Message-ID: <353750D3.8E341D3E@persocom.com.br> Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:53:40 -0300 From: Joaquim Moura <mailto:joaquim.moura@PERSOCOM.COM.BR> Subject: Re: DEVEL-L Digest - 15 Apr 1998 to 16 Apr 1998 To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Jon, you are confusing things. Let me explain your confusion. Of course Leora Broydo (Mother Jones April 7, 98) doesn't refer to saving hybrid seeds to sow the next year... Dr. Mukul also answered your message in a very informative way. Thanks, Dr...But also I would like to give my small contribution: everybody knows that hybrid seeds are seeds without enough fecundity power to produce plants able to produce their new offspring. But this was already the beginning of the problem that Leora and Mukul are bringing to our conscience. The hybrid plants, besides of being weak vegetables that just produce sterile seeds, started the dependency of farmers to industry also in this area - seeds to sow... Along with dependency to *fertilize* the soils, what used to be a primary sector of human activity - producing directly from free natural sources as photosynthesis - became second to industry and soon to financial interests and circumstances... Now tell me, Jon, if you could choose between a meal made of fertile beans or corn, or another made of sterile grains, which one would you prefer to eat? Which one do you believe is more apt to keep your own vital energy in a high and harmonious level? Would you cultivate and give to your children or parents the sprouts produced from sterile or from fertile seeds? Thanks, J. ________________________________________________
> Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:39:11 -0400
> From: Jonathan Sanford <mailto:JSANFORD@CRS.LOC.GOV>
> Subject: A Seedy Business -Reply
>
> Mother Jones is quick to suspect a conspiracy to fleece the public
> when it
> condemns the invention of one-generation seeds. It is true that
> farmers have
> traditionally saved some of the seed from one year to plant the
> following year.
> This is a good practice when one has a stable seed that is well
> adapted to
> local conditions. However, the advent of hybrid seeds renders this
> practice
> untrustworthy and potentially dangerous. When hybrid seeds pollinate
> each
> other, they produce a wide variety of offspring. Some of these may be
> great
> seeds; others will be disasters. Farmers who save these seeds to
> plant are
> taking a gamble. They don't know what the next year's crop will be
> like. And
> they don't know what kind of new seed they are producing if they
> continue this
> practice year after year. The resulting crop may be less desirable
> and less
> abundant than either the original hybrid seed or the traditiona seed
> it replaced.
>
> Obviously, Mother Jones doesn't tend her own garden. Otherwise she'd
> know
> these things from reading the seed packages.
>
> Jon Sanford
> ________________________________________
> Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:04:02 -0400
> From: Mukul Ranjan <mailto:ranjan@HELIX.NIH.GOV>
> Subject: Re: A Seedy Business
>
> Jon,
>
> I agree with you in that the issue has subtleties that are not brought
> out
> in the article. However, I reread the article and did not get the
> impression that it suggests people reuse HYBRID seeds. As you point
> out,
> there would not be much point in reusing hybrid seeds. In fact if the
> problem were merely the reuse of hybrids (many of which will not
> produce
> seeds at all), there wouldn't be any need for this new technology, or
> any
> need to oppose it. I think the larger concern here is that it will
> replace
> traditional varieties used in large parts of the world and in the US,
> by
> that people who currently reuse (non-hybrid or traditional) seeds.
>
> This is an excerpt from a RAFI article on the same issue which clearly
>
> address this issue:
>
> [Corporate breeders argue that the new technology simply does for
> hard-to-hybridize crops what the hybrid technique did for maize.
> Hybrid
> seed is either sterile or fails to reproduce the same quality
> characteristics in the next generation. Thus, most maize farmers buy
> seed
> every year. "Poor farmers can't afford hybrids either;" Montecinos
> points
> out, "but there's a key difference. The theory behind hybridization is
> that
> it allows breeders to make crosses that couldn't be made otherwise and
> that
> are supposed to give the plant higher yields and vigor. The results
> are
> often disappointing but that's the rationale. In the case of
> Terminator
> Technology, there's absolutely no agronomic benefit for farmers. The
> sole
> purpose is to facilitate monopoly control and the sole beneficiary is
> agribusiness."]
>
> I thought the MJ article was interesting for a couple of reasons:
>
> One, it brings up the issue of selling these seeds around the world to
>
> areas that don't use hybrid seeds. If the seed companies are able to
> replace the cultivation of traditional varieties, they could
> dramatically
> expand the areas that are under mono-culture and worse still, have
> crops
> growing around the world that cannot be used more than once. This
> could
> have catastrophic consequences in case the annual supply of these
> seeds was
> interrupted. Incidentally there was a recent article in the NY Times
> (April
> 9, 1998; Plant Survey Reveals Many Species Threatened With Extinction)
> that
> pointed out that the rapidity with which plant varieties are dying
> out, and
> encouraging the use of single crop varieties would only worsen the
> situation.
>
> Two, the Mother Jones article makes a valid point in stating that a
> public
> agency was involved in developing a technology that can only translate
> into
> larger corporate sales. In contrast technologies that lead to the
> improvement of crops, for example, potentially benefit everyone,
> companies
> and the general public
>
> Mukul
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of DEVEL-L Digest - 15 Apr 1998 to 16 Apr 1998
> **************************************************