Cuba's Urban Farming Program a Stunning Success
With Food Prices Soaring, Cuba's Urban Farms Could Be A Model For The World
By NIKO PRICE Associated Press Writer
HAVANA June 8, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press
For Miladis Bouza, the global food crisis arrived two decades ago. Now, her efforts to climb out of it could serve as a model for people around the world struggling to feed their families.
Farmers work in an onion field at a hydroponic farm which uses specialized irrigation methods to... Expand
Farmers work in an onion field at a hydroponic farm which uses specialized irrigation methods to grow vegetables in smaller, non-rural areas, in Havana, Thursday, May 15, 2008. The future of urban farming in Cuba is looking brighter than ever. Now that Raul Castro is president, many expect him to expand the program he began as an experiment in the early 1990s.
Bouza was a research biologist, living a solidly middle-class existence, when the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the halt of its subsidized food shipments to Cuba — effectively cut her government salary to $3 a month. Suddenly, a trip to the grocery store was out of reach.
So she quit her job, and under a program championed by then-Defense Minister Raul Castro, asked the government for the right to farm an overgrown, half-acre lot near her Havana home. Now, her husband tends rows of tomatoes, sweet potatoes and spinach, while Bouza, 48, sells the produce at a stall on a busy street.
Neighbors are happy with cheap vegetables fresh from the field. Bouza never lacks for fresh produce, and she pulls in between $100 to $250 a month — many times the average government salary of $19.
"All that money is mine," she said. "The only thing I have to buy is protein" — meat.
Cuba's urban farming program has been a stunning, and surprising, success. The farms, many of them on tiny plots like Bouza's, now supply much of Cuba's vegetables. They also provide 350,000 jobs nationwide with relatively high pay and have transformed eating habits in a nation accustomed to a less-than-ideal diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe.
From 1989-93, Cubans went from eating an average of 3,004 calories a day to only 2,323, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, as shelves emptied of the Soviet goods that made up two-thirds of Cuba's food. Today, they eat 3,547 calories a day — more than what the U.S. government recommends for American citizens.
"It's a really interesting model looking at what's possible in a nation that's 80 percent urban," said Catherine Murphy, a California sociologist who spent a decade studying farms in Havana. "It shows that cities can produce huge amounts of their own food, and you get all kinds of social and ecological benefits."
Of course, urban farms might not be such a success in a healthy, competitive economy.
A farmer works at a hydroponic farm which uses specialized irrigation methods to grow vegetables in... Expand
A farmer works at a hydroponic farm which uses specialized irrigation methods to grow vegetables in smaller, non-rural areas, in Havana, Thursday, May 15, 2008. The future of urban farming in Cuba is looking brighter than ever. Now that Raul Castro is president, many expect him to expand the program he began as an experiment in the early 1990s. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano) Collapse
(AP)
As it is, productivity is low at Cuba's large, state-run farms where workers lack incentives. Government-supplied rations — mostly imported from the U.S. — provide such staples as rice, beans and cooking oil, but not fresh produce. Importers bring in only what central planners want, so the market doesn't correct for gaps. And since most land is owned by the state, developers are not competing for the vacant lots that can become plots for vegetables.
Still, experts say the basic idea behind urban farming has a lot of promise.
"It's land that otherwise would be sitting idle. It requires little or no transportation to get (produce) to market," said Bill Messina, an agricultural economist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "It's good anyway you look at it."
And with fuel prices and food shortages causing unrest and hunger across the world, many say the Cuban model should spread.
"There are certain issues where we think Cuba has a lot to teach the world. Urban agriculture is one of them," said Beat Schmid, coordinator of Cuba programs for the charity Oxfam International.
Other countries have experimented with urban farming — Cuba's initial steps were modeled after a green belt surrounding Shanghai. But nowhere has urban farming been used so widely to transform the way a country feeds itself.
"As the global food crisis receives attention, this is something that we need to be looking at," Murphy said. "Havana is an unlikely, really successful model where no one would expect one to come from."
Now that Raul Castro is president, many expect him to expand the program he began as an experiment in the early 1990s.
One of the first plots he opened was the "organoponico" on Fifth Avenue and 44th Street in the ritzy Havana neighborhood of Miramar. The half-block farm — owned by a government agency — is surrounded by apartment buildings and houses, but also offices of foreign companies, a Spanish bank and the South African Embassy.
Long troughs brim with arugula, spinach, radishes and basil, and few of the 20,000 square feet are wasted.
A farmer works at a hydroponic farm which uses specialized irrigation methods to grow vegetables in... Expand
A farmer works at a hydroponic farm which uses specialized irrigation methods to grow vegetables in smaller, non-rural areas, in Havana, Thursday, May 15, 2008. The future of urban farming in Cuba is looking brighter than ever. Now that Raul Castro is president, many expect him to expand the program he bagan as an experiment in the early 1990s. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano) Collapse
(AP)
One technician tends compost that serves as natural fertilizer, while another handles natural protection from pests, surrounding delicate spinach shoots with strong-smelling celery to ward off insects. Such measures have ecological benefits but were born of necessity: Neither commercial fertilizer nor herbicide is reliably available.
Three workers tend the crops and another three sell them from a brightly painted stall.
Key to the operation is something once unheard of in Cuba: 80 percent of the profits go straight to the workers' pockets, providing them an average of $71 a month.
"Those salaries are higher than doctors, than lawyers," said Roberto Perez, the 58-year-old agronomist who runs the farm. "The more they produce, the more they make. That's fundamental to get high productivity."
Customers say the farm has given them not only access to affordable food, but also a radical change in their cuisine.
"Nobody used to eat vegetables," said David Leon, 50, buying two pounds of Swiss chard. "People's nutrition has improved a lot. It's a lot healthier. And it tastes good."
———
Associated Press Writer Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Food Crisis and Genetically Modified Seeds
The Food Crisis and Genetically Modified Seeds
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / June 6, 2008 edition
thenazareneway to Communions
Opposition to genetically modified (GM) foods, still strongest in Europe, is starting to erode in the face of the global food crisis. But the pressure for change, so far, is more economic than political.
Indeed, it was the political fighting over biofuels, farm subsidies, and trade policies, that threatened to undermine the efforts of 40 world leaders seeking a solution to soaring food costs at a UN summit in Rome that ended last Thursday.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) asked governments to provide at least $20 billion a year to revive world agriculture research, to help feed nearly 1 billion hungry people, and to spark a new "green revolution." But what advocates describe as a promising solution to hunger – GM foods – did not get much play in Rome, save its promotion by US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer.
Partly this is because genetically modified crops are not regarded as an immediate answer to farming problems in poor regions; partly it is because genetic alteration remains controversial. Europe bans most of the use and growth of crops whose seeds have been modified with genes of other organisms to make them more resilient.
Yet the economics of the food crisis may already be forcing changes in Europe, and in smaller farm nations, experts say. For the first time, Japan and Korea are allowing snack and drink manufacturers to quietly start using GM corn, after prices for non-GM corn doubled last year.
