type—represented not just the start of her farming journey, but connection to a growing network of producers working to restore local food systems as she learned to grow wheat herself.

Planting Seeds

To get started with planting, Savage turned to Steve and Erin Blabac of Clarence-based Root Down Farm. Root Down is community-supported agriculture (CSA) serving Greater Buf­falo that uses crop rotation, cover crops, minimal tillage, and organic standards to grow vegetables without synthetic or arti­ficial pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. Savage rented land at Root Down but also got guidance and support from Steve that helped her truly launch the Savage Wheat Project. And it just so happened that Blabac had wheat in his future plans.

And that timely partnership led to others. A couple years later she added the Savage Wheat Bakery and sourced 100 per­cent organic flours from Farmer Ground Flour in Trumansburg to begin developing the interest and palates of her customers while continuing the journey to source flours from grains grown on her own farm.

“I wanted to get products out there with spelt, einkorn, tur­key red—all these grains that people most likely haven’t heard of or in-the-distance heard of, so they can get familiar,” she says. She adds that these are flours that need to be refrigerated. When combined with careful processing, the ancient wheat retains its bran and germ, preserving the nutrients, natural oils and mois­ture of the whole grain.

Cultivating Partnerships

Today, the project and the bakery are already living up to her desire to nurture community partnerships and to maintain a close relationship between people and the land they cultivate. Berries from Abers Acres in Kennedy, New York. Carrots and squash from Root Down Farm. Potatoes from Thorpe’s, which goes in her line of softer bread and buns. Honey from Corfu. And maple syrup from three different Western New York maple farmers. Whatever is available locally.

Savage’s pursuit of ancient seed stock, biodiversity, and pas­sion for what she calls the “Earth/person relationship” fits in a long but more recently re-emerging tradition of locally minded agriculture. Her mission is the work of recovering the special places around us by not ignoring “the individual connections that tie them together,” an idea that agricultural ecologist and author Gary Paul Nabhan recalls in Coming Home to Eat, a manifesto on local food that contributed to the movement. She’s echoing the ecological appeal he makes at the center of the book: “The more we understand where our food comes from, the greater the chance there is that we can save the living riches of the natural world.”

Breaking Ground

Savage recently closed on a home and 53-acre farm that will further fulfill a holistic vision of the Savage Wheat Project and the Savage Wheat Bakery. “The chicks are coming in March and they’re going to be on the first part of the plot where the garden is going to help get the ground ready,” she says.

And first in the ground? An herb garden and potatoes. She’ll have the whole spring and summer to settle in. But come fall: the first planting of winter wheat on her own land. With her accumulated knowledge, emphasis on working in harmony with nature, and “nature willing” next year, she’ll be baking from her own homegrown heritage wheat harvest.