Seed Keepers

[oowonbs@netscape.net]

As comedy and trajedy are close,
and both happiness as well as sadness make us cry,
perhaps the anger in parts of this list are mere reflections of love.

In any event, you are well thought and well spoken
and anything or anyone who causes words to create a
response from you, does not serve us so poorly.
Agree or disagree, (and I mostly agree,) you do cut
to the heart of the matter and state your case well,
a case that seems fairly universally acceptable, in my eyes.

I'm sure every now and then a "tomato" list somewhere
is in a full-moon uproar over GMO seeds, again...
But, that's part of the love. It isn't always logical.

BillSF9c

===================================

LINDA who I am not picking on, but she gave me a jumping off point 
wrote:

> IMHO we should all be doing that anyway. The farmers know how to keep
> their seed alive- How much can vault staffers know?

Well, unless the seed vault staff are supposed to also grow out the
seed, how much about growing seed do they NEED to know?  What the
staffers need to know is how to keep seeds at the optimum conditions to
keep it viable for as long as possible, and how to access these 
supposed
files of growing and usage tips and hand them out to the people who 
need
them.

Besides, how do you know the staffers DON'T know more than you? There's
this whole perceived "knowledge" about how certain people are that the
media has given us. Academians are all bookish and timid and not much
use. Scientists are all either evil and mad or brilliant and useless.
People want to pull out examples and hold them high of "we" are better
than "they" are, and that's normal, but not really useful. Most of the
FARMERS I know buy GM seed and use lots of petroleum based power and
fertilizer to grow it. I doubt many of them have a clue about how to
save seed or keep it in good condition any more.

But really, this whole "because X" is on the funding list it's all 
going
to be crap it kind of silly. NO ONE is going to be able to know for
DECADES what good or bad is going to come of this, and I heartily wish
the list would MOVE ON. There is nothing "we" can do good OR bad about
this. It is already a done deal. Those who think it is good, great.
Those who think it is bad, so sorry.

Do we really need to go round and round about it?  If there was some
news "we" could benefit from (say, they wanted people to grow out 
seed),
or help with (like, they wanted volunteers to help with something) I
could see that being of interest and conversation worthy, but there
isn't. News like "X agri-giant appropriated all the seeds" would also 
be
topical and useful, so would "the bank helped save and culture these
seeds back into their native habitat".  But all of that will come years
down the line, if ever.

I keep thinking this is the most angry and negative garden list I have
EVER seen. I sure hope it mellows out soon.

Morgan