Seeds

The Policy Paradoxes Of Underutilised Crops

November 14, 2023 Radiant Project Staff, Resilience. Create! Food and Agriculture, Monocrops, Seeds

Why do nearly 50% of our calories come from the same three crops: wheat, rice, and maize? What led to such a homogenisation of our diets? Underutilised crops (UCs) or forgotten crops are less common species, landraces, cultivars, or heritage varieties whose use, production, and consumption is currently limited. Despite their current depreciation, they boast a long history of cultivation in many parts of the world and hold great nutritional and environmental promise for the future of our food systems. What role for policy and a value chain approach which considers access to seeds, the ecological aspects of agricultural production, the power positions of stakeholders, the nutritional value of food, and food security and sovereignty?

Why Seed Companies Fear México

November 20, 2021 Ernesto Hernández-lópez , Inter Press Service News Agency. Create! Farming, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Mexico, Seeds

Orange, California - Last month México’s Supreme Court provided hope for biodiversity, especially in the Global South, while flaming fear for seed companies. In a historic step, it ruled for corn advocates and against genetically modified (GMO) corn. The decision was a momentous act in country where maíz (corn) carries daily and sacred significance. This promises a way out of stale GMO debates that plague us. One side argues that genetic changes to seeds increase harvests. Seed companies and industrial agriculture make up this side. Another side says GMOs damage plant DNA. Small-scale farmers and environmentalists stand on this side. Neither addresses the other. This standstill keeps GMO policies ineffective. The court’s decision offers a path out of this by cutting at seed company positions.

Freeing The Seed

January 5, 2019 Michael S. Carolan, Earthisland.org Create! Food and Agriculture, Seeds

There were no Stokes Seeds catalogues for early US immigrants. Settlers used what they brought with them from the Old Country or what they acquired through trade with others. But this was a new land, with a different climate and soils. Many of those early crops failed as the seed proved ill-suited for the realities of their new home. Affluent landowners pooled their resources to overcome these hurdles, importing seed and adapting it to the New World’s environment. These seed saving and sharing networks were called “societies.” Seed did not become widely available to farmers, other than through their personal networks, until 1819.

Monsanto Loses Right To Patent Seeds

April 19, 2018 By Sandhya Jain, Dailypioneer.com Create! Food and Agriculture, Monsanto, Seeds

Opponents of genetically modified crops received a boost when the Delhi High Court upheld the Indian Patent Act, which states that seeds and life forms cannot be patented, and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 (PPV&FR Act), which biotechnology multinationals have tried to undermine, and ruled that key plant genetic material cannot be patented. The court was deciding a dispute between Monsanto and Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd, Prabhat Agri Biotech Ltd and Pravardhan Seeds Private Ltd, over interpretation of law, especially Section 3(j) of the Indian Patent Act and applicability of PPV&FR Act for transgenic plants. Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Justice Yogesh Khanna, on April 11, ruled that Monsanto Technologies LLC does not have the patent for Bt Cotton seed varieties ‘Bollgard’ and ‘Bollgard II’.

Documentary Explores David-and-Goliath Battle With Food Corporations

April 25, 2017 Jordan Riefe, www.truthdig.com Educate! Corporations, Food and Agriculture, Seeds

By Jordan Riefe for Truth Dig - Maybe Jack wasn’t the fool son when he traded the family cow for a handful of magic beans. Seeds are the givers of life, the minute building blocks of family farms and agri-empires alike. They are powerful and often sacred objects woven into local customs and cultures around the world. America’s own Thomas Jefferson was a famous horticulturist and seed saver who grew 330 varieties of vegetables and 170 varieties of fruit. Among his illustrious titles was that of patent examiner, basing his decisions on laws he himself had written. Items deliberately excluded from patents included plants and animals, placing public interest over private gain. Throughout human existence, seed diversity has been a constant, including drought-resistant strains, or those able to withstand floods or wide temperature swings. For countries plagued by war and poverty, this can mean the difference between life and death. “The Irish potato famine is a clear and elementary example of what happens when you rely on too little diversity—[you get a] mass refugee situation, many of them fleeing to the U.S.,” Jon Betz tells Truthdig. He and co-director Taggart Siegel are the filmmaking team of “Seed: The Untold Story,” a documentary that premieres on PBS’s Independent Lens on April 17, and streams online beginning April 18.

World Bank’s Scheme to Hijack Farmers’ Rights To Seeds

January 22, 2017 Alice Martin-Prevel, www.oaklandinstitute.org Educate! Farmers, Food and Agriculture, Seeds, World Bank

By Alice Martin-Prevel of the Oakland Institute. Oakland, CA—Ahead of World Bank’s release of the 2017 “Enabling the Business of Agriculture” (EBA) report this month, 157 organizations and academics from around the world denounce the Bank’s scheme to hijack farmers’ right to seeds, attack on food sovereignty and the environment. In a letter to the World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and EBA’s five Western donors, the group demands the immediate end of the project, originally requested by the G8 to support its industry-co-opted New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. “The EBA dictates so-called ‘good practices’ to regulate agriculture and scores countries on how well they implement its prescriptions,” said Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director at the Oakland Institute. “But the EBA has become the latest tool, to push pro-corporate agricultural policies, notably in the seed sector—where it promotes industrial seeds, that benefit a handful of agrochemical companies,” he continued.

