Seeds of the Earth

My father was a great gardener who liked to keep the family supplied with fresh vegetables. Some thirty years ago, he ran into a problem. For many years he had grown a variety of runner beans which he reckoned to be the best. He harvested a few beans for seed each season, but this particular year he needed some extra seeds. When he tried to purchase them was told that they had been withdrawn from the market. Upon investigation he discovered that a number of ‘traditional’ varieties were no longer available through the seed merchants, who instead encouraged people to buy their new hybrid varieties, which were designed to produce well but if harvested, the harvested were sterile. From then on my father harvested plenty of seeds for the next season and I can remember the large purple-and-green mottled beans lying in a tray in our basement awaiting their spring planting.

My father had stumbled upon the early days of a project through which multinational companies would exert ever greater control over the ownership of the genetic base of seeds, would see many traditional varieties disappear, and remains with us today as the use of genetically modified crops. His harvesting of traditional varieties’ seeds and his willingness to share his saved seeds with family and friends gave me an idea.

I was at that time working for an ecumenical church agency which through development education was promoting issues of development, justice and peace. One of our international links was with a joint Roman Catholic and World Council of Churches agency SODEPAX established following the more ecumenical and development conscious encounters which emerged from Vatican II. This jointly staffed agency was prophetic to such an extent that it was far in advance of the thinking of its sponsoring churches, and as the Roman Catholic church retreated back into its traditional conservative mould, it was axed.

In the meantime a number of initiatives sheltered under its umbrella and my agency was happy to launch a project of its own. We had become aware that many farmers were becoming concerned about the unavailability of traditional seeds and the promotion of hybrid varieties. Then we came across a project which was launched in Canada. Calling itself Seeds of the Earth, it encouraged people to establish seed banks in which traditional varieties could be stored so that their genetic base was not forever lost. Amongst the alarming statistics they spoke about was the fact that of more than 300 varieties of corn that grew naturally around the earth, less than ten had survived into the mid nineteen-seventies.

So under the SODEPAX banner we launched a Seeds of the Earth campaign in New Zealand. I travelled to towns in the country’s farming heartlands amazed by the number of farmers who turned up to public meetings to discuss the issue. Many of them were already saving traditional seeds so required no convincing. I can’t say whether any community seed banks were established as a result of our work, but certainly public awareness of the situation was raised, and individuals took action appropriate to their circumstances. There were many testimonies to what was occurring in the industry shared at our meetings. I particularly recall a tomato grower describing how he was tied into one particular company from which he purchased his hybrid seed stock, the fertilizer to ensure strong growth, the sprays required to combat pests and blight, as well as the spray which turns green tomatoes red so that they can be ‘ripened’ overnight in order to meet market demands. And that company is one of the major oil companies which continues today to post some of the biggest profits of any multinational enterprise.

I was reminded of this small initiative when I read in this week’s news that British Government ministers are suggesting that the international agreement banning the most controversial of genetically modified crops be scrapped, and that crops be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The technology has become more complex and the problem more acute since our project in New Zealand, but still at its base lies the determination of large companies to maximise their profits. Today the discussion focuses on two kinds of technology. One is ‘terminator technology’ developed by the US Department of Agriculture in partnership with a seed company, which sterilises seeds so that they cannot be harvested and re-grown. Before being offered for sale the seeds are treated with a chemical which activates a gene to germinate normally first time around, but which subsequently prevents seeds of that crop from germinating. Then there is ‘traitor technology’ concerned with the trait of a plant in which the genes governing traits like germination and growth can only be activated when sprayed by a chemical which is of course, sold separately.

Environmentalists argue that through cross pollination, the ‘sterility’ of genetically modified seeds can easily spread to plants and crops which have not been subject to modification, thus destroying even more natural varieties while at the same time of course increasing the control of biotechnic companies over the seed industry. Now there is pressure orchestrated by the USA and involving Australia, New Zealand and Canada which are seen as pro-GM crop nations, to lift the moratorium imposed under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The Seeds of the Earth campaigns in Canada and New Zealand appear to have had no lasting impact upon government thinking.

While GM technology may suit the aspirations of these and other developed nations, if it becomes standard practice, it would have a disastrous effect on Third World farming and inevitably lead to increased starvation. One and a quarter billion poor farmers who rely on saving a portion of their crop for next season’s seed, would have to buy new seeds every year from biotech companies. Michael Meacher, the former Minister for the Environment in the UK who largely brokered the present UN Convention, said “For the first time in the history of the world, farmers would be stopped from using their own seeds”.

I read recently of a GM development which is destined to have a huge effect upon coffee producing countries like Kenya. A coffee bean has been modified so that the crop is of a uniform size and ripens simultaneously. This means that the crop can be totally harvested at one time, rather than picked over by workers over the course of the ripening season. Secondly, the crop can be mechanically harvested which makes the pickers redundant. That means greater profits for the biotech companies, the growers and the processors, but loss of jobs, incomes and dignity for a huge number of the world’s poor who already barely manage to survive.