Seeds

Here’s how far gone I am… this is one of the most exciting things I’ve gotten in the mail in months.

They’re seeds from The Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa.

Dragon Carrot
Mexican Sour Gherkin Cuke
Potmarron Squash
Mongolian Giant Sunflower
Painted Lady Runner Beans
Chioggia Beets
Casper (White) Eggplant
Clemson Spineless Okra

And not one of them grown or owned by Monsanto, to my knowledge. Recently, I read the book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver, and it tipped me off to the saga of Semini Seeds and their purchase by Monsanto. More significantly, it also led to my discovery that many (most? all?) seed vendors sell Semini seeds under their own labels. This includes my historical supplier, Territorial Seeds.

That, my friends, was like finding out that Satan supplies the pews to my church. It’s no big thing; he just makes the seats. They’re good seats. Trust him.

No, thanks. Anyone who can release genetically modified organisms into the wild (oops! our corn pollen kills butterflies on contact!) or think that ‘agriculture’ means growing Round-up resistant crops so that you can spray the stuff on everything and your monocrop will survive– has lost touch with their humanity in some significant way. Trusting them not to encode their ‘suicide genes’ or ‘whatever-resistant’ genes they’ve derived from wombats or fruit flies into my tomatoes is asking too much. If there was a dollar in it, they’d do it. Believe me; I have an MBA. They’d do it and rationalize that the ‘invisible hand’ would clean up the mess.

Will I buy seeds from Territorial again? Fer sure, but as few as I need. They’re just nice people trying to do business. I don’t imagine they have any more desire to deal with Monsanto than I do. I make decisions in my business that are ethically… ambiguous… sometimes. The only leverage that we have into what decisions those business people make is through a) regulation and b) our dollars. The government is laughably corrupt at this point, and so the only choice we have is to try to convince the suppliers that the demand is for a sustainable option.

So that’s why I’m excited about my seeds. That and it means that winter may actually end one day.