A seed is perhaps the most potent and amazing thing imaginable. A seed is a record of all life that has gone before. Seeds have the power to nourish, clothe and shelter us, and even to clean our air and water. Seeds are quite literally the embodiment of life. Arguably, they are the most precious items on our planet.

However, it may horrify you to know that multinational corporations are seeking to take control over all seeds and, in so doing, the entire planet’s food.

Dan Jason, founder of Salt Spring Seeds, issues a rallying call for us all to learn how to save our own seeds.

In the mid 1980s, the Canadian and US governments had crop research stations across the continent and some quite substantial gene banks preserving our seed heritage. Plant scientists sought to develop locally adapted seeds for disease and pest resistance, nutrition, higher yield and earliness. Such research was done to benefit both farmers and consumers. Information about the seeds and the seeds themselves were shared with pride as part of a longstanding tradition.

Today the seed situation is totally different. Gene banks and research stations have been downsized and neglected. American and Canadian governments have handed over seed research and development to transnational corporations with totally different agendas for our seeds.

Corporate mergers of seed growers have accelerated at such a pace that there are now only a few giant rulers. Patented seeds have become common in catalogues. Plants that have always belonged to everyone are now “owned” by corporations. As ludicrous as it sounds, farmers are being taken to court for saving seed.

Millions of acres of farmland are being planted with genetically altered seed that has had genes from other life forms inserted. It has become almost impossible to find food products in North America that are not derived from genetically modified seeds. A huge majority of North Americans want to have products from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) labeled as such, yet nothing happens. In 2005, the US government overturned the power of state counties democratically to declare themselves GMO-free zones.

What’s Wrong with GMOs?

I consider genetically modified food intrinsically bad because it’s designed with poison in mind. The biotech people claimed they were genetically modifying seeds to create more nutritious food, which would also result in lowering pesticide and herbicide use. The truth of the matter is that virtually all corporate genetic seed modifications have aimed to make plants resistant to weed and bug killers.

If you create plants that do not succumb to herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, then the nature of what we’re consuming is all wrapped up in poison. Tinkering with genes from totally different species and mixing them up in our food has never been done before and has potentially deadly consequences. Yet it is being done with little testing, no consultation and no notification. We, the American and Canadian people, are the guinea pigs.

Instead of less herbicide use, weeds have adapted to become “superweeds” that nothing can effectively control. Perhaps most horrifying: GMO crops have contaminated the nearby crops of farmers trying to grow clean, healthy food, and these same farmers are being sued for patent infringement! The mind boggles.

Terminator Seeds

Terminator seeds followed on the heels of GMO seeds as part of the arsenal of corporate agribusiness promising hope for the future. Terminator seeds have been genetically altered so that plants don’t produce viable seeds. They more transparently reveal the name of the game to be profit and control. Such seeds threaten the livelihoods of all farmers who save their own seed. That minds would design seeds to terminate themselves is incomprehensible to most people and there was enough outraged reaction that experiments were stopped. Yet, in 2005, Canada was trying to overturn the international moratorium on the research. Equally incomprehensible and sinister have been attempts (mostly successful) in the past few years to economically blackmail developing countries with starving populations into accepting genetically modified food as “aid.”

Control of resources has always been the essence of the game for those bent on political power. If you own the oil, the water, the minerals, the land, then you own the people too. However, owning seeds in the manner that it’s happening now is unprecedented. Monsanto Corporation, for example, openly and clearly states its intention to totally control the world food market. That same corporation has dozens of lawyers working full time to make sure farmers don’t save their own seed.

The task of reinventing agriculture is a necessary and crucial one. Probably the most meaningful endeavor for humanity at this time is replanting the global garden. Without a massive international effort to reduce greenhouse gases, stabilize climate change and stop the decline of the earth’s life support systems by using plants, all other good struggles will be overtaken by ecological chaos.

Why not encourage people to have a rewarding livelihood by farming the richness of the earth, to live on the land and derive satisfaction and fulfillment from the infinite beauty and entertainment of nature? Why not start to realize the vast potential for growing food within our urban environment?

Once saving seeds was an eloquently simple process. Seeds belonged to everyone in a sacred sort of way. The confused mindset that blasts foreign genes into seeds, that patents and kills seeds, is clearly one that would destroy the very garden that feeds us.

Industrial agriculture is not going to preserve our priceless treasure of seeds. Neither is there much chance of getting governments to return to the custodianship of our food heritage. That leaves us – you and me – and small-scale farmers, the people who truly love plants, to hand them on to the next generation.

Start Saving

Seed saving is not difficult. Essentially you go to the seeds when they are ready, take them and store them! A key step is making sure they’re really dry.

Getting good seeds at the right time involves knowing the usual lifecycle of a plant and whether a seed will stay true. You can gather them in different ways such as plucking, rubbing, shaking or grabbing. Ways of harvesting are quite quickly obvious but not always so. Make sure you store your seeds in appropriate containers with labels.

Finally: know your plant. Is it an annual, biennial or perennial? Is it self-pollinated or cross-pollinated? (Or perhaps both?) But don’t be daunted by all these questions. People have been saving seeds for millennia and you are the living proof!

WORDS: Dan Jason, founder of Salt Spring Seeds, Canada.

For loads more information including plant-specific advice on saving seeds, check out Dan Jason’s inspiring book: Saving Seeds As if Our Lives Depended On It.

Want to know more? Ok – you asked for it!
www.slowfood.com
www.seedalliance.org
www.growseed.org
www.seedsofdeception.com
www.GMFreeSchools.org
www.centerforfoodsafety.org
www.banterminator.org
www.etcgroup.org
www.savingourseeds.org
www.seedsofchangethemovie.org
www.responsibletechnology.org
www.grain.org
www.thecampaign.org
www.organicconsumers.org