Save The World

Having heard that the Northern Seed Package just cleared customs, I suppose that I should be extolling the virtues of seeds. Granted, I'm not an expert seed saver, let alone an expert gardener but I know a good thing when I see it. And seeds are most definitely a good thing. I might even say that they are worth more than any other thing on this earth.

At my friends' Joey and Ashlee's place, there is a poster on the wall. Every time I went to visit them, I took a long look at it. I wonder if anyone noticed. It's a poster outlining the creeping downfall of the human race. It outlines how humans are throwing away the biodiversity of our own, carefully preserved and selected seed heritage.

In the case of corn, there were once thousands (maybe more I can't remember) of varieties each with special attributes. Black, blue, red, yellow. You name it. Now there's only one or two available on your grocery shelves. And they are all genetically modified. This sad story is repeated over and over again for many other varieties that have been lost.

All our ancestors saved seeds and selected vegetables and fruits for desirable characteristics, like size, colour and disease resistance. But during the Industrial Revolution, we started moving to the cities and started buying tinned food, prepared food. Especially after the Second World War, people no longer had their own gardens and bought seeds from catalogues (like I do) when they did. Farming, especially small-scale farming, was condemned as anachronistic and vulgar.

So the mighty seed companies took over in our ignorance, beginning to lay claim even to plants' own genetic material. Currenly only a handful of companies like Monsanto and Cargill control almost all the seed market. And if a seed doesn't sell because it looks weird or is unpopular then the companies do not maintain a healthy supply of seeds and that breed is gone forever. Forever.

Imagine two hundred years ago, all the impoverished small farmers with their gardens, each discovering what scientists get paid lavishly to do with gene guns today. They were amazing people. They bred plants that worked in their own tiny microclimates and traded seeds with one other, keeping and passing on the faith. You are the descendant of these people and so am I.

So now I wait for my seeds to arrive. I can only hope they can grow here on the land. Well hope and help them as best I can. And maybe on this journey I'll learn to save some seeds myself and share them with others and accept some of their precious seeds in turn. Maybe I'll learn some of those amazing secrets that we've thrown away to progress. It's a challenge certainly but seeds are life. Let's not throw away life for uniformity and profit. It's not worth it in the least.