Monsanto Backs Out Of Seed Plant In Argentina After Protests

August 15, 2016 Brandon Turbeville, www.naturalblaze.com Resist! Argentina, Food and Agriculture, Monsanto, Protests, Seeds

By Brandon Turbeville for Natural Blaze - In yet another victory against the multinational corporation Monsanto in Argentina, the company has now announced that it will dismantle its multi-million dollar GMO seed plant in Malvinas. Monsanto made the decision to give up on its seed plant after three years worth of protests from local citizens and GMO-free campaigners from all over Argentina. In 2014, activists forced to Monsanto to stop the construction of the plant by using coordinated protest techniques at the construction site.

Building A Movement For International Seed Sovereignty

February 4, 2016 Simone Adler, www.otherworldsarepossible.org Create! Africa, Autonomy, Food and Agriculture, Seeds

By Simone Adler for Other Worlds Are Possible - Who we are fighting for is every single peasant farmer – more than 200 million – on the planet. People are eager to join hands in building a global voice. Transnational corporations are pushing policies in African countries for industrial farming and the use of GMO [genetically modified] seeds, while grabbing our land and [stealing] our natural resources. No one should come and tell us how to produce food.

Sharing Seeds When Government Says Its Illegal

March 29, 2015 Janelle Orsi and Neil Thapa, www.shareable.net Resist! Food and Agriculture, Seeds

After the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture cracked down on a seed bank in the Joseph T. Simpson Public Library in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, hundreds of seed libraries in the U.S. are suddenly wondering if they are breaking the law. According to Pennsylvania regulators, in order to give out member-donated seeds, the Simpson Seed Library would have to put around 400 seeds of each variety through impractical seed testing procedures in order to determine quality, germination rate, and so on. The result of the Pennsylvania crackdown is that the library will no longer give out seeds other than those which are commercially packaged. Ironically, this is in the name of “protecting and maintaining the food sources of America.” In this news article that went viral, regulators said that “agri-terrorism is a very, very real scenario.” In reality, seed libraries have emerged to protect our food sources and ensure access to locally adapted and heirloom varieties. The public’s access to seeds has been decreasing since a 1980 Supreme Court ruling that a life-form could be patented. Since then, big seed companies have shifted away from open-pollinated seeds to patented hybridized and genetically engineered varieties. The companies prohibit farmers from saving and replanting such seeds, requiring that they buy new seeds each year. Counter to this trend, seed libraries give members free seeds and request that members later harvest seed and give back to the library thereby growing the pool of seeds available to everyone.

Trade Deals Criminalise Farmers’ Seeds

November 19, 2014 GRAIN, www.grain.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Seeds

Trade agreements have become a tool of choice for governments, working with corporate lobbies, to push new rules to restrict farmers' rights to work with seeds. Until some years ago, the most important of these was the World Trade Organization's (WTO) agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Adopted in 1994, TRIPS was, and still is, the first international treaty to establish global standards for “intellectual property” rights over seeds.1The goal is to ensure that companies like Monsanto or Syngenta, which spend money on plant breeding and genetic engineering, can control what happens to the seeds they produce by preventing farmers from re-using them – in much the same way as Hollywood or Microsoft try to stop people from copying and sharing films or software by putting legal and technological locks on them. But seeds are not software. The very notion of “patenting life” is hugely contested.

Setting The Record Straight On The Legality Of Seed Libraries

August 13, 2014 SELC, www.shareable.net Create! Food and Agriculture, Seeds

Dept Of Ag Cracks Down On Seed Libraries

August 6, 2014 Naomi Creason, www.cumberlink.com Educate! Food and Agriculture, Law, Seeds

It was a letter officials with the Cumberland County Library System were surprised to receive. The system had spent some time working in partnership with the Cumberland County Commission for Women and getting information from the local Penn State Ag Extension office to create a pilot seed library at Mechanicsburg’s Joseph T. Simpson Public Library. The effort was a new seed-gardening initiative that would allow for residents to “borrow” seeds and replace them with new ones harvested at the end of the season. Mechanicsburg’s effort had launched on April 26 as part of the borough’s Earth Day Festival, but there were plenty of similar efforts that had already cropped up across the state before the local initiative. Through researching other efforts and how to start their own, Cumberland County Library System Executive Director Jonelle Darr said Thursday that no one ever came across information that indicated anything was wrong with the idea. Sixty residents had signed up for the seed library in Mechanicsburg, and officials thought it could grow into something more. That was, until, the library system received a letter from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture telling them they were in violation of the Seed Act of 2004.

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