To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Monsanto Buy Seminis Seeds
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:08:54 -0500
On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 14:44:35 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time),
you wrote:
>On another list I read that Seminis provides seeds for Burpee, Territorial
>and Johnny's. Does anyone know if that's true and what other seed companies
>they sell to. Sounds like a boycott is in order.
>
Territorial has an awful lot of open-pollinated seeds. I
can't believe they are buying them from Seminis. I sent for
Seminis' literature at one point, and they sell hybrids
mainly (no surprise).
I'd want accurate information before I participated in any
boycott.
I agree though: it's not good news for gardeners or seed
savers. Very bad news, in fact.
In the EU, seed cannot be sold to the public unless it is
registered with the EU, a procedure that costs thousands of
dollars per variety, each year*. This effectively
eliminates not only small seed selling companies, but also
organizations such as the Seed Savers Exchange.
Regulations such as that also, of course, strongly act
against the maintenance of genetic diversity.
Pat
[* My source for this statement can be found at: http://www.vidaverde.co.uk/terms.html - scroll down to the
section entitled 'Our Seed Club'. Vida Verde is in the UK,
and the UK government is probably quite willing to turn a
blind eye to EU regulations: much more willing than our
government would be to turn a blind eye to the violation of
regulations that benefit corporations such as Monsanto. I
knew this from other sources, as well.]
--
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