FSA, saving seeds, and big business

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I asked my dad about the Food Safety Act when I started seeing the buzz about it here. He hadn't heard about it and started doing some research.

 

Here is an interesting article he found. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/journals/njtip/v3/n2/4

 

My dad has been organic gardening and saving seeds his whole life. He also has military training in uncovering hidden agendas. :-)

 

He says the Food Safety Act is way beyond a big deal. Besides food safety, it deals with the intellectual property rights of seed geneticists. It could affectively criminalize: saving seed to sell or barter, growing food from saved seed to sell or barter.

 

It will most likely hit small farmers and organic gardeners the worst. The fact is it is almost impossible to prevent cross-pollination. Bees, insects, birds, the wind, car tires, etc. can all carry pollen for miles. There is no way to guarantee that any crop anywhere has not been cross-pollinated by pollen from hybrids or genetically modified plants. So unless you pass a law making it illegal to save seeds for any kind of commercial use, any seed produced could contain patented genetic markers that you didn't pay for. Clear as mud?

 

Big business? Monsanto is just the tip of the iceburg. This is huge. And global.

Edited March 26, 2009 by Virginia Dawn

[Tammyla]

I've just started purchasing heirloom and organic seeds this year. :glare: We live in a big crop producing state and I'll tell you, I never gave a thought to cross pollination...but I'm not a producer. No telling what the future holds, but I'm keeping my seeds:001_smile:.

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

I asked my dad about the Food Safety Act when I started seeing the buzz about it here. He hadn't heard about it and started doing some research.

 

Here is an interesting article he found. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/journals/njtip/v3/n2/4

 

My dad has been organic gardening and saving seeds his whole life. He also has military training in uncovering hidden agendas. :-)

 

He says the Food Safety Act is way beyond a big deal. Besides food safety, it deals with the intellectual property rights of seed geneticists. It could affectively criminalize: saving seed to sell or barter, growing food from saved seed to sell or barter.

 

It will most likely hit small farmers and organic gardeners the worst. The fact is it is almost impossible to prevent cross-pollination. Bees, insects, birds, the wind, car tires, etc. can all carry pollen for miles. There is no way to guarantee that any crop anywhere has not been cross-pollinated by pollen from hybrids or genetically modified plants. So unless you pass a law making it illegal to save seeds for any kind of commercial use, any seed produced could contain patented genetic markers that you didn't pay for. Clear as mud?

 

Big business? Monsanto is just the tip of the iceburg. This is huge. And global.

 

Nothing of value to add, but I'm watching this thread and this topic with great interest. Thanks for posting this, Virginia Dawn.

[JFSinIL]

I think I read somewhere that most seeds sold now are genetically "fixed" to NOT produce crops with viable seeds. In other words - if you save the seeds they will NOT grow you new plants next year. I want to say I read it in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Kingsolver.

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

I think I read somewhere that most seeds sold now are genetically "fixed" to NOT produce crops with viable seeds. In other words - if you save the seeds they will NOT grow you new plants next year. I want to say I read it in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Kingsolver.

 

Right, they are hybrids. Which is why you have to save heirloom seeds.

[abreakfromlife]

yeah, I am livid about it all. I won't say much; I started a 15 page thread about this last week and it got deleted :tongue_smilie: I think I linked to wrong sites and that's why.................you can still buy heirloom seeds. You just have to buy them from companies like Seed Savers Exchange, rareseeds.com, Seeds of Change, etc.

 

For now that is. This is absolutely ridiculous. Way worse than even the stupid CSPIA law............. ok. I'm done. I'm too mad to say anything else :tongue_smilie:

[Tracy in Ky]

We're concerned about this as well. Besides buying from Heirloom Acres Seeds, we've purchased the book called, "Seed to Seed." It is a book about how to save seed. There is more to it than just saving seeds; evidently, you must be careful what you plant next to each other, because if certain things cross pollinate, then the seeds from those crops will be bad--unusable or the crops will be unedible.

 

We had some pumpkins and spaghetti squash cross last year. The ones that crossed didn't taste or even look right, and we couldn't save those seeds.

 

It is amazing, isn't it, how much knowledge we have lost in just a generation or two?

[hillfarm]

Unfortunately we have to be really vigilant about stupid, greedy people trying to do stupid, greedy things.

 

A while back, some researchers began to study sprouts grown from broccoli seeds. They discovered that broccoli sprouts had more calcium than milk and more vitamin C than citrus, if properly grown. Their next move? They tried to PATENT their discovery and make it illegal for anyone else to sprout broccoli seeds or grow them to sell. Thank goodness the courts eventually overturned their objections and made it legal for people to continue doing what some had been doing for centuries and grow, sell, and even sprout broccoli seeds and eat them.