First the Seed.

• Author: Tokar, Brian
• Position: Genetic engineering - Brief Article

With over 50 million acres of genetically engineered crops grown in the US last year, the biotechnology industry has tried to convey the message that their products are here to stay. Monsanto has been rapidly buying up some of the largest commercial seed companies, including Asgrow Agronomics, Holden's Foundation Seeds, and DeKalb Genetics. They are seeking to purchase Delta and Pine Land, the Mississippi-based company that controls three quarters of the US cotton seed market, and which shares the patent on Terminator technology with the USDA. The commercial market in vegetable seeds is being rapidly monopolized as well, largely due to the efforts of a Mexican company, Empresas La Moderna, whose aristocratic founder was profiled in a front page Wall Street Journal story earlier this winter (January 28, 1999).

Clearly, control over seeds is the key to the future of agriculture. In New England, we have become aware that significant numbers of farmers, mostly traditional dairy farmers, are being sold on genetically engineered varieties of seed, without any knowledge that the new "herbicide tolerant" and "pest resistant" varieties of corn, soybeans and seed potatoes that are now widely advertised are in fact products of genetic tinkering.

New England Resistance Against Genetic Engineering, the regional network that emerged from the First Grassroots Gathering on Biodevastation, is developing a campaign against genetically engineered seeds. While field actions, such as those in California in the 1980s and across Europe in the nineties, might have a relatively small impact in the US today, given the large scale of biotech crop production, the sale and distribution of genetically engineered seeds offers a potentially crucial focus for our work.

Our campaign has three components:

1. A short-term focus on Johnny's Seeds: Johnny's Selected Seeds, perhaps the best known supplier of vegetable and grain seeds to organic farmers and gardeners in the Northeast, has announced that they are considering offering genetically engineered varieties in the future. This is a serious affront to the values of organic producers in our region. We are urging Johnny's customers and other concerned people to write to the company and make it clear that if Johnny's ever lists a GE variety in their catalog, they will face a nationwide boycott (Fax:1-800-437-4290; E-mail: staff@johnnyseeds.com). We...