In Europe, growing numbers of farmers and corporations (such as BASF in Germany, which has a genetic potato ready to introduce) are pushing the European Union – including threats of legal action – to ease restrictions on using GM produce.
Legislators in France, Europe's No. 1 farming nation, nearly came to blows May 22, when a bill to allow GM crops passed by a single vote; yet France will now only allow GM crops once the EU accepts them, a position that has vacillated for years, despite a green light by the EU food safety agency.
Genetically modified foods are commonplace in the US, China, Brazil, and Argentina – in processed foods, oils, and corn syrup. In US farming states, such as Minnesota last year, harvests of GM soybeans and GM corn made up 92 and 86 percent of those crops, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
By comparison, last year GM crops covered less than 1 percent of the farmland in France.
But views of genetic modification vary across Europe. Eurobarometer, a European Commission periodical, said in March that 58 percent of Europeans are opposed to the use of GM crops. But opinion in The Netherlands and Britain is less strident. Some Spanish farms are using engineered seeds. European farmers themselves (like those in Australia recently) are starting to say that tangible profits resulting from GM crops are changing their minds. A recent poll shows Italian farmers are willing to try them.
US officials and farmers alike express irritation over cases of food aid rejected in hungry African states – by local authorities worried about the contamination of crops by GM grains, making them unfit for sale in lucrative non-GM -food European markets.
South Africa is the only African nation that has approved planting a GM crop, though Burkina Faso may be close to approving a cotton strain, following its widespread use in India, and Egypt is looking at GM maize, according to the Financial Times.
At the summit in Rome, the FAO took no position on genetic modification or GMOs (genetically modified organisms). The organization takes a neutral position allowing choice by each nation. "Traditional farming techniques can close the yield gap between developing and developed nation farming, which is sometimes double," says FAO spokesman Ali Gurkan. "But new research into GM seeds that have no harmful impact on the environment and strengthen plants in drought areas – this could greatly help."
The GM dispute, complicated enough at a technical level, goes far deeper than food. It reveals profound clashes over science and culture, and over fundamental views about how to live in and organize the modern world, experts say.
"There's a deep divide over the role of technology in agriculture, and GMOs are the key," says an FAO official who was not officially cleared to speak. But he said that when GM and non-GM crops are studied side by side, the GM crops have consistently cost less to produce and brought greater "effective" yields, "which is how much you get after the bugs have stopped chewing on them," he says.
For advocates, GM crops mean fewer harmful pesticides sprayed on crops, less fertilizer, greater harvest yields, and no ill- health effects. Biotech promises a future of drought resistant crops and cheaper, less vulnerable harvests.
For skeptics, mixing the genes of unlike species is a usurping of nature, the creation of Frankensteins in the food chain, and a concession to giant agribusiness. Genetic manipulation has unknown and untested effects on people and other living things, they argue, and can harm everything from soil and friendly insects to other crops. It also smacks of the blind faith in technology that brought global warming, poisonous rivers, and choking pollution. A UN report in 2005 found that "assessment mechanisms were faulty" in the testing of GMOs.
"GM foods have not lived up to the promises we heard about 10 years ago," says Helen Holder of Friends of the Earth in Brussels. "They have not alleviated poverty and hunger, and their environmental and health impacts are not understood. In Europe, we will pay more for safe food, and we reject GM."
In the US, China, and Brazil, there are now roughly two generations of genetically modified crops. The first generation, marketed for a decade, includes most of what is actually grown on mass scale. This includes corn, soy, rapeseed (for canola oil), and cotton. First-generation GM crops consist mostly of plants modified to produce "internal toxins" that deter the pests that threaten crops, experts say.
While few scientists will absolutely guarantee the safety of genetic foods, they point out almost no side effects to human health. It is the effects on other plant species – that may be dominated and replaced in the natural world by GM crops – that concern some ecologists.
GMO and Cross-Breeding
Conventional plant breeding alters the genes of a plant or animal by selectively mating an organism with desirable characteristics using a species' natural reproductive processes.
Genetic engineering alters a plant's genes using techniques that directly insert new genetic material, which may come from another species, into a plant cell to create new or modified traits. Scientists first discovered the technique in 1973 and genetically modified food crops first became commercially available to farmers in the mid-1990s.
Source: Wire reports, Consumers Union.
– Compiled by Christine Chronopoulos
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/06/06/food-crisis-softens-resistance-to-genetically-modified-gm-food/
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / June 6, 2008 edition
thenazareneway to Communions
Opposition to genetically modified (GM) foods, still strongest in Europe, is starting to erode in the face of the global food crisis. But the pressure for change, so far, is more economic than political.
Indeed, it was the political fighting over biofuels, farm subsidies, and trade policies, that threatened to undermine the efforts of 40 world leaders seeking a solution to soaring food costs at a UN summit in Rome that ended last Thursday.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) asked governments to provide at least $20 billion a year to revive world agriculture research, to help feed nearly 1 billion hungry people, and to spark a new "green revolution." But what advocates describe as a promising solution to hunger – GM foods – did not get much play in Rome, save its promotion by US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer.
Partly this is because genetically modified crops are not regarded as an immediate answer to farming problems in poor regions; partly it is because genetic alteration remains controversial. Europe bans most of the use and growth of crops whose seeds have been modified with genes of other organisms to make them more resilient.
Yet the economics of the food crisis may already be forcing changes in Europe, and in smaller farm nations, experts say. For the first time, Japan and Korea are allowing snack and drink manufacturers to quietly start using GM corn, after prices for non-GM corn doubled last year.
In Europe, growing numbers of farmers and corporations (such as BASF in Germany, which has a genetic potato ready to introduce) are pushing the European Union – including threats of legal action – to ease restrictions on using GM produce.
Legislators in France, Europe's No. 1 farming nation, nearly came to blows May 22, when a bill to allow GM crops passed by a single vote; yet France will now only allow GM crops once the EU accepts them, a position that has vacillated for years, despite a green light by the EU food safety agency.
Genetically modified foods are commonplace in the US, China, Brazil, and Argentina – in processed foods, oils, and corn syrup. In US farming states, such as Minnesota last year, harvests of GM soybeans and GM corn made up 92 and 86 percent of those crops, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
By comparison, last year GM crops covered less than 1 percent of the farmland in France.
But views of genetic modification vary across Europe. Eurobarometer, a European Commission periodical, said in March that 58 percent of Europeans are opposed to the use of GM crops. But opinion in The Netherlands and Britain is less strident. Some Spanish farms are using engineered seeds. European farmers themselves (like those in Australia recently) are starting to say that tangible profits resulting from GM crops are changing their minds. A recent poll shows Italian farmers are willing to try them.
US officials and farmers alike express irritation over cases of food aid rejected in hungry African states – by local authorities worried about the contamination of crops by GM grains, making them unfit for sale in lucrative non-GM -food European markets.
South Africa is the only African nation that has approved planting a GM crop, though Burkina Faso may be close to approving a cotton strain, following its widespread use in India, and Egypt is looking at GM maize, according to the Financial Times.
