The whole of Seed Saver’s Exchange’s seed collection is now part of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an act that apparently gives biotech companies access to them so that they can make derivatives that they can then patent. This sounds alarming but I confess that I still don’t understand how we could ever keep a biotech company from doing this in the first place.
Rather than rehash the whole thing, go to this post and read the letter from Seed Saver’s Exchange’s founder Kent Whealy. It’s a long letter full of ugly business but it is worth reading.
Now, I wonder how many of the heirloom vegetables I am growing fall into this.
One new thing I learned by reading Kent’s letter is the concept of Terminator Seeds. The sci-fi geek in me perked up and I immediately pictured a tomato from the future sent back to kill my Brandywines! Seriously though, the concept of a Terminator Seed stinks of Big Business. A Terminator Seed is the seed from a plant that has been genetically modified to kill the embryo in the seed so that you and I cannot save the seed. Basically all the seeds in the plant are duds, blanks, sterile.
Another neat thing I learned about by reading the letter is the concept of Sacred Seeds. Apparently Native American nations have collections of seeds that have been preserved by them. Now these seeds are also part of this complicated Global Crop Diversity Trust deal.
Ok, so I am being a bit paranoid about this but don’t underestimate the things that people will do for money. After all, this has happened before when genetically engineered pollen blew over to farmers’ fields and then they got sued (this is alluded to in the letter). I’d hate to go to jail because I saved some seeds.
And you thought Blight was your only gardening problem!
Grow And Tell 
March 31, 2010 at 5:26 am
In the casae of terminator seeds, I wonder if the tomatoes are good for our health.
December 31, 2010 at 6:36 pm
I am not into genetics as some are, but I was impresses about your definition of Terminator Seeds. I am not a fan of Hybreeding. I heard it preeched one day that to hybreed brings forth DEATH. Take a horse and a Donkey. When you crossbreed them – you get a mule. Stuborn and contrary they are. And, now that mule can not breed back to the original. It’s gone forever.
The horse knows where he came from and the Donkey knows where he came from – but the Mule? He does not know.
Puting it into it right perspective….God said let everything bring forth of its OWN kind. There is a purpose in that. When God’s word (in the beggining) was substituted and CHANGED due to ONE word – it brought forth death – death to the human race. I could go on but I want to stick with the subject at hand.
The same way it is with our food supply. It is being hybrid and death follows it. Can you grasp it? There is little to no nutrition in our food anymore. This brought on the need for supliments, etc. Our food is contaminated with all sorts of preservitives. People are becoming ill and sick due to altering the natural state of our food chain. GMO’s, preservitives, Injections to cows to produce a more milk yield – and was proven to be carcinigenic, not to mention two Fox news reporters lost their jobs because they felt compelled to report their findings. Where does this all stop. It won’t. But there you have it. The injustices done and people suffer.
I grow alot of my own food and buy very little if possible. There is someting very sinister going on and it’s out of control – operating under the guiese that it is for your beter interest.
I will be planting my garden again this year and hope that all the chem trail fallout dosn’t hinder my yeild. Oh Ya! That is another subject but can’t get into 3-D Terain imaging – too long.
May your tomatoes be well.
November 2, 2012 at 8:58 pm
|..Global Crop Diversity Trust … gives biotech companies access to them so that they can make derivatives that they can then patent. This sounds alarming but I confess that I still don’t understand how we could ever keep a biotech company from doing this in the first place….|
The reason that is such a big deal is that it saves the companies the trouble of having to collect the seeds themselves. It’s like having marketing firms knock on everyone’s door to get their names and phone numbers. Even if people gave it to them, they probably wouldn’t do it because of the cost. Same with going around the globe gathering up heirloom seeds.
Now that they’ve got an heirloom seed, it can be modified to fertilize the original seed, and propagate through the fields, eventually contaminating all the wild seeds, except the pristine seeds being kept locked in the Doomsday vault in Norway which are owned by private interests like Monsanto and the Gates Foundation. In a short period of time, they might own the only source of uncomtaminated seed on the planet, or pretty close to it. there may be some obscure valley in the Himalayas or Candadian Rockies or Chlean Andes that has some unmodified seeds, but most of the useful plants used by people will all be owned by a handful of North American agribiz companies.
The US Supreme court has said that when Monsanto’s seed contaminates a neighbor’s field, Monsanto owns that crop.
This is a very nefarious project.