March 17, 2008

Monsanto seed bank (GMO crops)

Wading into unfamiliar territory, but this seems worthy of note:

Built on the island of Spitsbergen in the Barents Sea near the Arctic Ocean in the country of Norway, a group of wealthy corporations [including "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation, and the Government of Norway"] has invested millions of dollars in their project named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The mission statement is: "So that crop diversity can be conserved for the future"...

...An essential ingredient to this plan is none other than the hybrid seed. The key to hybrid seeds is their inability to reproduce. They are designed to not multiply. Seeds were originally designed to give yields similar to the parent seeds year after year. Not so of hybrid seeds. Subsequent yields are significantly lower and of lower quality. Declining yield necessitates farmers buying seed year after year to assure high yields. The big seed companies were now in perfect control as no smaller group could produce the hybrid but them. This was the foundation of the GMO seed revolution...

...The advantages of [Monsanto's] Terminator technology are obvious. Seeds yield only one harvest. Period. This forces farmers (the third world nations) to return to the seed companies year after year to replenish their seed supplies so that they can grow food to feed their people. Within 10 years, this could create a complete monopoly for these seed companies...

Posted to Miscellania at March 17, 2008 11:23 AM