At the summit in Rome, the FAO took no position on genetic modification or GMOs (genetically modified organisms). The organization takes a neutral position allowing choice by each nation. "Traditional farming techniques can close the yield gap between developing and developed nation farming, which is sometimes double," says FAO spokesman Ali Gurkan. "But new research into GM seeds that have no harmful impact on the environment and strengthen plants in drought areas – this could greatly help."
The GM dispute, complicated enough at a technical level, goes far deeper than food. It reveals profound clashes over science and culture, and over fundamental views about how to live in and organize the modern world, experts say.
"There's a deep divide over the role of technology in agriculture, and GMOs are the key," says an FAO official who was not officially cleared to speak. But he said that when GM and non-GM crops are studied side by side, the GM crops have consistently cost less to produce and brought greater "effective" yields, "which is how much you get after the bugs have stopped chewing on them," he says.
For advocates, GM crops mean fewer harmful pesticides sprayed on crops, less fertilizer, greater harvest yields, and no ill- health effects. Biotech promises a future of drought resistant crops and cheaper, less vulnerable harvests.
For skeptics, mixing the genes of unlike species is a usurping of nature, the creation of Frankensteins in the food chain, and a concession to giant agribusiness. Genetic manipulation has unknown and untested effects on people and other living things, they argue, and can harm everything from soil and friendly insects to other crops. It also smacks of the blind faith in technology that brought global warming, poisonous rivers, and choking pollution. A UN report in 2005 found that "assessment mechanisms were faulty" in the testing of GMOs.
"GM foods have not lived up to the promises we heard about 10 years ago," says Helen Holder of Friends of the Earth in Brussels. "They have not alleviated poverty and hunger, and their environmental and health impacts are not understood. In Europe, we will pay more for safe food, and we reject GM."
In the US, China, and Brazil, there are now roughly two generations of genetically modified crops. The first generation, marketed for a decade, includes most of what is actually grown on mass scale. This includes corn, soy, rapeseed (for canola oil), and cotton. First-generation GM crops consist mostly of plants modified to produce "internal toxins" that deter the pests that threaten crops, experts say.
While few scientists will absolutely guarantee the safety of genetic foods, they point out almost no side effects to human health. It is the effects on other plant species – that may be dominated and replaced in the natural world by GM crops – that concern some ecologists.
GMO and Cross-Breeding
Conventional plant breeding alters the genes of a plant or animal by selectively mating an organism with desirable characteristics using a species' natural reproductive processes.
Genetic engineering alters a plant's genes using techniques that directly insert new genetic material, which may come from another species, into a plant cell to create new or modified traits. Scientists first discovered the technique in 1973 and genetically modified food crops first became commercially available to farmers in the mid-1990s.
Source: Wire reports, Consumers Union.
– Compiled by Christine Chronopoulos
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/06/06/food-crisis-softens-resistance-to-genetically-modified-gm-food/
Friday, June 6, 2008
The Failure of the U.N. Food Crisis Summit
The Failure of the U.N. Food Crisis Summit
thenazareneway to Communions
The global food crisis summit hosted by the United Nations has failed to reach any formal agreement on combating hunger threatening over a billion people.
Delegates from 183 countries at the three-day talks in Rome were supposed to issue a declaration Thursday on "eliminating hunger and securing food for all."
But bickering over trade barriers, the use of genetically modified crops and geopolitics has raised the prospect of the summit being a complete failure.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization called the meeting to seek ways to secure food supplies in the face of poor harvests, rising fuel costs and rising demand, especially from rapidly developing Asian countries.
Commodity prices have doubled over past few years and put 100 million people at risk of joining the 850 million already going hungry, according to the World Bank.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Wednesday he doubted the U.N. food crisis summit in Rome would yield a "positive agreement" as countries squabbled over wording of a joint declaration.
What was supposed to be an emergency conference on food shortages, climate change and energy turned into a global podium for powerful politicians to grandstand mostly about economic issues in their own countries and political priorities, the New York Times reported.
"Everyone complained about other people's protectionism - and defended their own," Andrew Martin and Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote.
Many representatives of poorer countries expressed frustration at the tenor of the meeting.
"We believe the problem is much more political than everything else," Walter Poveda Ricaurte, agriculture minister of Ecuador, told the Times. "We have to differentiate between the countries who are really affected by the food crisis and those who are seeing it as an economic opportunity."
Despite repeated urgings at the summit to stop talking about hunger and take action, it was the wording of the final document that threatened to undermine the talks' success.
"We mustn't give in to panic ... to surrender to the temptation for short-term solutions, even if we have to respond to a situation of distress," European Union aid commissioner Louis Michel told the summit, according to Agence France-Presse.
Biofuels were the most contentious issue at the summit, with the United States and Brazil defending their use of maize and sugarcane, respectively, to produce fuel. Washington acknowledges this contributes to food inflation, but says the impact is marginal.
The final declaration was likely to appease both sides with talk of the "challenges and opportunities" of biofuels, which U.S. agriculture official Schafer called "acceptable".
The wrangling over diplomatic language came after U.N. officials announced almost $3 billion of new aid to help ease the food crisis.
Those new pledges were welcomed, but U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon warned that up to $20 billion a year would be needed. "We simply cannot afford to fail," he told the summit.
Differences over GM
The unacknowledged new world empire - that of the USA - is flexing its muscles on the GM food issue.
The biggest divisions at the Rome conference are over two issues - genetically modified crops and biofuels - and, on both, the US stands on the side of the new technologies. It believes GM food to be safe and is subsidising the planting of biofuel crops. Within 10 years, 40% of US maize production will go on biofuels
Africa's resistance to growing GM food is in large part led by resistance in Europe. If African countries cannot export food to Europe, then they want no part of the new technology.
But that is not the whole story.
One of the most hi-tech GM laboratories in the world is in Uganda.
When I visited it, the technicians were looking for a cure for a blight called "banana wilt", which devastates growth of the large green bananas that are a big source of protein in East Africa.
In a laboratory, under bright artificial sunlight, thousands of tiny banana trees were being injected and dissected by white-coated lab assistants, who were all Ugandan, as was the management.
But the funding was all from the USA, rolling out its technology where it legally can.
'Strings attached'
Here in Rome, Kenya's agriculture minister said that this was the kind of technology that Africa needs.
Finding a solution to the problem of feeding nine billion people... will take more than the dynamism of empires to achieve. But it comes with strings attached. GM crops require fertilisers and other specialised products to keep them going and they all come from the USA.
And crops that need planting every year, like wheat and rice, need to have all of their seed replaced annually by new seed and that too comes from the USA.
That would be a major change in practice for small farmers, who up to now have always retained part of their harvest to replant during the following season.
A UN scientific examination of the way forward in agriculture earlier this year concluded that, where new technology is tried, it needs to be both sustainable and appropriate, building on what is known in Africa, rather than imposing solutions that may depend on US technology.
