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Self replicating little parcels of carrots ready to be planted.

There is a case that has been heard by the US Supreme Court, Bowman vs. Monsanto and we are awaiting their decision. I, for one, am not hopeful that they will take the correct stance, which, of course would be to eviscerate the patent on seeds altogether. The patent on seeds is immoral and unethical and sets a horrid precedent: the forces in favor of patents on seeds have no idea of the line they have crossed in this matter.

In fact, neither do the Supreme Court Justices and most of the American public, but it is clear to those of us whose life's work is with seeds, this is a horrible transgression onto the patenting of life. In fact, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked,"Why in the world, would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?" leaving me to hope he was just having a momentary loss of memory and doesn't really believe that people did exactly that since agriculture began!

I had the opportunity to be with Vandana Shiva this last week and hear her cogent answers, marveling at her ability to synthesize answers that not only answered the question, but enlightened the listener to points they had not yet considered in the question. She told us about the 200,000 varieties of rice in India – all bred by peasants, different rice varieties for different fields for example. But an observant rice farmer, peasant or not, sees a lot of rice and a keen observer will find different varieties – in fact, it was Luther Burbank's keen eye (not magical genius) that gave the world the Burbank Potato, still the most popular baking potato in the world today over 100 years later. He spotted one potato plant with some flowers that produced some seeds (not a common thing, potatoes are almost always propagated by cutting the tubers into chunks and planting them, rarely by seed). He harvested the seeds and a seedling from those seeds became the famous potato that keeps Idaho on the map.

Prior to the 1950's, almost all plant breeding in the US was done by farmers – with the expectation that they would profit very little from the improvement of seed except by better crops. The idea of patenting life was abhorrent to them, even if they wished to make more profit on their new line of seeds. The lack of patents did not slow down the process of finding new and better plants - and this is an important point the bio-tech corporations wish to ignore - we never needed patents before them and their derelict technology!

But business empires are not built on 'what we used to do,' so once the chemical company decided it wanted to control the food supply, they moved aggressively to get our government to protect their seed varieties with patents. This is the genesis of our current situation. It wasn't enough that chemical companies wanted to make money, they wanted guarantees that they could make money on a scale not seen in agriculture since the beginning of agriculture. The old saw, “How do you make a million dollars farming? Start with two million,” could be amended to, “How do you make a million dollars farming? Start as a chemical company and buy yourself a government.”

Even intelligent people argue for patent enforcement because if they let replication occur in seeds, then what happens to software, recording and so on. This is not a valid question and the questioner is not thinking the thing through. Rolling the law back on seed patenting would not in any way be applicable to these other patents – the difference is obvious. The question really should be, if we allow patents on seed, does this mean that a man should patent his own sperm and a woman her eggs before a bio-tech company does it? Sperm and eggs are more closely similar to a seed than a recording! A seed is LIFE. A recording is NOT. Software is NOT.

In fact, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a case about patenting human genetic material April 5^th. Now I can see scenarios happening that just a few years ago would have been seen as crazy. What if I am given a genetically modified cure for Alzheimer’s. Is my body now a bio-tech company property? What if I have children and they, of course, inherit the cure? Are they owned by the bio-tech company? Do they have to buy a license? After all, like seeds, people are self-replicating!

Let us be clear: a life cannot be patented regardless if that has a deleterious effect on commerce. It does not matter.

Mind you, only those who do not see the difference between a baby and a recording or a seed and a software program imagine that one has anything to do with another.

Patenting life – any life – is a line we should NEVER have crossed. Now that we've done it, we need to undo it as quickly as possible. It is morally offensive and moves us towards re-establishing human slavery.

You'll never get that with software or a recording.

david

Svalbard - Concern Behind the Celebration...

Svalbard, Seed Vault of Last Resort

Just last week, Svalbard celebrated its fourth birthday. I admit it, I have mixed feelings about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault; its intention is laudable, but, all things being equal, is it up to the task? And, even if it is up to the task, will human avarice allow it to do what it is intended to do?

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is located on an island in the Svalbard archipelago, some 1300 kilometers from the North Pole. Plant seeds from the world over are stored in underground vaults, dug some 340' into the permafrost of the island. The seeds in Svalbard are duplicate seeds of those stored in other seed banks through out the world – the idea is to provide a 'backup copy' of seeds in case of a large-scale or global calamity that affects our ability to feed ourselves. Anyone who has had a computer crash will allow how important a back up copy can be.

