Seeds

I love when people share ideas with the world! Ideas get thrown around and you learn about what is possible and what is needed to be done in order to turn ideas into tangible experiences. In this case, a collegue and friend of mine, Phillip Yniguez, posted a while back about seeds and helping the developing world with food supply issues. You can find it here. http://theory.phillipyniguez.com/2009/06/save-your-seeds.html also check out his website at http://www.phillipyniguez.com!

Here is the dialog my friend and I were having about it. I didn’t realize there were so many barriers and obstacles – How do we overcome these challenges and how do we make his idea work!?

Van : will the seeds from the fruit we buy from mass farmers even germinate?
Anonymous: like first of all
Van : that’s what i mean
Anonymous: nope
Anonymous: thats what i was just about to say
Van : okay
Anonymous: it only works with a few fruits
Van : cuz i tried that before
Van : there is no orange tree at my hosue
Anonymous: i dont know the specifics ….
Anonymous: hahaha
Anonymous: if you take a seed from a lemon
Anonymous: it’ll grow
Van : why is that?
Anonymous: but you wont get lemons from the tree
Van : wtf
Van : that’s retarded
Anonymous: it’ll taste like oranges
Van : that makes no sense
Anonymous: yeah weird right?
Anonymous: but its bc the seed was modified
Anonymous: or something
Van : really?
Anonymous: yeah
Van : gtfo
Anonymous: i think i read something
Anonymous: about how when people create new fruits
Anonymous: like pluots or something
Anonymous: (just a random example of a hybrid fruit)
Anonymous: you cant plant it
Anonymous: and expect pluots
Anonymous: because the people who invented it
Anonymous: make it so the fruit can’t grow again!
Anonymous: isnt htat crazy
Anonymous: i might be talking out of my ass right now
Anonymous: but i swear i read that
Van : that’s some tricky stuff
Van : i want to post this chat
Van : and have people comment on this
Anonymous: haha
Van : is that okay with you
Van : hahaha
Anonymous: no because people will be like
Anonymous: who the f*ck were you talking to
Anonymous: let me do a little research first
Anonymous: yeah but it doesnt mean everyone knows who i am
Van : “who is this stupid b***h!”
Anonymous: hold on! i’m going to do a little research
Van : I’ll put anonymous!
Anonymous: hahahaha
Anonymous: no
Anonymous: people are going to be like “your friend is an idiot”
Van : that’s okay with me.
Van : hahaha
Anonymous: >:
Van : I’m posting this on my blog
Anonymous: NO!
Anonymous: oh
Anonymous: its called a “terminator gene”
Anonymous: “On March 3, 1998, the American cotton seed company, Delta & Pine Land Co, and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced they had received US Patent #5,723,765 on a technique that genetically disables the seed harvested from a crop having this protection system.”
Anonymous: http://www.newcrops.uq.edu.au/newslett/ncnl1111.htm
Van : this is intense!
Anonymous: “Terminator crops are genetically modified to create sterile seeds at harvest so that farmers must buy new seed every season.”
Anonymous: “”Suicide seeds are the next step in the transnational industry’s strategy to control the production and commercial use of seeds,” Requião told the opening plenary of 3000 delegates. “It is one more step by transnational industry to obtain total control over the production of the grain.”
Van: that’s so shady!

EDIT:

Anonymous: I would also like to add
Anonymous: that hybrid fruits
Anonymous: cant be germinated
Anonymous: because they’re hybrids
Anonymous: not because of the terminator gene

tom

ok i gotta say, terminator crops are REAL. FUCK Mon Santo and their modified seeds & food.

2 reasons the shipping seeds to hungry nations idea won’t work.
1) the sterile seeds
2) Guaranteed our food can’t grow where they need it. There’s a reason why we can’t grow mangoes in Northern Canada. Same applies to Africa and other food starved nations.

To fix this, we need to grow what is local to our land and STOP purchasing genetically modified food. This is going to kill us. A theory I heard about the disappearing bees was that perhaps they don’t like the genetically modified pollen or whatever the hell they eat. Sounds like it could be a possibility.

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
– Einstein (maybe)

So to find a solution to the bee problem and find out what is actually killing them instead of blaming it on mites which is just a micro causm of something greater than we know must be done.

Another random thing is that bats are dying as well. They can pollenate, eat tons of insects & general pests. Not a good thing to have dying.

end of the day… FUCK GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD.
http://www.phillipyniguez.com Phillip

Hey Van, thanks for the mention.

Yeah, so many people now think that you can’t plant seeds because they are all genetically modified to only survive for a generation. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. For the time being we still have access to real seeds through the efforts of organic farmers and all those seed producers that actually sell plantable seeds to consumers.

I think writers like Michael Pollen did a good job of exposing monsanto & the pesticide companies and all that, to the point where a lot of those practices have already been discontinued or banned.

For a private consumer to save and plant patented seeds is not illegal! I think that only applies to professional growers of large crops. So what if every single citizen was growing some kind of small private garden. We would produce a lot more than people might think.

I don’t think shipping seeds elsewhere is necessarily the solution, but getting everyone (non farmers) excited about growing food would be.

Information

This article was written on 02 Sep 2009, and is filed under Ideas, Life.

Seeds

Information

Recent articles