Biofuels versus Food
With land scarce, food is increasingly competing against biofuels, once thought to be a magic solution to reducing the world's dependence on oil and coal, but now causing more questions to be asked, because of the amount of energy needed to convert the plants to fuel.
Three-quarters of the increase in US maize production last year went on biofuels.
And the growth in planting crops for biofuels worldwide last year has been identified by the report on the table at this conference as one of the main causes of the runaway rise in food prices during the first 3 months of this year.
African countries are asking why their hungry people are having to pay more for food when the USA is subsidising growth of crops for biofuels.
The talks this week have been taking place amid the ruins of another empire, that of ancient Rome, which began its decline and fall when the demand for grain to feed a city of more than a million people became impossible to sustain.
---- Compiled from wire reports and other media sources
thenazareneway to Communions
The global food crisis summit hosted by the United Nations has failed to reach any formal agreement on combating hunger threatening over a billion people.
Delegates from 183 countries at the three-day talks in Rome were supposed to issue a declaration Thursday on "eliminating hunger and securing food for all."
But bickering over trade barriers, the use of genetically modified crops and geopolitics has raised the prospect of the summit being a complete failure.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization called the meeting to seek ways to secure food supplies in the face of poor harvests, rising fuel costs and rising demand, especially from rapidly developing Asian countries.
Commodity prices have doubled over past few years and put 100 million people at risk of joining the 850 million already going hungry, according to the World Bank.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Wednesday he doubted the U.N. food crisis summit in Rome would yield a "positive agreement" as countries squabbled over wording of a joint declaration.
What was supposed to be an emergency conference on food shortages, climate change and energy turned into a global podium for powerful politicians to grandstand mostly about economic issues in their own countries and political priorities, the New York Times reported.
"Everyone complained about other people's protectionism - and defended their own," Andrew Martin and Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote.
Many representatives of poorer countries expressed frustration at the tenor of the meeting.
"We believe the problem is much more political than everything else," Walter Poveda Ricaurte, agriculture minister of Ecuador, told the Times. "We have to differentiate between the countries who are really affected by the food crisis and those who are seeing it as an economic opportunity."
Despite repeated urgings at the summit to stop talking about hunger and take action, it was the wording of the final document that threatened to undermine the talks' success.
"We mustn't give in to panic ... to surrender to the temptation for short-term solutions, even if we have to respond to a situation of distress," European Union aid commissioner Louis Michel told the summit, according to Agence France-Presse.
Biofuels were the most contentious issue at the summit, with the United States and Brazil defending their use of maize and sugarcane, respectively, to produce fuel. Washington acknowledges this contributes to food inflation, but says the impact is marginal.
The final declaration was likely to appease both sides with talk of the "challenges and opportunities" of biofuels, which U.S. agriculture official Schafer called "acceptable".
The wrangling over diplomatic language came after U.N. officials announced almost $3 billion of new aid to help ease the food crisis.
Those new pledges were welcomed, but U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon warned that up to $20 billion a year would be needed. "We simply cannot afford to fail," he told the summit.
Differences over GM
The unacknowledged new world empire - that of the USA - is flexing its muscles on the GM food issue.
The biggest divisions at the Rome conference are over two issues - genetically modified crops and biofuels - and, on both, the US stands on the side of the new technologies. It believes GM food to be safe and is subsidising the planting of biofuel crops. Within 10 years, 40% of US maize production will go on biofuels
Africa's resistance to growing GM food is in large part led by resistance in Europe. If African countries cannot export food to Europe, then they want no part of the new technology.
But that is not the whole story.
One of the most hi-tech GM laboratories in the world is in Uganda.
When I visited it, the technicians were looking for a cure for a blight called "banana wilt", which devastates growth of the large green bananas that are a big source of protein in East Africa.
In a laboratory, under bright artificial sunlight, thousands of tiny banana trees were being injected and dissected by white-coated lab assistants, who were all Ugandan, as was the management.
But the funding was all from the USA, rolling out its technology where it legally can.
'Strings attached'
Here in Rome, Kenya's agriculture minister said that this was the kind of technology that Africa needs.
Finding a solution to the problem of feeding nine billion people... will take more than the dynamism of empires to achieve. But it comes with strings attached. GM crops require fertilisers and other specialised products to keep them going and they all come from the USA.
And crops that need planting every year, like wheat and rice, need to have all of their seed replaced annually by new seed and that too comes from the USA.
That would be a major change in practice for small farmers, who up to now have always retained part of their harvest to replant during the following season.
A UN scientific examination of the way forward in agriculture earlier this year concluded that, where new technology is tried, it needs to be both sustainable and appropriate, building on what is known in Africa, rather than imposing solutions that may depend on US technology.
Biofuels versus Food
With land scarce, food is increasingly competing against biofuels, once thought to be a magic solution to reducing the world's dependence on oil and coal, but now causing more questions to be asked, because of the amount of energy needed to convert the plants to fuel.
Three-quarters of the increase in US maize production last year went on biofuels.
And the growth in planting crops for biofuels worldwide last year has been identified by the report on the table at this conference as one of the main causes of the runaway rise in food prices during the first 3 months of this year.
African countries are asking why their hungry people are having to pay more for food when the USA is subsidising growth of crops for biofuels.
The talks this week have been taking place amid the ruins of another empire, that of ancient Rome, which began its decline and fall when the demand for grain to feed a city of more than a million people became impossible to sustain.
---- Compiled from wire reports and other media sources
Thursday, June 5, 2008
The Food Crisis and Genetically Modified Rice
The Food Crisis and Genetically Modified Rice
4 Jun, 2008, 0218 hrs IST, REUTERS
(thenazareneway to Communions )
LOS BANOS-PHILIPPINES: Some rice-producing nations may drop their reluctance to use genetically modified (GM) seeds to help offset a crisis that has forced millions to go hungry, a top expert said.
"If we consider the challenges that face us, I think we would be very foolish and actually irresponsible to not invest in the development of GM crops," said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on Tuesday, adding "I think that governments will take a hard look and say why again are we dragging our feet in adopting GM technology?".
World leaders may discuss GM organisms at this week's food crisis summit in Rome but they are unlikely to be presented as part of the solution to soaring food prices amid opposition by some environmental groups to what they see as "Frankenfoods".
GM crops, which use genes from other plants and other organisms to effect special traits, are widely grown in North America and parts of South America, including cotton, a source of vegetable cooking oil, as well as corn and soy beans.
But European and Asian states have largely held off embracing GM technology for food amid skepticism about its safety. As yet, no GM rice is grown commercially but Zeigler said that could change, at the earliest two years from now, with the world's top two producers, China and India, likely leading the charge.
"I will be very interested in seeing how China reacts over the next year. They have a transgenic insect-resistant rice that's ready for release. They have been delaying that because of pressures from the anti-GM lobby. I will be interested to see how they respond," he said, adding "There are also a number of transgenic crops coming up in India. The furthest along is the eggplant. Rice is also coming along."
China and India have already adopted Bt cotton, which is engineered to resist certain insects and earlier this year, South Korea started purchasing GM corn for food.
