Seed control
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
It’s all about seed control for Monsanto and the other corporate manufacturers of genetically engineered, GMO crops. So it’s no surprise that Monsanto has made moves to control garden seed as well. In the last several years, a number of international agri-conglomerates have consolidated their hold over the very seed and nursery starts we plant in our gardens. This brings some of the same problems — loss of seed diversity, spiraling seed costs, and general deficiencies in seed quality — that crop growers around the world face from the owners of genetically-modified seeds. And it’s happening under our noses right in our own backyards.
The last thing most organic gardeners want to do is support the corporations that have forced GMO food crops on the world through consolidation and bullying tactics. Nor do we want to support conglomerates seeking to monopolize the garden seed market. But often, that’s what we do when we buy non-GMO seed and nursery stock for our home gardens (and when we buy produce from the major supermarkets). How is it possible?
The same companies — Monsanto being the largest — that have inflicted GMO crops on American food supplies (remember, GMO-based food products are banned in over 60 other countries) also control the non-GMO seed market. This is a fairly recent development — done over the last 20 years — and one that’s mostly been hidden from the public (you’ll find innocent-sounding or familiar company names on seed packages, but not “Monsanto,” the actual supplier of the seed).
The implications are frightening. Do we really want corporations that most organic gardeners already despise to control what goes into our home gardens as well as our farmers’ fields?
With thanks to the source… planetnatural.com