SEEDY SATURDAY SEED SHEBANG/SEEDLING SWAP/SEED BUY & MUSIC EARTH WEEK APRIL 17

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Comment by Shane Jolley on April 6, 2010 at 22:46

Wish I could be there Douglas, but I'll have to be at the shop. Dianne might go. I hope you have a great event.

Comment by Douglas Nadler on March 17, 2010 at 13:50

SEEDS OF WISDOM: SUPPORT BIODIVERSITY IN AGRICULTURE by D. Nadler
“Industrial agriculture logically leads towards greater and greater exploitation of people and the environment.” Devlin Kuyek
“If humanity can create sustainable agricultural systems, preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services globally, we can feed the world and ensure resources for future generations. If we fail in this collective endeavour, environmental and human security will be in peril…Biodiversity is the foundation of agriculture.” Convention on Biological Diversity www.cbd.int/
Traditionally, farmers have used open-pollinated seed and saved seed from their annual crops for the following season. Recently around the world, more and more farmers are being forced to buy hybridized seeds from corporations instead of saving and exchanging seeds. This is great news for corporations such as Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer and Syngenta that produce most of our hybrid seeds and pesticides that must be used with a particular seed. This has often turned into a tragedy. For example, over 140,000 farmers in India have committed suicide after falling into terrible debt as a result of the failure of their genetically altered crops.
Food “systems” and “field-to-fork” is what many agribusinesses wish to see as the norm throughout the world. A corporation will supply seeds, oil based fertilizer, pesticides and the transportation and sale of food right to your dinner plate. Caught between patents, contracts, plant breeders’ rights, insurance demands, licensing, regulations and bullying, farmers around the world are giving up their 10,000 year old tradition of reusing their own seeds from their harvest! Seeds become commodities in the agri-food chain.
Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, described the gradual dwindling of global seed diversity as "a death of a thousands cuts". It is in the interest of corporations to diminish the incredible variety of seeds unless that seed is called ‘certified’ with a corporate logo on the bag. Biodiversity is the last thing they want because it does not allow them to “own” open-pollinated seeds. Devlin Kuyek’s new book, “Good Crop/Bad Crop: Seed Politics and the Future of Food in Canada” examines how Canadians are losing a battle to transnational corporations that wish to curtail the diversity as well as the exchange of seeds.
From Bangladesh to India and Africa, climate change is already affecting crops. Farmers are fighting back, creating their own seed banks that are representative of those seeds that are successful in their climate and soils. On February 26, 2009 a very important seed bank opened its unique doors. Built in Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, nick-named the “Doomsday Vault’, is where seeds are kept in a 100 metre bunker at -18C. Eventually, they hope to have all of the world’s food crops represented in the vault on the side of a mountain in Longyearbyen, Norway in order to preserve our threatened seed diversity. Jacques Diouf, director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, described the vault's opening as "one of the most significant acts in the preservation of humanity".
As a concerned Canadian, support organic farmers as well as buying open-pollinated seeds for your garden; save and share them