Zeigler dismissed anti-GM groups' arguments about safety.
"We have seen no adverse effects on human health or the environment anywhere that have been demonstrated with any scientific credibility."
The Philippines-based IRRI hopes to make its own GM Golden Rice, enriched with Vitamin A, available to farmers by 2011. IRRI kick-started the so-called Green Revolution in the late 1960s with the development of high-yielding rice seeds which multiplied harvests of Asia's food staple and enabled countries such as Thailand and China to industrialize.
With international rice prices nearly tripling this year due to rising demand and export curbs by producer nations, Zeigler believes a second Green Revolution is necessary.
Nearly half the world's population depend on rice to survive and demand for the grain, which is eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner in parts of Asia, is expected to jump 50% by 2030.
In addition to improving crop management, post-harvest technologies and irrigation, Zeigler also believes that GM technology is part of the solution.
He admits, however, that like others in the scientific community, he has been reluctant to sing GM's praises too loudly for fear of a backlash from anti-GM groups. "We are all very wary of being misquoted as saying that GM is a single bullet magic solution for all the world's food ills. None of us believe that."
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Food_crisis_may_open_the_door_to_GM_rice/rssarticleshow/3097634.cms
4 Jun, 2008, 0218 hrs IST, REUTERS
(thenazareneway to Communions )
LOS BANOS-PHILIPPINES: Some rice-producing nations may drop their reluctance to use genetically modified (GM) seeds to help offset a crisis that has forced millions to go hungry, a top expert said.
"If we consider the challenges that face us, I think we would be very foolish and actually irresponsible to not invest in the development of GM crops," said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on Tuesday, adding "I think that governments will take a hard look and say why again are we dragging our feet in adopting GM technology?".
World leaders may discuss GM organisms at this week's food crisis summit in Rome but they are unlikely to be presented as part of the solution to soaring food prices amid opposition by some environmental groups to what they see as "Frankenfoods".
GM crops, which use genes from other plants and other organisms to effect special traits, are widely grown in North America and parts of South America, including cotton, a source of vegetable cooking oil, as well as corn and soy beans.
But European and Asian states have largely held off embracing GM technology for food amid skepticism about its safety. As yet, no GM rice is grown commercially but Zeigler said that could change, at the earliest two years from now, with the world's top two producers, China and India, likely leading the charge.
"I will be very interested in seeing how China reacts over the next year. They have a transgenic insect-resistant rice that's ready for release. They have been delaying that because of pressures from the anti-GM lobby. I will be interested to see how they respond," he said, adding "There are also a number of transgenic crops coming up in India. The furthest along is the eggplant. Rice is also coming along."
China and India have already adopted Bt cotton, which is engineered to resist certain insects and earlier this year, South Korea started purchasing GM corn for food.
Zeigler dismissed anti-GM groups' arguments about safety.
"We have seen no adverse effects on human health or the environment anywhere that have been demonstrated with any scientific credibility."
The Philippines-based IRRI hopes to make its own GM Golden Rice, enriched with Vitamin A, available to farmers by 2011. IRRI kick-started the so-called Green Revolution in the late 1960s with the development of high-yielding rice seeds which multiplied harvests of Asia's food staple and enabled countries such as Thailand and China to industrialize.
With international rice prices nearly tripling this year due to rising demand and export curbs by producer nations, Zeigler believes a second Green Revolution is necessary.
Nearly half the world's population depend on rice to survive and demand for the grain, which is eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner in parts of Asia, is expected to jump 50% by 2030.
In addition to improving crop management, post-harvest technologies and irrigation, Zeigler also believes that GM technology is part of the solution.
He admits, however, that like others in the scientific community, he has been reluctant to sing GM's praises too loudly for fear of a backlash from anti-GM groups. "We are all very wary of being misquoted as saying that GM is a single bullet magic solution for all the world's food ills. None of us believe that."
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Food_crisis_may_open_the_door_to_GM_rice/rssarticleshow/3097634.cms
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Terminator Seeds "Grossly Immoral" Say Theologians
Terminator Seeds "Grossly Immoral" Say Theologians
LONDON - May 2008
(courtesy:thenazareneway to Communions)
Three widely respected theologians have condemned Terminator seed technology which produces genetically engineered plants with sterile seeds as "grossly immoral".
Writing in a new publication, commissioned by Catholic development charity Progressio, Jesuit Priest Roland Lesseps, Father Sean McDonagh and Father Donal Dorr say the controversial GM technology offers "no benefit for farmers and consumers" and would have "long-term consequences for the environment".
Biotechnology companies claim that 'Terminator' seeds would be used to produce GM crops and trees which are engineered to stop GM traits spreading to other plants by inserting a 'suicide' gene. But Father Sean McDonagh, writing in the new publication, says: "There is simply no such thing as a safe and acceptable form of Terminator".
Instead, the theologians warn that the technology could have catastrophic effects on the poorest farmers in the developing world. Presently, 1.4 billion farmers rely on the practice of seed-saving to grow food to feed their families. If Terminator technology is commercialised, farmers' food security would be under threat. "Since poor farmers cannot afford to buy seed every year, they will go hungry", writes Roland Lesseps.
The theological argument against Terminator is equally striking, say the report's authors. "Terminator technology attacks the very principle of life itself", writes Lesseps. "Destroying the life principle in an organism is not a right relationship with creation which should be received as a gift from God to be shared by all."
The new publication, entitled "Unless the grain of wheat shall die", has been produced to coincide with the meeting of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), where the current UN ban on Terminator technology is likely to be discussed. The CBD has the power to lift the ban completely.
Progressio also launches its new report on Terminator technology, Against the Grain, today. The report urges the UK and EU to voice their support for the current UN ban on the technology and ensure it is upheld. The new report is available online at: http://www.progressio.org.uk
Progressio is a UK-based Catholic charity working to tackle poverty and injustice in developing countries. It has been campaigning against Terminator technologies since 2005 and is a founding member of the UK Working Group on Terminator technology and its current Chair. Progressio is also a member of the UK Food Group.
© Independent Catholic News 2008
LONDON - May 2008
(courtesy:thenazareneway to Communions)
Three widely respected theologians have condemned Terminator seed technology which produces genetically engineered plants with sterile seeds as "grossly immoral".
Writing in a new publication, commissioned by Catholic development charity Progressio, Jesuit Priest Roland Lesseps, Father Sean McDonagh and Father Donal Dorr say the controversial GM technology offers "no benefit for farmers and consumers" and would have "long-term consequences for the environment".
Biotechnology companies claim that 'Terminator' seeds would be used to produce GM crops and trees which are engineered to stop GM traits spreading to other plants by inserting a 'suicide' gene. But Father Sean McDonagh, writing in the new publication, says: "There is simply no such thing as a safe and acceptable form of Terminator".
Instead, the theologians warn that the technology could have catastrophic effects on the poorest farmers in the developing world. Presently, 1.4 billion farmers rely on the practice of seed-saving to grow food to feed their families. If Terminator technology is commercialised, farmers' food security would be under threat. "Since poor farmers cannot afford to buy seed every year, they will go hungry", writes Roland Lesseps.
