(11 November 2012, 20:43)Tartar Horde Wrote: Which is why as preppers it behooves us to grow plants from which we can save seed and sow the next year.
Almost everything I grow, I can get good seed from. The stuff I grow that are F1's are normally things that would be far to fussy to grow as a none F1 - eg cucumbers, melons.
I do save a bit of seed year on year, but mainly more to experiment. I keep lettuce seed from a lettuce type I grow each year, otherwise I have come across nothing that performs so well that I want to regularly save seed from it.
(11 November 2012, 20:43)Tartar Horde Wrote: The drive towards global food domination is relentless, but people are resisting, I know this from my frequent visits to India. Monsanto had a HUGE public relations drive in India to convince MILLIONS of farmers to use their seeds and fertlisers. This proved disasterous for the rural Indian farmers and Thousands have commited suicide by drinking the chemicals Monsanto forced them to buy.
So you work with Indian agriculturalists or have been to India on holiday a few times? How did Monsanto force people to buy chemicals? Did they threaten their kids? Did the chase them to the store with guns? Or was it because of the HUGE public relations drive (we normally call that advertising when we are not trying to be sensationalist).?
(11 November 2012, 20:43)Tartar Horde Wrote: They found they could'nt sow the seed as it was infertile, so the major part of the farmers income was spent on buying GM modified seed and the associated fertilizers and chemicals needed to grow this "super" seed.
***********READ THIS PARAGRAPH PLEASE TO SAVE ME REPEATING MYSELF IN ANOTHER POST****************
As I said in my previous post, do you have a source for this, as Monsanto said in 1999 that they would never commercialism this technology. A company called Delta Land and Pine did have a patent on this technology and was in the process of creating a commercial product. Monsanto bough Delta Land and Pine in 2007 to stop this from happening.
******READ THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT********
(11 November 2012, 20:43)Tartar Horde Wrote: They are fighting back by growing the tried and tested strains their ancestors used to grow. Food production should always be in the hands of the people.
Good for them. Hopefully they will overcome the problems that caused massive levels of farmers suicides before the introduction of GM crops, illiteracy amongst Indian farmers meaning they could not read the instructions for the use of agricultural chemicals meaning they used several years worth of fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides thinking the effect would be proportional when in fact it was finite, the problems of having farms - the majority of farmers are on less than 3 acres, a downturn in the urban economy pushing a lot of city dwellers to the land that they did not know how to farm and the poor government response to changes within the agricultural sector.
http://rajpatel.org/2009/10/27/stuffed-and-starved/
http://www.macroscan.com/anl/mar08/pdf/F...icides.pdf
http://aasrasuicideprevention.blogspot.c...ysngo.html (while this is a blog, it is fully referenced)
http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files...p00808.pdf
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v27/n1...109-9.html
http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2007-014.pdf
Now, what you wrote did come across what I have seen copied and pasted many, many times in ill informed blogs. Maybe you have been hood winked by a fancy web site, maybe you have been sold something untrue but easy to believe, but the only - and mean ONLY - true fact you have posted with regards to the Indian farming situation is that pesticides and herbicides have been used to cause suicide.
The reason for this is because they were on hand. These farmers did not have guns with which to shoot themselves or cars and hosepipes with which to gas themselves in. They had poison and they drunk it.
Sorry if I am coming across like a dick, but if I let it slide, some one else may repost it somewhere else and so on and so on and then more people will think 'oh, it must be true' when it quite plainly is not.
With regards to people having been in in control of their own food supply, any control was given up 10,000 years ago when we decided to live in large groups and have and develop agriculture. Large groups need systems of administration, a leader and a power structure develops.
The jury is out on why we decided to live in large groups and develop agriculture, but it is thought it was to worship a divinity or to brew beer. I err on the side of beer.