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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Revealed: how seed market is controlled by Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow & DuPont

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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87@frontiernet.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Revealed: how seed market is controlled by Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow & DuPont
  • Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:07:42 -0400


On Oct 13, 2010, at 4:03 PM, Mark Angermayer wrote:

But farmers haven't saved seed back to replant for 50 years.


I haven't time now to address the rest of this issue properly; but just have to fire off a quick reply to this one.

It's very common in this area for field crop growers to save some of their seed for replanting themselves, and/or to sell to their neighbors.

It's also common for direct market produce growers to save seed of at least a few varieties, often breeding their own strains.

In both cases, the advantage (and it is a huge advantage) is that the seed is locally adapted, and adapted to the production style of the growers using it. Varieties on the general commercial market are always changing -- it's extremely common for varieties to disappear from the commercial market, often with little or no warning -- and, while the replacements may indeed have "enormous genetic improvement gained through painstaking research" if grown under the conditions under which the research is conducted, they may nevertheless produce worse, not better, when grown under the conditions of any given farm.


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale







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