The theological argument against Terminator is equally striking, say the report's authors. "Terminator technology attacks the very principle of life itself", writes Lesseps. "Destroying the life principle in an organism is not a right relationship with creation which should be received as a gift from God to be shared by all."
The new publication, entitled "Unless the grain of wheat shall die", has been produced to coincide with the meeting of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), where the current UN ban on Terminator technology is likely to be discussed. The CBD has the power to lift the ban completely.
Progressio also launches its new report on Terminator technology, Against the Grain, today. The report urges the UK and EU to voice their support for the current UN ban on the technology and ensure it is upheld. The new report is available online at: http://www.progressio.org.uk
Progressio is a UK-based Catholic charity working to tackle poverty and injustice in developing countries. It has been campaigning against Terminator technologies since 2005 and is a founding member of the UK Working Group on Terminator technology and its current Chair. Progressio is also a member of the UK Food Group.
© Independent Catholic News 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Does US MakeSeed Saving Illegal in Iraq?
US Makes Seed Saving Illegal in Iraq
Here is a very disturbing news iem circulated by the
thenazareneway to Communions. If it is true, we got some clue to the real interests of US neo-colonial global imperialism.
show details 4:22 PM (3 hours ago)
US Makes Seed Saving Illegal in Iraq
From: THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER
For generations, small farmers in Iraq operated in an essentially unregulated, informal seed supply system. Farm-saved seed and exchange of planting materials among farming communities has long been the basis of agricultural practice. This has been made illegal under a new law.
The only seeds farmers are now allowed to plant are "protected" crop varieties
brought into Iraq by transnational corporations in the name of agricultural
reconstruction --- and will be the property of the corporations. While
historically the Iraqi constitution prohibited private ownership of biological resources,
the new U.S.-imposed patent law introduces a system of monopoly rights over seeds.
Inserted into Iraq's previous patent law is a whole new chapter on Plant
Variety Protection (PVP) that provides for the "protection of new varieties of
plants." PVP is an intellectual property right (IPR) or a kind of patent for
plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material
to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety.
So the "protection" in PVP has nothing to do with conservation, but refers
to safeguarding of the commercial interests of private breeders (usually
large corporations) claiming to have created the new plants.
To qualify for PVP, plant varieties must comply with the standards of the
UPOV Convention, which requires them be new, distinct, uniform and stable.
Farmers' seeds cannot meet these criteria, making PVP-protected seeds the
exclusive domain of corporations. The rights granted to plant breeders in
this scheme include the exclusive right to produce, reproduce, sell, export,
import and store the protected varieties.
These rights extend to harvested material, including whole plants and parts
of plants obtained from the use of a protected variety. This kind of PVP
system is often the first step towards allowing the full-fledged patenting
of life forms. Indeed, in this case the rest of the law does not rule out
the patenting of plants or animals.
The term of the monopoly is 20 years for crop varieties and 25 for trees and
vines. During this time the protected variety de facto becomes the property
of the breeder, and nobody can plant or otherwise use this variety without
compensating the breeder.
This new law means that Iraqi farmers can neither freely legally plant nor
save for re-planting seeds of any plant variety registered under the plant
variety provisions of the new patent law. This deprives farmers what they
and many others worldwide claim as their inherent right to save and replant seeds.
The new law is presented as being necessary to ensure the supply of good
quality seeds in Iraq and to facilitate Iraq's accession to the WTO. What it
will actually do is facilitate the penetration of Iraqi agriculture by the
likes of Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow Chemical --- the corporate giants
that control seed trade across the globe.
Eliminating competition from farmers is a prerequisite for these companies
to open up operations in Iraq, which the new law has achieved. Taking over
the first step in the food chain is their next move.
The new patent law also explicitly promotes the commercialisation of
genetically modified (GM) seeds in Iraq. Despite serious resistance from
farmers and consumers around the world, these same companies are pushing GM
crops on farmers around the world for their own profit. Contrary to what the
industry is asserting, GM seeds do not reduce the use of pesticides, but
they pose a threat to the environment and to people's health while they
increase farmers dependency on agribusiness.
In some countries like India, the 'accidental' release of GM crops is
deliberately manipulated, since physical segregation of GM and GM-free crops
is not feasible. Once introduced into the agro-ecological cycle there is no
possible recall or cleanup from genetic pollution.
As to the WTO argument, Iraq legally has a number of options for complying
with the organisation's rules on intellectual property but the US simply
decided that Iraq should not enjoy or explore them.
Iraq is one more arena in a global drive for the adoption of seed patent
laws protecting the monopoly rights of multinational corporations at the
expense of local farmers. Over the past decade, many countries of the South
have been compelled to adopt seed patent laws through bilateral treaties.
The U.S. has pushed for UPOV-styled plant protection laws beyond the IPR
standards of the WTO in bilateral trade through agreements for example with
Sri Lanka and Cambodia.
Likewise, post-conflict countries have been especially targeted. For
instance, as part of its reconstruction package the U.S. has recently signed
a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with Afghanistan, which
would also include IPR-related issues.
Food sovereignty is the right of people to define their own food and
agriculture policies, to protect and regulate domestic agricultural
production and trade, to decide the way food should be produced, what should
be grown locally and what should be imported.
The demand for food sovereignty and the opposition to the patenting of seeds
has been central to the small farmers' struggle all over the world over the
past decade. By fundamentally altering the IPR regime, the U.S. has ensured
that Iraq's agricultural system will remain under "occupation" in Iraq.
Iraq has the potential to feed itself. But instead of developing this
capacity, the U.S. has shaped the future of Iraq's food and farming to serve
the interests of US corporations. The new IPR regime pays scant respect to
Iraqi farmers' contributions to the development of important crops like
wheat, barley, date and pulses.
While political sovereignty remains an illusion, food sovereignty for the
Iraqi people has already been made impossible by these new regulations.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/iraq111704.cf
Here is a very disturbing news iem circulated by the
thenazareneway to Communions. If it is true, we got some clue to the real interests of US neo-colonial global imperialism.
show details 4:22 PM (3 hours ago)
US Makes Seed Saving Illegal in Iraq
From: THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER
For generations, small farmers in Iraq operated in an essentially unregulated, informal seed supply system. Farm-saved seed and exchange of planting materials among farming communities has long been the basis of agricultural practice. This has been made illegal under a new law.
The only seeds farmers are now allowed to plant are "protected" crop varieties
brought into Iraq by transnational corporations in the name of agricultural
reconstruction --- and will be the property of the corporations. While
historically the Iraqi constitution prohibited private ownership of biological resources,
the new U.S.-imposed patent law introduces a system of monopoly rights over seeds.
Inserted into Iraq's previous patent law is a whole new chapter on Plant
Variety Protection (PVP) that provides for the "protection of new varieties of
plants." PVP is an intellectual property right (IPR) or a kind of patent for
plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material
to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety.
