Family Seed Business Takes On Goliath of Genetic Modification

[Guest guest]

Published on Sunday, May 25, 2008 by The Edmonton Journal (Canada)

Family Seed Business Takes On Goliath of Genetic Modification

by Marian Scott

Heather Meek leafs through the seed catalogue she wrote on the family

computer, on winter nights after the kids went to bed.There are

Kahnawake Mohawk beans and Painted Mountain corn; Tante Alice cucumber

and 40 varieties of heritage tomatoes.

 

Selling seeds is more than just an extra source of income on this

organic farm an hour northwest of Montreal.

 

For Meek and partner Frederic Sauriol, propagating local varieties is

part of a David and Goliath struggle by small farmers against big seed

companies.

 

At stake, they believe, is no less than control of the world’s food

supply.

 

Since the dawn of civilization, farmers have saved seeds from the

harvest and replanted them the following year.

 

But makers of genetically modified (GM) seeds — introduced in 1996 and

now grown by some 70,000 Canadian farmers, according to Monsanto, the

world’s largest seed company — have been putting a stop to that

practice.

 

The 12 million farmers worldwide who will plant GM seeds this year

sign contracts agreeing not to save or replant seeds. That means they

must buy new seeds every year.

 

Critics charge such contracts confer almost unlimited power over

farmers’ lives to multinational companies whose priority is profit.

They say GM seeds are sowing a humanitarian and ecological disaster.

 

But Trish Jordan, a Canadian spokesman for Monsanto, explains that

requiring farmers to sign “technology use agreements†allows companies

to recoup the cost of developing products.

 

“Farmers choose these products because of benefits they provide,â€

Jordan says. “That’s why we’re successful as a company.â€

 

The debate over GM seeds has come into sharp focus as the world faces

a food-price crisis that threatens to push millions into starvation.

 

In recent months, riots have erupted from Haiti to Bangladesh in the

wake of soaring costs for staples like bread, rice and corn.

 

The crisis has prompted calls to step up investment in biotechnology

to improve crop yields in developing countries.

 

“At a global level, it’s a problem that’s not going to be solved by

organics or focusing on local food,†says Douglas Southgate, a

professor of agricultural economics at Ohio State University.

 

“Dealing with the problem on a global scale involves using

biotechnology.â€

 

But Ottawa author Brewster Kneen, a fierce opponent of GM seeds,

counters that biotechnology, as practised by companies like Monsanto,

is not the answer.

 

“The point was never feeding the world or saving the environment,â€

says Kneen, author of several books about agriculture and

biotechnology, including Farmageddon: Food and the Future of

Biotechnology. “It’s about wealth, not about health.â€

 

Developing new seed varieties was long a congenial affair where

federal government scientists shared information and distributed

samples to farmers for testing, says Kuyek, a researcher for GRAIN, an

international non-profit organization that promotes agricultural

biodiversity.

 

But in the 1980s, he says, the federal government began privatizing

agricultural research.

 

Worldwide, GM crops have grown 67-fold in 12 years, now covering 690.9

million hectares in 23 countries, according to the industry’s Council

for Biotechnology Information.

 

Canada is the fourth-largest grower of GM crops, which cover seven

million hectares. About half of the corn and soybeans grown in Quebec

and Ontario are GM crops.

 

Sauriol and Meek started their first seedlings 13 years ago in their

four-room apartment on de Bullion St. Now, the Ferme de Bullion

delivers fresh produce to 200 Montreal families every week.

 

The tiny leeks, sown in February, poked up through the soil like small

blades of grass.

 

They won’t be ready for harvest until November.

 

This week, Alexander Muller, assistant director of Food and

Agriculture Organization, warned that loss of agricultural

biodiversity threatens the world’s ability to survive climate change.

 

“The erosion of biodiversity for food and agriculture severely

compromises global food security,†said Muller, who heads FAO’s

Natural Resources Management and Environment Department.

 

Muller’s words resonate with farmers Meek and Sauriol, whose four

daughters help with the painstaking work of cleaning seeds over the

winter.

 

“Growing seed is a big job,†says Meek.

 

“But if you don’t grow your seed, you lose your power.â€

 

© The Edmonton Journal 2008

 

 

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure

that just ain't so.

- Mark Twain