Posted on 03/07/2009 10:39:24 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Hi there Aussiebabe. I visited your fair land many years ago, in a different life. Fremantle and Perth
About this seed business, Suppose you have been a good customer of the seed supplier, who just happens to have a monopoly on those seeds, and you go there to purchase seeds for your thousands of acres you are going to plant.
The seed supplier greets you with a big smile and informs you that there has been a change in his sales policy. Effective immediately, before you are allowed to buy seeds, you must sign a contract that entitles the seed supplier to take one third of your harvest in addition to you paying the initial cost of the seeds.
There are no other seed suppliers, What are you going to do now ?
Don’t tell me it can’t happen. A former employee of mine wanted to start a business, in a third world country near you. He had contracts and only needed a loan to purchase equipment. The money man said “looks like a good deal, I’ll loan you the money, but first I want twenty five percent of your company.” It didn’t happen.!
Let me know how you make out with your seed supplier.
WOW! Order those seeds from where you can get them folks!
Monsanto's Aggressive Pursuit of Farmers. Watch the video - very interesting.
As I said before - don't like the source? find others.
And stop accusing people of being " leftist Greenpeace" movement supporters just because they have reasons to be against something. After all "sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Heirloom varieties belong to nobody.
I can see the hybrids having patents because of the work involved in developing them, but the heirlooms were around long before seed companies and they should not have ANY say in who owns them, grows them, saves them, or sells them. There are should be no patents allowed on on heirloom varieties.
I am so sick of idiots like you.
You must be reading a different thread here than I am.
Folks here are talking about tactics used by a company that, without doubt, is looking to buy up/out more and more small family farms and using their massive financial power to buy legislative power.
The discussion here is not coming from supporters of Greenpeace, PETA, or any other any GM food group. It’s coming from people who wish to be left alone in their gardens or on their farms, to choose the type of seed they utilize to grow what they grow.
I grow up to 50 different types of peppers and tomatoes, and I’ll be damned if some corporate geek tells me I can’t because one of them happens to be a hybrid from his company and might possibly cross pollinate one of my heirlooms.
I happen to know a little about farming, as my family owns a number of farms, and a lot more, about biotech. Most of the comments show that people do not have a great understanding of either.
The thing that irks me the most about this issue, is that it just like Global Warming, once the religious movement takes over, it is impossible to convince anyone with real science, if they have their vested faith-based views that something like GM crops are evil or Monsanto is evil. What saddens me is that some "conservatives" have fallen for this hoax. Of course, there are some Freepers that believe in Global Warming too, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.
Trolls like her. (presuming the *babe* is reliable)
I am not against heirloom varieties as my family has passed down a number of flowers that we keep growing.
And to everybody.
I agree with you on that and about the hybrids. There is one hybrid type of pepper that I buy every year and have never bothered trying to save the seeds to see if I could reproduce them --- but I might this year :)
You’ll probably just wind up with a very attractive plant...
Do a search on my comments —give me a break about the “troll”. Obviously people just don’t understand the science.
Do you have some more info about any restrictions they are putting on heirloom seeds? I have not had any problem purchasing heirloom seeds at this point, and just wondering what specifically has been done to restrict their sale/usage. I could not find that info in the linked article, but I’ve been known to miss a thing or two. It would certainly be a frightening thing if any one company controlled the food supply.
I began saving seed from my own little garden last year. It’s fun and I think of it as an insurance policy, in case there comes a time seeds are not so readily available. Territorial Seed looks to have a nice selection.
I’m a big fan of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds:
Sandhill Preservation is a family farm. They tell you up front you may not get your seeds quickly and their ordering process is a little tricky, but they are very reasonably priced:
http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/
Hybrids do not come back to their true “hybrid” state, as a rule, anyway. That is one reason farmers do not save them.
then for crying out loud why are you arguing with those of us fighting to keep the heirloom varieties going?
That is the entire point of this thread --- the corporate farming industry is doing it's damnedest, and spending buckets of money in the process, to do away with it.
No kidding? I would never have known (/sarc)
Yeah. Trolls like her. Exactly. Thanks.
Except you’re missing the whole point of the discussion. It’s isn’t about the virtues or GM crops and whether the concerns about genetic manipulation are valid or not.
It’s about control of the food supply and the thug and intimidation tactics that Monsanto is purported to engage in against those who do not have the financial resources to defend themselves against lawsuits by companies with a bottomless reserve of money.
Why you keep bring religion in the discussion is another issue. Twice now you disparaged the *religious movement* as anti-science when you have no basis for that. It shows the narrow, bigoted mentality of a typical liberal for you to attack anyone with religious beliefs in an effort to discredit the points they are trying to make.
The FReepers who have posted against the attempts to control the food supply and object to the thuggish tactics of Monsanto have not expressed any religious preferences or opinions as of yet, and here you are, assuming that because they disagree with you, they are part of a *religious movement*. Just what does religion have to do with anything that anyone has brought up here? What *religious movement* in particular are you thinking of when you accuse people like that?
Science and law are too different things entirely.
As soon as "science" is used to infringe freedom, you have a fight on your hands, sister.
Deal with it.
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