So the "protection" in PVP has nothing to do with conservation, but refers
to safeguarding of the commercial interests of private breeders (usually
large corporations) claiming to have created the new plants.
To qualify for PVP, plant varieties must comply with the standards of the
UPOV Convention, which requires them be new, distinct, uniform and stable.
Farmers' seeds cannot meet these criteria, making PVP-protected seeds the
exclusive domain of corporations. The rights granted to plant breeders in
this scheme include the exclusive right to produce, reproduce, sell, export,
import and store the protected varieties.
These rights extend to harvested material, including whole plants and parts
of plants obtained from the use of a protected variety. This kind of PVP
system is often the first step towards allowing the full-fledged patenting
of life forms. Indeed, in this case the rest of the law does not rule out
the patenting of plants or animals.
The term of the monopoly is 20 years for crop varieties and 25 for trees and
vines. During this time the protected variety de facto becomes the property
of the breeder, and nobody can plant or otherwise use this variety without
compensating the breeder.
This new law means that Iraqi farmers can neither freely legally plant nor
save for re-planting seeds of any plant variety registered under the plant
variety provisions of the new patent law. This deprives farmers what they
and many others worldwide claim as their inherent right to save and replant seeds.
The new law is presented as being necessary to ensure the supply of good
quality seeds in Iraq and to facilitate Iraq's accession to the WTO. What it
will actually do is facilitate the penetration of Iraqi agriculture by the
likes of Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow Chemical --- the corporate giants
that control seed trade across the globe.
Eliminating competition from farmers is a prerequisite for these companies
to open up operations in Iraq, which the new law has achieved. Taking over
the first step in the food chain is their next move.
The new patent law also explicitly promotes the commercialisation of
genetically modified (GM) seeds in Iraq. Despite serious resistance from
farmers and consumers around the world, these same companies are pushing GM
crops on farmers around the world for their own profit. Contrary to what the
industry is asserting, GM seeds do not reduce the use of pesticides, but
they pose a threat to the environment and to people's health while they
increase farmers dependency on agribusiness.
In some countries like India, the 'accidental' release of GM crops is
deliberately manipulated, since physical segregation of GM and GM-free crops
is not feasible. Once introduced into the agro-ecological cycle there is no
possible recall or cleanup from genetic pollution.
As to the WTO argument, Iraq legally has a number of options for complying
with the organisation's rules on intellectual property but the US simply
decided that Iraq should not enjoy or explore them.
Iraq is one more arena in a global drive for the adoption of seed patent
laws protecting the monopoly rights of multinational corporations at the
expense of local farmers. Over the past decade, many countries of the South
have been compelled to adopt seed patent laws through bilateral treaties.
The U.S. has pushed for UPOV-styled plant protection laws beyond the IPR
standards of the WTO in bilateral trade through agreements for example with
Sri Lanka and Cambodia.
Likewise, post-conflict countries have been especially targeted. For
instance, as part of its reconstruction package the U.S. has recently signed
a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with Afghanistan, which
would also include IPR-related issues.
Food sovereignty is the right of people to define their own food and
agriculture policies, to protect and regulate domestic agricultural
production and trade, to decide the way food should be produced, what should
be grown locally and what should be imported.
The demand for food sovereignty and the opposition to the patenting of seeds
has been central to the small farmers' struggle all over the world over the
past decade. By fundamentally altering the IPR regime, the U.S. has ensured
that Iraq's agricultural system will remain under "occupation" in Iraq.
Iraq has the potential to feed itself. But instead of developing this
capacity, the U.S. has shaped the future of Iraq's food and farming to serve
the interests of US corporations. The new IPR regime pays scant respect to
Iraqi farmers' contributions to the development of important crops like
wheat, barley, date and pulses.
While political sovereignty remains an illusion, food sovereignty for the
Iraqi people has already been made impossible by these new regulations.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/iraq111704.cf
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Save the Seeds
Saving the Seeds
courtesy:
thenazareneway to Communions
Saving the Seeds
Until the early part of this century, most produce was locally grown. Vegetables and flowers were primarily selected for their flavor, ability to perform well in a specific environment and for local adaptability. It was also important for crops to ripen over a long season so harvests could be extended. Many people grew their own produce, saved the seeds for the next season and put up much of the harvest for winter.
Industrial areas in cities were supplied with produce from the outlying areas. Vegetables were all open pollinated. End users that purchased vegetables generally had a relationship with the growers with perhaps only a corner store in between. The goal of a grower was quality first and foremost because her/his livelihood depended on this relationship continuing.
During World War II, the United Stated made a concerted effort to ship large quantities of produce to devastated Europe. After the war was over, for the first time there was the infrastructure in place to ship food over long distances. The commercial sector began to use this structure to raise produce where it could be done most cheaply and get it to markets world wide.
Today, if you go into your local supermarket to buy produce, you will find primarily produce grown far away from you unless you live in a vegetable belt (California or Florida). Much of this produce is raised in near laboratory conditions. This set of growing methods brings a severely different set of selection criteria than did vegetable production pre WWII. Now, most vegetable varieties are selected for their mechanical harvesting and shipping ability, uniform ripeness, and ability to perform well in a chemical environment. Flavor and health enrichment are often secondary. Most seeds now used are hybrid.
About Seeds
* Hybrids: First generation hybrids (F1 hybrids), have been artificially-pollinated, and are patented, often sterile, genetically identical within food types, and sold from multi-national seed companies.
* GMO: A second kind of seed are genetically engineered or modified organisms. Bioengineered seeds are fast contaminating the global seed supply on a wholesale level, and threatening the purity of seeds everywhere. In a GMO seed, the DNA of the plant has been changed. A cold water fish gene for example was spliced into a tomato to make the plant more resistant to frost.
*Heirloom: A third kind of seed are called heirloom or open-pollinated seeds. These are genetically diverse seeds that have been passed on from generation to generation. For example, with heirloom seeds there are 10,000 varieties of apples, compared to the very few F1 hybrid apple types.
Here are some sources for finding heirloom seeds from seed saving organizations. These organizations represent a movement of several thousand backyard gardeners who are searching the countryside for endangered vegetables, fruits and grains and maintaining their integrity.
The Seed Savers Exchange
The Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), is a nonprofit tax-exempt organization that is saving old-time food crops from extinction.
Kent and Diane Whealy founded SSE in 1975 after an elderly relative bestowed three kinds of garden seeds brought from Bavaria four generations earlier.
The Whealys began searching for other "heirloom varieties" (seeds passed down from generation to generation) and soon discovered a vast, little-known genetic treasure.
SSE's members are maintaining thousands of heirloom varieties, traditional Indian crops, garden varieties of the Mennonite and Amish, vegetables dropped from all seed catalogs and outstanding foreign varieties. Each year hundreds of members use SSE's publications to distribute such seeds to ensure their survival.
