Pnge 14 RAIN February-March 1980 small farms access ,Recent Seed Company Purchases Celanese ITT Monsanto Pure" Sandoz Union Carbide SEED CrnPANY Cepril.lnc. Moran Seeds Harris Seeds O .M . Scott [, Sons Burpee Seeds Gurney Seeds Farmers' Hybrid Co. Advanced Seeds Ferry Morse Seeds Hulling Hybrids Nalional·NK Northrup'King Rogers Brothers Keystone Seed Co. Jacques Seeds Amchem Products "Seeds of the Earth" Seed Supplement, January 1980 issue of Tilth: Biological Agriculture in the Northwest, $8/yr. from: Rt. 2, Box 190-A Arlington, WA 98223 Fur thosl' of us who spend December ordering seed c~talogs, January ordering seeds, and Fl·bruary and March germinating our future crops in ~unny windows without a political twinge , Barbara Snyder's "Seeds of the Earth" bears the rl'minder " everything is political." Before you dive into your favorite seed catalog, take a look at the list of new owne rs and get your hands on this article. Mega-corporations are intcrestl,d in breeding for YUP (yield, uniformity and proct'ssing). " YUP bias" is gener 'llly supported by government policy (see "Family Farms- How We Conna Keep 'Em"). The latC'st evidences of this tendency are Senate Bill S-23 and House Bill HR 'JYY, proposed amendments to the 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act. In her analysis of these amendments, Snyder says, " the proposed amendments standardize patent coverage (of plant varieties) with European laws. " The effects in Europe of this kind of legislation are pretty dire. " Small seed companies whose main trade was in traditional varieties are being forced out of business, and gardeners can be fined . for even growing certain plants. People working in the field of patent rights fear the system will wipe out three quarters of Europe's vegetable varieties by 1991. " The questions are very complex and Snyder suggests several references (including copies of the bills themselves-ask your congressional representative to send them) to fill out the picture. - CC Addendum: In Dec. RAIN Lloyd Kahn 's article "A Hard Look at How-To " qtwtrd extensively from Tilth, Slimmer 1979. Back isslles with copies of the article qlloted are available for $2. Agricultural Soft Path Strategies? And what about 50ft energy path studies for farmland and rural areas 7 One criticism that we've received concerning the gener ally excellent organizing tool County Energy Plan Guidebook (RA IN May, Augustl September 1979) is its noticeable lack of an agricultural component in its energy sector analysis guidelines. In a recent conversa tion Guidebook co-author Jim Benson ack nowledged this gap, and suggested that he would be interested in communicating with people at work on agricultural 50ft path strategies for counties and localities. Per haps there is some way in which their work could be integrated into the Gu idebook strategy . That strategy, by the way, seems to be rolling right along. By late autumn, at least 3,000 copies of the Guidebook had been distributed ; over 100 local studies initiated; and plans that covered several entire states-Missouri, Vermont and New Hampshire-were looking to be completed by early spring. All you "progressive" states-let's gct going. Jim also mentioned that copies of the Guideb ook are being distributed to every local community action program in the country-a very important tie-in for local soft path strategists to take note of. -Stew Aml's For further informationlfeedback contact: Jim Benson Institute for Ecological Studies 9208 Christopher St. Fairfax, VA 22031 703 /691-1271
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