246 The False Promise of Gene tically Engineered Foods
Community seed savers
Around the world, communities are responding to
the threat of GE crops. Some people demand that
governments label GE foods so they can avoid buying
or eating them. Others refuse to allow GE crops
to be planted in their regions. Many communities
have returned to the ancient practices of seed
saving and community seed stewardship.
Community seed stewardship is when
communities take control of the seeds they have,
save a variety of seeds to plant in the future, and keep careful records
of these seeds. In this way, communities keep important seed resources alive
and protect biodiversity. Also, they can prevent outsiders from claiming
ownership over their traditional seeds.
Governments can and should maintain national seed banks to make sure
there are plenty of different crops, and to prevent varieties of each plant
from growing scarce or disappearing. Keeping control over the seed supply is
essential to food security and food sovereignty.
Villagers organize a seed swap
The people in the Mexican village of Vicente Guerrero were worried about
losing their traditional seeds. Older people in the village remembered when
there were many different kinds of maize and even more kinds of beans.
Now there were only 2 kinds of maize and 4 kinds of beans. They knew that
seed companies were making new kinds of seeds that could be used for only
1 year, or needed expensive chemicals to grow. So the villagers decided to do
something.
The villagers invited people from the region to a big party, and asked
everyone to bring food to cook and their favorite kinds of seeds. People would
trade seeds with each other, cook meals with their favorite crops, and tell
stories about where these crops came from and how they grew. The meeting
was called a seed swap.
Some farmers arrived with varieties of maize and beans that others had not
seen in many years. They gave away seeds for others to plant. That year there
were 5 kinds of maize and 8 kinds of beans at the seed swap. By the next year,
news of the seed swap had spread throughout the region, and farmers brought
seeds even the grandparents had not seen since they were children.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012