Engaging the Future
As we approach the growing season, remember that one of the best things you can do to sustain your family in an uncertain future is to grow a vegetable garden. This week, I’m deviating from the usual format to bring a timely message. If you are considering buying seeds, I have some important information for you to consider before making your purchase.
First, some background: You may be familiar with Monsanto, the corporation that is trying to corner the food market by peddling patented, genetically modified (GM) seeds. This is big business: the government has colluded with Monsanto to expedite the approval of Frankenstein seeds by eliminating, in some cases, the need for studies to assess their impact on life on this planet. The recent defiance of a court order by the USDA in allowing the planting of GM alfalfa is a case in point. They are playing Russian roulette with your health and the very blueprints of life itself for the sake of huge profits. To date, Monsanto has managed to put GM versions of staple crops like corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and alfalfa into our stores. They are not required, as they are in civilized places like Europe, to inform us that their GM products are in our food (and they are in most of our food products). Surveys have shown that 90% of us want to know whether we are buying GM products. One can only wonder why they don’t want us to know.
Aside from unknown effects from eating GM foods, GM plants have managed to pollinate and, thereby, contaminate natural varieties of the same species even hundreds of miles away. Designing in resistance to patented pesticides has resulted in liberal doses of chemicals that have expedited resistance in weeds as well. We now know that it is impossible to keep these GM genes from contaminating organic fields. Monsanto has even had the gall to sue the owners of those fields for patent infringement!
Getting back to the subject, on a recent trip to see the folks at Transition Whidbey, we found out that in 2005 Monsanto purchased Seminis, a major supplier of vegetable seeds, which made Monsanto the largest supplier of seed in the world. More on this deal here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/seminis30405.cfm.
Certainly not all Monsanto/Seminis hybrid seeds are GM, but you should be alarmed that a company with such practices is trying to monopolize the source of almost all our food. If, like me, you want to err on the side of safety, you should do all you can to avoid contaminating our island gene pool. For starters: Do not buy or plant Monsanto and Seminis seeds!
Seminis wholesales seed to most of the seed companies you know; even some of Territorial Seeds offerings are from Seminis. For a partial list of seed companies buying from Seminis, go here: http://us.seminis.com/products/hg_dealer.asp. To be sure, email or call a seed company and ask them what seeds they buy from Seminis and order accordingly.
Buy no seed packet that cautions you that saving the seed produced from the seed in the packet is against the law. Buy seed saved locally whenever you can. Begin saving your own seed. There are many books out there that show you how to do that. With each generation, local seed becomes more acclimated to our soils and climate, easier to grow, more resistant to pests. Save as many varieties as you can. You can be sure that, as our seed sources become monopolized, more varieties will be eliminated. Join the Seed Saver’s Exchange, a non profit organization dedicated to conserving and promoting the propagation of heirloom vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs: http://www.seedsavers.org/Content.aspx?src=membership.htm
Remember, once those GM genes are released into our environment, there is no going back. We have enough of them out there now. Maybe some will have no appreciable impact, but, unfortunately, nobody as yet knows, and the possibilities could be catastrophic. We are fooling with the very structure of life here of which we really know very little.
Be sure to catch our next film at Café Luna, Saturday night, Mar. 19, 6-9pm: Crude Awakening examines our dependence on oil in an age of diminishing supply. Sponsored by Transition Vashon, Lunavision, and Sustainable Vashon. Free, donation requested, discussion to follow.
Also, Wisenergy’s fourth workshop in their series will be on Electric Cars, at the Senior Center, Mar 22, at 7pm., $5 donation requested.
Knowledge is not power, but acting on it is. Take a step away from oil and toward independence today.
Thoughts?
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