The facility has the capacity to store some 4.5 million accessions of seeds.

“The Svalbard Global Seed Vault's mission is to provide a safety net against accidental loss of diversity in traditional genebanks. While the popular press has emphasized its possible utility in the event of a major regional or global catastrophe, it will certainly be more frequently accessed when genebanks lose samples due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts and natural disasters. Such events occur with some regularity. In recent years, some national genebanks have also been destroyed by war and civil strife.” (Wikipedia)

Because these seeds are meant to be 'copy seeds,' as the bank is envisioned, these seeds are stored as a backstop for loss of the genetics of important plant should the initial collection become lost.  The famous seed bank of Russian scientist Nikolay Vavilov's seed collection was over run by the Nazis in WWII, workers in the Vavilov Institute took the seeds to their homes to save them from being destroyed or stolen.  Thank God thieves rarely think to steal seeds and Vavilov's seeds, without a Svalbard back up made it through the war safely.  (For more on Vavilov, which is fascinating reading, find a copy of "Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine" by Gary Paul Nabhan - it's a quick and lovely read!)  

I do not disagree with seed banks per se, I think they perform a valuable function. I worry, on the other hand that the majority of folks see articles on seed banks and think, “Well then, we've got this whole thing in hand, don't we?” And we don't. Seed banks only support a part of the solution.

Seed held in seed banks doesn't change. The mark of living is the ability to change. Pathogens adapt; their prey adapt. Pathogens adapt again; the prey adapts to the adaptions. And on it goes. This is the dance of life. Plants grow. Bugs eat 'em. Plants and their farmers adapt. Bugs adapt. Put a seed out of circulation for a couple hundred years and the world they 'wake up' to is not the same world when they went to sleep. Rumpelstiltskin anyone?  

Seed banks are the back stop, the last resort, but the real way to 'save' seeds is to grow them! Grow the heirlooms, save their seeds and your seeds adapt to your environment year after year. They become a part of your story and your life. In our small urban gardens in Los Angeles, we don't have the room to save all the valuable varieties we need to have a robust diet, hence the need to come together in seed libraries.

As a part of its mission statement, the Seed Library of Los Angeles, collects seeds and holds them for members to check out. Together we can save hundreds of varieties of seeds and you can be a part of that. You personally don't need to save 100 different varieties of tomatoes – you don't have the time and the room, but you can save one or two of the one hundred and together, viola! We have saved 100 varieties of tomatoes. And you helped.

But in the case of Svalbard, some ugly juxtapositions of facts are cause for concern, if not alarm. One of the biggest cash supporters of Svalbard is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is only so far the only investment of that foundation that I can applaud, so much of the Microsoft money has gone into ventures that oppress people and rob us of our genetic diversity.

One of which is Monsanto. The Gates own some 500,000 shares of the bio-tech giant and a former Monsanto vice-president joined the Gates Foundation as a senior program office applying technology to increase crop yields in Africa.

With their economic clout, who can definitively say there will never be a time when the purpose of Svalbard might be corrupted to help Monsanto control more genetic material? I won't t cast aspersions on Svalbard, but I believe that Gates' sense of right and wrong has certain 'capitalistic' limitations. And Monsanto? I believe they have no moral compass whatsoever and stealing the future from a baby's mouth means nothing, literally, to them if profit can be realized. The United States has the finest government Monsanto can buy. How else do we explain we are the only first world nation that has allowed these suspect crops to proliferate through out our food system?  And our bodies?

One of the side effects of a seed library is that we exclude all genetically modified seeds. When you get seed from SLOLA, you are getting open-pollinated seed that will produce clean, healthy food. And when you follow some simple steps, you return clean, healthy seed to the library that will be distributed next year.

For a healthy future, for a future free of genetic modification, grow organic open pollinated seeds. For your children, join the library and help save seeds for the future!

david

Avoiding Monsanto Seeds

For the home gardener, avoiding Monsanto's Genetically Modified seeds is pretty easy:  they are not sold in quantities a home gardener can purchase and purchasers of GM products are required to sign a contract assuring Monsanto that you won't try to replant the seeds of your crop.  

