Saturday, August 22

Seed saving cents...



Saving your own seed makes great sense. Not only is it effectively free but you are also replanting seed from plants that have, presumably, done well in your garden’s climate and conditions. You can share the seed with neighbours and friends and sow the seed a little more liberally than if it had cost you $3.50 a pack at the local nursery.

We have had great second generation broccoli this year from last year’s crop. Brassicas are rich in glucosinolates that are naturally occurring ant-cancer compounds. The DPI in Victoria have just released a Booster Broccoli variety that has double the amount of antioxidants compared to other varieties. It will retail in supermarkets for a premium price. It is a great initiative but I guess the DPI have researched what a lot of us already knew - the darker the vegetable the better it is for us. We will stick to our home grown broccoli. Who knows, maybe we'll get its antioxidant level tested too?

To collect our seed we let the flower heads and the seedpods dry on the plant and then cut them off and stored in a paper bag in a dark, cool place. After a few weeks we separated the seeds from the dried pods and stored the seed in airtight containers in the fridge until it was time to sow.

The one group who don’t want you to save seeds is the multinational seed company group. The 1987 Plant Varieties Act and the 1994 Plant Breeder’s Rights Act allow the seed companies to hold patents on their (genetically) modified seeds. The seed companies are, surprise, surprise, also the agric-chemical manufacturers. In 2002 the six largest companies sold 70% of globally used agric-chemicals and controlled 30% of the global seed industry. As I said in May this year I am not anti multinational but the serious problem with pesticide-laden seed is that much of the chemical gets leached into our rivers and groundwater.

The other problem with many of the current wheat cultivars is that they are so genetically narrow if they were allowed to self set there would be very little crop in the following year. Modern cultivars are designed to be sown only once, almost a disposable crop. Australian farmers are not meant to save seed from commercially grown crops but there has never been a successful conviction in any case brought against a producer here unlike in Canada.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation passed a genetic resources treaty in 2004 that acknowledged the necessity of preserving genetic diversity and the availability of that diversity to local indigenous producers. Ironic then, isn’t it, that in the country where wheat was first domesticated as a crop, Iraq, it is now illegal for farmers to save seed? Instead they must buy their wheat seed from an American multinational agric-chemical company. Now that is democracy in action….


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