Tucked away behind a modest-sized home in Wales is a living repository of human history. Here, on a 3.5-acre garden, Adam Alexander grows around 100 varieties of fruits and vegetables at any given time. The fertile ground contains the progeny of seeds scooped up at markets from Aleppo, Syria, to Yangon, Myanmar. Carefully stored inside his home are jars containing more than 500 different types of heirloom seeds. At least 20 varieties are ones that might have gone extinct without Alexander’s intervention. By some estimates, as much as 90 percent…