However, Monsanto purchased the seed seller called 'Seminis,' itself a purchaser of a multitude of smaller seed purveyors.  Seminis' purchases made them the owner of a good many patents on seeds that are among the nation's favorites.  To be very clear, these are not genetically modified seeds.  There is no harm in planting them except the profit made on your purchase of these seeds goes to support Monsanto's research, Monsanto's lawyers and Monsanto's mission of subjugating of those in the world who wish to eat.

Go to the Seminis website and look at the list of seeds owned by Seminis, if you want.  

Some of the offending seeds are, using tomatoes as an example:  Amsterdam, Beefmaster, Betterboy, Big Beef, Burpee’s Big Boy, Caramba, Celebrity, Cupid, Early Girl, Granny Smith, Health Kick, Husky Cherry Red, Jetsetter brand of Jack, Lemon Boy, Margharita, Margo, Marmande VF PS, Marmara, Patio, Phoenix, Poseidon 43, Roma VF, Royesta, Sun Sugar, Super Marzano, Sweet Baby Girl, Tiffany, Tye-Dye, Viva Italia, and Yaqui.  This list was copied directly from the Seminis site.  Don't confuse 'Super Marzano' with San Marzano, I did for a second and it freaked me out.

The other way of avoiding Seminis/Monsanto seeds is to simply buy only open pollinated seeds.  Some of these are called 'heirloom.'  But any seed packet bearing the words "Hybrid" or "F1" are suspect.  Monsanto, or anyone else for that matter, cannot patent any seed that is not a hybrid or F1. By buying open pollinated seeds, you have avoided any chance of buying a seed patented by anyone, thus insuring you've avoided buying seeds that profit Monsanto/Seminis.

I would love to see some organic seed growers work to create open pollinated versions of some of these seeds... Buy one packet and work with succeeding generations to create a variety that has the 'improved' qualities of the patented seed without having to buy the seeds year in and year out.  It will be incumbent on us to get open-pollinated varieties of seeds that embody some of these improvements if we are to succeed in creating a food system that is fair and equitable, and, for SLOLA, that's the bottom line.  I would love to do that with 'Viva Italia' a paste tomato I grew before I was aware it was in the Monsanto lineup.  It's a good tomato and its qualities should be available to anyone who wants to eat a tomato with its traits.

Join us and learn how to beat Monsanto at it's own game.  This isn't just about 'not buying Monsanto' seeds and feeding the beast.  SLOLA is here to help create a new viable food system available for all Americans no matter economic status.  It isn't right that being poor deprives anyone of non-tainted food.

david

Monsanto Corn Plant Losing Bug Resistance

This article appears in the Wall Street Journal, so it's not a "lefty rag" telling us about how frightening the Monsanto plan for humanity is and how unintended consequences could be what ultimately take down our agriculture. We still don't know what we don't know.

Although I do not think the WSJ will appreciate my doing so, I am posting the entire article, in case it falls behind a paywall after today.

By SCOTT KILMAN

Widely grown corn plants that Monsanto Co. genetically modified to thwart a voracious bug are falling prey to that very pest in a few Iowa fields, the first time a major Midwest scourge has developed resistance to a genetically modified crop.

The discovery raises concerns that the way some farmers are using biotech crops could spawn superbugs.

Iowa State University entomologist Aaron Gassmann's discovery that western corn rootworms in four northeast Iowa fields have evolved to resist the natural pesticide made by Monsanto's corn plant could encourage some farmers to switch to insect-proof seeds sold by competitors of the St. Louis crop biotechnology giant, and to return to spraying harsher synthetic insecticides on their fields.

"These are isolated cases, and it isn't clear how widespread the problem will become," said Dr. Gassmann in an interview. "But it is an early warning that management practices need to change."

The finding adds fuel to the race among crop biotechnology rivals to locate the next generation of genes that can protect plants from insects. Scientists at Monsanto and Syngenta AG of Basel, Switzerland, are already researching how to use a medical breakthrough called RNA interference to, among other things, make crops deadly for insects to eat. If this works, a bug munching on such a plant could ingest genetic code that turns off one of its essential genes.

Monsanto said its rootworm-resistant corn seed lines are working as it expected "on more than 99% of the acres planted with this technology" and that it is too early to know what the Iowa State University study means for farmers.

