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Seeds of Control

by T. Zoë Kimmel   

The signs of spring have arrived, even in the frozen north.  I’ve seen glimpses of gravel in my snow-covered driveway.  I have my first leak in the ceiling from the ice dam caused by alternate hours of thawing and freezing on my metal roof.  And, best of all, the seed catalogues have been arriving in droves. 

I’ve been a gardener for years, interested in moderately healthy eating but certainly not a purist.  The first catalogue I received was from Gurney’s… one of the old-name companies that I turned to years ago when my children were small.  Because I’ve gotten more passionate about my longtime interest in organic and sustainable agriculture, I also now receive such catalogues as Seeds of Change and Abundant Life Seeds.  Like any good homesteader, I start reading them on my way back up to the house from the mailbox.  For a few glorious moments, my natural optimism outshines the snowflakes, and I sit down with a cup of coffee and a yellow pad to plan the garden of my dreams.  Enter reality... 

The first hint of a problem came from The Safe Seed Pledge in the Johnny’s Selected Seeds catalogue.  It reads, in part,  “We pledge that we do not knowingly buy or sell genetically engineered or modified seed or plants.” (Does that imply that they unknowingly buy or sell them?  How could that happen?)  At Johnny’s invitation, I checked out The Safe Seed Initiative through the Council for Responsible Genetics.   One thing led to another, and my dreaming turned to a nightmare.  The mental headlines were frightening:  While politics, war and economic collapse regularly top the news, a much more sinister problem looms on the horizon… Genetically Modified Organisms.  What are the issues around GMOs and how is the court responding?  Could I really be sued for growing my organic crops?  Putting my overactive imagination on hold, I decided to delve into further research before digging any dirt.

Now maybe I’m the only person who’s like this, but I’ve never been one to worry about patent numbers on vegetables or flowers.  I pick out things I like that are appropriate for my climate and soil, and send in the order.  As a former dairy and crop farmer, I knew about breeding lines in cattle, hybrid corn and pesticides.  But we had a small family farm before the days of genetic engineering, and the vegetable garden was a separate part of life anyway.  We shared garden seed and tools, and saved seed from year to year.  Occasionally, we’d have field corn cross pollinate the sweet corn, but it wasn’t a big deal.  And the closest we ever came to worrying about a lawsuit was when our cows got out in the road.

Last year… with the purchase of a new homestead and a return to serious gardening after a two-decade detour… I committed to focusing on organic seeds.  But I still functioned in a bit of a bubble.  As I started analyzing this year’s catalogues, that bubble burst.  I found obvious patent numbers, patents pending, things marked PVP, and items with special code numbers to decipher.  My reading skills and college education were little help in finding explanations for all of these within some of the catalogues themselves.  That led me back to the Internet and deeper into the Pandora’s box known as GMOs.  Now, my garden planning has turned into a social cause.

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