Each winter SSE publishes a 304-page Seed Savers Yearbook which contains names and addresses of 900 members and 6,000 listings of rare vegetable and fruit varieties that they are offering to other gardeners. Seeds are obtained by writing directly to the members who are listing those varieties.
http://www.seedsavers.org
Native American Seeds
Native seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) is a nonprofit seed conservation organization working to preserve the traditional native crops of the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico. For centuries Native American farmers have grown corn, squash, beans and other crops under a variety of growing conditions.
The NS/S Seedbank houses, for future generations, the seeds of crops and wild plants traditionally used as food, fiber and dyes by prehistoric and more recent cultures inhabiting the arid southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico.
NS/S encourages the continued use of these plants in their native habitats, and also distributes them widely to home gardeners, researchers and free of charge to Native American farmers. Wild relatives of crops - such as wild beans, chiles, gourds and cotton - are included in Native Seeds/SEARCH's conservation efforts.
NS/S's informative annual seed catalog lists more than 200 varieties for sale. Each crop listing includes seed saving information as well as culture and folklore.
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/default.php
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is a wonderful source for heirloom seeds and other open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seeds with an emphasis on vegetables, flowers, and herbs that grow well in the Mid-Atlantic region.
They support seed saving and traditional seed breeding and do extensive germination and purity testing of seeds and nursery stock to ensure the highest quality seed possible.
Browse their mail-order site to find heirloom tomatoes, peppers, ginseng, potato onions, okra, naturally colored cotton, southern-style greens, and much more.
http://www.southernexposure.com/index.html
The Mayan word `gene' means "spiral of life." The genes in heirloom seeds give life to our future. Unless the backyard gardeners and organic farmers keep these seeds alive, they will disappear altogether. This is truly an instance where one person –a lone gardener in a backyard vegetable garden–can potentially make all the difference in the world.
Brothers and Sisters, support seed saving organizations. Visit their web sites and order their catologes. In these times, you must know how to grow your own food, save seeds and can fruits and vegatables. It does not matter how small of a garden you have. Become a member of an heirloom seed exchange. It is up to YOU to save the seeds.
courtesy:
thenazareneway to Communions
Saving the Seeds
Until the early part of this century, most produce was locally grown. Vegetables and flowers were primarily selected for their flavor, ability to perform well in a specific environment and for local adaptability. It was also important for crops to ripen over a long season so harvests could be extended. Many people grew their own produce, saved the seeds for the next season and put up much of the harvest for winter.
Industrial areas in cities were supplied with produce from the outlying areas. Vegetables were all open pollinated. End users that purchased vegetables generally had a relationship with the growers with perhaps only a corner store in between. The goal of a grower was quality first and foremost because her/his livelihood depended on this relationship continuing.
During World War II, the United Stated made a concerted effort to ship large quantities of produce to devastated Europe. After the war was over, for the first time there was the infrastructure in place to ship food over long distances. The commercial sector began to use this structure to raise produce where it could be done most cheaply and get it to markets world wide.
Today, if you go into your local supermarket to buy produce, you will find primarily produce grown far away from you unless you live in a vegetable belt (California or Florida). Much of this produce is raised in near laboratory conditions. This set of growing methods brings a severely different set of selection criteria than did vegetable production pre WWII. Now, most vegetable varieties are selected for their mechanical harvesting and shipping ability, uniform ripeness, and ability to perform well in a chemical environment. Flavor and health enrichment are often secondary. Most seeds now used are hybrid.
About Seeds
* Hybrids: First generation hybrids (F1 hybrids), have been artificially-pollinated, and are patented, often sterile, genetically identical within food types, and sold from multi-national seed companies.
* GMO: A second kind of seed are genetically engineered or modified organisms. Bioengineered seeds are fast contaminating the global seed supply on a wholesale level, and threatening the purity of seeds everywhere. In a GMO seed, the DNA of the plant has been changed. A cold water fish gene for example was spliced into a tomato to make the plant more resistant to frost.
*Heirloom: A third kind of seed are called heirloom or open-pollinated seeds. These are genetically diverse seeds that have been passed on from generation to generation. For example, with heirloom seeds there are 10,000 varieties of apples, compared to the very few F1 hybrid apple types.
Here are some sources for finding heirloom seeds from seed saving organizations. These organizations represent a movement of several thousand backyard gardeners who are searching the countryside for endangered vegetables, fruits and grains and maintaining their integrity.
The Seed Savers Exchange
The Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), is a nonprofit tax-exempt organization that is saving old-time food crops from extinction.
Kent and Diane Whealy founded SSE in 1975 after an elderly relative bestowed three kinds of garden seeds brought from Bavaria four generations earlier.
The Whealys began searching for other "heirloom varieties" (seeds passed down from generation to generation) and soon discovered a vast, little-known genetic treasure.
SSE's members are maintaining thousands of heirloom varieties, traditional Indian crops, garden varieties of the Mennonite and Amish, vegetables dropped from all seed catalogs and outstanding foreign varieties. Each year hundreds of members use SSE's publications to distribute such seeds to ensure their survival.
Each winter SSE publishes a 304-page Seed Savers Yearbook which contains names and addresses of 900 members and 6,000 listings of rare vegetable and fruit varieties that they are offering to other gardeners. Seeds are obtained by writing directly to the members who are listing those varieties.
http://www.seedsavers.org
Native American Seeds
Native seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) is a nonprofit seed conservation organization working to preserve the traditional native crops of the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico. For centuries Native American farmers have grown corn, squash, beans and other crops under a variety of growing conditions.
The NS/S Seedbank houses, for future generations, the seeds of crops and wild plants traditionally used as food, fiber and dyes by prehistoric and more recent cultures inhabiting the arid southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico.
NS/S encourages the continued use of these plants in their native habitats, and also distributes them widely to home gardeners, researchers and free of charge to Native American farmers. Wild relatives of crops - such as wild beans, chiles, gourds and cotton - are included in Native Seeds/SEARCH's conservation efforts.
NS/S's informative annual seed catalog lists more than 200 varieties for sale. Each crop listing includes seed saving information as well as culture and folklore.
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/default.php
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is a wonderful source for heirloom seeds and other open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seeds with an emphasis on vegetables, flowers, and herbs that grow well in the Mid-Atlantic region.
They support seed saving and traditional seed breeding and do extensive germination and purity testing of seeds and nursery stock to ensure the highest quality seed possible.
Browse their mail-order site to find heirloom tomatoes, peppers, ginseng, potato onions, okra, naturally colored cotton, southern-style greens, and much more.
http://www.southernexposure.com/index.html
The Mayan word `gene' means "spiral of life." The genes in heirloom seeds give life to our future. Unless the backyard gardeners and organic farmers keep these seeds alive, they will disappear altogether. This is truly an instance where one person –a lone gardener in a backyard vegetable garden–can potentially make all the difference in the world.
Brothers and Sisters, support seed saving organizations. Visit their web sites and order their catologes. In these times, you must know how to grow your own food, save seeds and can fruits and vegatables. It does not matter how small of a garden you have. Become a member of an heirloom seed exchange. It is up to YOU to save the seeds.
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