The discovery comes amid a debate about whether the genetically modified crops that now saturate the Farm Belt are changing how some farmers operate in undesirable ways.

These insect-proof and herbicide-resistant crops make farming so much easier that many growers rely heavily on the technology, violating a basic tenet of pest management, which warns that using one method year after year gives more opportunity for pests to adapt.

Monsanto is already at the center of this issue because of its success since the 1990s marketing seeds that grow into crops that can survive exposure to its Roundup herbicide, a glyphosate-based chemical known for its ability to kill almost anything green.

These seeds made it so convenient for farmers to spray Roundup that many farmers stopped using other weedkillers. As a result, say many scientists, superweeds immune to Roundup have spread to millions of acres in more than 20 states in the South and Midwest.

Monsanto became the first company to sell rootworm-resistant biotech corn to farmers in 2003. The seed contains a gene from a common soil microorganism called Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, from which crop biotechnology has been used to mine several genes for making insecticidal proteins.

One of the genes Monsanto developed makes a crystalline protein called Cry3Bb1. It rips apart the gut of the rootworm but is harmless to mammals, birds and most beneficial insects. Competitors, which use other Bt genes to attack the rootworm, estimate that roughly one-third of the corn grown in the U.S. carries Monsanto's Cry3Bb1 gene.

Monsanto said it generated world-wide sales of $4.26 billion from corn seed and biotechnology traits, about 40% of its overall sales, in its last full year.

Until insecticide-producing corn plants arrived, Midwest farmers typically tried to keep pests like the corn borer and the rootworm in check by changing what they grew in a field each year, often rotating between corn and soybeans. That way, the offspring of corn-loving insects would starve the next year.

Some farmers began to plant corn in the same field year after year. The financial incentive to grow corn has increased in recent years in part because the ethanol-fuel industry's exploding appetite for corn has helped to lift prices to very profitable levels for growers.

According to Dr. Gassmann, the Iowa fields in which he found rootworms resistant to the Cry3Bb1 toxin had been producing Monsanto's Bt-expressing corn continuously for at least three years. Dr. Gassmann collected rootworm beetles from four Iowa cornfields with plant damage in 2009. Their larvae were then fed corn containing Monsanto's Cry3Bb1 toxin. They had a survival rate three times that of control larvae that ate the same corn.

Dr. Gassmann found that Monsanto's Bt toxin still had some lethal impact on the larvae from the problem Iowa fields, and that the bugs were still highly susceptible to a rootworm-resistant corn plant from a competitor that uses a different Bt toxin, called Cry34/35Ab1.

Scientists in other Farm Belt states are also looking for signs that Monsanto's Bt corn might be losing its effectiveness. Mike Gray, a University of Illinois entomologist, said he is studying rootworm beetles he collected in northwest Illinois earlier this month from fields where Monsanto's Bt-expressing corn had suffered extensive rootworm damage.

The government requires that farmers who plant the genetically modified corn take certain steps aimed at preventing insects from developing resistance. Farmers are told to create a refuge for the bugs by planting non-modified corn in part of their fields. The refuge, which can be as much as 20% of a farmer's field, is supposed to reduce the chances that two toxin-resistant bugs mate and pass along that trait to their offspring.

Dr. Gray said the confirmation of toxin-resistant rootworms in Iowa could force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to revisit its policy of allowing the size of these insect refuges to shrink to as little as 5% of a cornfield as crop biotechnology companies begin to sell seed for corn plants that can make two different rootworm-killing toxins.

Part of what has attracted some farmers to Monsanto's new SmartStax corn line is that it allows them to plant a smaller refuge. But one of the two anti-rootworm toxins in that variety is the Cry3Bb1 protein at the center of Dr. Gassmann's study.

The EPA said it is too early to comment on any implications arising from Dr. Gassmann's paper.

Write to Scott Kilman at scott.kilman@wsj.com

The GREAT SEED ROBBERY by Vandana Shiva

The seed, the source of life, the embodiment of our biological and cultural diversity, the link between the past and the future of evolution, the common property of past, present and future generations of farming communities who have been seed breeders, is today being stolen from the farmers and being sold back to us as “propriety seed” owned by corporations like the US-headquartered Monsanto. (read the rest at this link)

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/editorial/dc-comment/great-seed-robbery-394