Will Bonsall

Will Bonsall is an American author, seed saver and veganic farmer.

Bonsall was born in Waterville, Maine in the 1950s. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1971 and moved to San Francisco and hiked across the U.S. and Mexico. He later returned to Maine to build a homestead on 85 acres in Industry, Maine called Khadighar Farm. In 2010, he self-published a science fiction novel called "Through the Eyes of a Stranger (Yaro Tales)." Bonsall is marred to Molly Thorkildsen and has two grown sons.

Bonsall is the founder of the Scatterseed Project. In 2014, Bonsall founded the Grassroots Seed Network and the Portland Press Herald reported: "Nationally and even internationally, Bonsall is known as the curator of a collection of both rare and common potato varieties. The U.S. Department of Agriculture sends him potatoes it thinks might interest him. Someone in Norway might send him a few samples."

He is featured in the 2016 documentary SEED: The Untold Story.

in 2020, DownEast Magazine wrote: "Bonsall’s dispersal efforts have been so prolific that he often finds himself chasing his own tail. He’ll receive what he’s told is a rare variety of such-and-such, but in trying to trace it back to its original source, he’ll find it came from someone who got it from someone who got it from an old hippie in western Maine."

Bonsall is a vegan and a proponent of veganic farming, which doesn't use animal products such as manure. In 2015, Chelsea Green published Will Bonsall’s Essential Guide to Radical, Self-reliant Gardening: Innovative Techniques for Growing Vegetables, Grains, and Perennial Food Crops with Minimal Fossil Fuel and Animal Inputs.

He often writes for organic gardening publications and shares simple, vegan recipes.

In 2019, The Guardian wrote of Bonsall's farming. The article said "Bonsall’s is one of just 50 or so veganic farms in the United States, according to research by Professor Mona Seymour of Loyola Marymount University."

• Will Bonsall’s Essential Guide to Radical, Self-reliant Gardening: Innovative Techniques for Growing Vegetables, Grains, and Perennial Food Crops with Minimal Fossil Fuel and Animal Inputs, 2015
• Through the Eyes of a Stranger (Yaro Tales), 2010