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What price biodiversity? (Gen eng'ring; corporations; ag; food supply)
For your info - P. Dines
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Seed Wars - What Price Biodiversity?
<Excerpts from the book Long Life Now: Strategies for Staying Alive" by Lee
Hitchcox, D.C.>
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In 1846, a fungus attacked Irelands uniform potato crop reducing it to
black slime. More than a million people starved to death in the Irish
potato famine and another 3 million fled the country. A crop's ability to
resist disease depends on biological diversity. This valuable lesson in
history and biology appears lost on modern agriculture as we drift toward a
global catacylsm on a scale without precedent. Biodiversity is
disappearing. No environmental onslaught holds greater potential for
irreversible harm. The EPA ranks pollution as a lessor threat to world
survival than the extinction of plant species.
PD NOTE: Although they are likely related! (i.e., pollution helping kill
off plants and ecosystem)
In 1970, half the U.S. corn crop from Florida to Texas was devastated by
blight because the entire crop was spliced with a single gene. In 1946,
blight destroyed 86% of U.S. oats including 30 oat varieties - all bred
from a single genetic parent. Uniformity breeds vulnerability. The world's
food system and botantical gene pool on which it depends, are now
endangered by corporate vested interests and short-term greed. The problem
is patents.
In recent years, multinational pesticide and pharmaceutical industries have
purchased over 1,000 independent seed houses. Multinational corporations
operate by introducing new hybrid seeds which are patented and, at the same
time, dropping non-patented heirloom seeds from their seed catalogs. Only
one company sells certified organic heirloom seeds nationwide. Both
conventional and organic growers use hybrid seeds because nothing else is
available.
Heralded as bioengineering miracles, hybrid seeds are vulnerable to
diseases and dependent on pesticides which the industries produce.
Monsanto, manufacturer of Roundup, developed a Roundup-tolerant gene which
they splice into hybrid soybeans. Monsanto holds patents to the gene, the
hybrid and the pesticides. Hybrid seeds are expensive and often coated with
pesticides prior to sale.
Hybrid seeds require large amounts of water and synthetic fertilizers,
which the corporations manufacture. This adds to soil depletion and further
increases dependence on corporate chemmicals. International lending
agencies often require growers to use hybrid seeds as a condition for
receiving farm credit.
PD NOTE: Is that last line true??
Hybrids may be genetically tagged to prevent growers from sharing second
generation seeds with each other. Large seed companies have filed several
lawsuits against growers over this issue. Lawsuits protect patents but
further reduce biodiversity and self-reliance. Growers have shared seeds
with each other for thousands of years.
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Food producers don't believe that Americans care about nutrition. As a
result, most U.S. food is bred for industrial traits: yield, tonnage,
shelf-life and cosmetic appearance. Iceberg lettuce is a prime example....
This agricultural agenda will change only when consumers demand that it
change.
Multinational corporations have been poor guardians of the world's
botanical gene pool, our living legacy. The business of preserving
biological diversity and the global food chain for future generations is an
issue that cannot wait.
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Proposed biodiversity reform:
* Support legislation abolishing seed patents.
* Tax the sale of patented hybrid seeds. Give tax incentives to companies
offering non-patented heirloom seeds [PD NOTE: And use the money to help
preserve our genetic heritage...?]
* Encourage growers to use heirloom seeds by restructuring the farm subsidy
programs to include both nutrition-per-acre and yield-per-acre.
* Halt the taxpayer funding of pesticide-tolerant plants.
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"Van Gogh loved sunflowers. He painted them again and again. It's amazing
that some of the sunflowers that are in Van Gogh paintings have been
patented by modern seed companies." Alan Kapuler, plant breeder
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EXCERPTS from the book "Long Life Now: Strategies For Staying Alive" by Lee
Hitchcox, D.C. Available through bookstores or by calling (800) 841-BOOK.
Excerpts printed in "Vegetarian Grapevine", the quarterly newsletter of the
Vegetarians of Sonoma County, P O. Box 4003, Santa Rosa CA 95402
PD NOTE: Hitchcox' book covers a variety of topics, including ag and
pesticides and government and how we can get power and health back in those
arenas, summarizing lots of info as above. The book also has a lot on his
theories about diet (not all of which I personally agree with). He has an
interesting story, having been exposed to Agent Orange in the military,
worked for chemical companies, then come to see the harm they do and
opposing them.