|
|
Post by philip on Sept 8, 2015 2:56:47 GMT -5
Anyone else get this feeling like your a criminal when you want to send some vegetable seeds to someone abroad?
Your at the post office and it's time to declare what's in the parcel. You know perfectly well that some onion seeds are not going to spell an environmental disaster
but everything seems to be illegal to send these days. Most invasive species at least as far as insects are concerned arrive in the big industrial containers.
Most people that are really into plants are capable of watching newcomers to their gardens and keeping them in check in case they have invasive tendencies.
It seems to be no longer possible to send any type of seeds to Australia and New Zealand and i fear it won't be long before sending seeds between europe and america (for private people like you and me)
will be illegal. Also laws and regulations concerning all this are very complex and complicated. The people in charge seem to have adopted a "in case of doubt rule it out" policy.
Today the employee at the post tried to check if i was allowed to send seeds to sweden and looked for the answer in a book the size of a telephone directory.
Diseases and pests that could possibly spread through small scale seed swapping (how likely is this?) are surely way more dangerous to large scale monocultural production of a given crop than
to a mixed bio-diverse organic garden.
|
|
|
|
Post by nicollas on Sept 8, 2015 5:46:51 GMT -5
Generally i dont have to declare anything in french post offices, except when it is obvious there are seeds due to the sound when the package is moved. But i think the post office crew wonder why 'im sending package all over the world with no declared value.
|
|
|
|
Post by blueadzuki on Sept 8, 2015 6:30:31 GMT -5
I am TERRIFIED sending/receiving seeds outside the country including just as far as Canada. I'll do it from time to time if I see no other option to get what I want, but it literally always is the last resort. That's actually one of the main reasons I tend not to do searches for seeds and plants on Ebay anymore, the best way to avoid temptation is not to know something of interest exists. As the old not Shakespearian quote goes "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
It's actually not so much of being worried about the seed being lost. After all, I'm not going to send seed I can't afford to lose, and the loss of seed I ordered leaves me no worse off than I was before I placed the order. What does worry me is all of the horror stories I have heard here and elsewhere about USDA agents using incidents like this as jumping off points to flex their beauracratic muscles to justify their paychecks. Wanting to eliminate international private seed trade is bad enough, but I get the distinct feeling that many of them would like to find a way to cut off the problem at the source and eliminate anyone who is interested in private seed trade and indeed interested in non corporate seeds in anyway at all. In a world where people who have done nothing but ordered a recent manga from Japan and wound up getting a life in prison because the manga in question did not violate Japanese laws on child pornography but did violate US ones a part of me really does think that there are people in the USDA who would love to see all those who dabble in plant growing to be classified as domestic bioterrorists, and prosecuted as such.
|
|
|
|
Post by billw on Sept 8, 2015 11:42:11 GMT -5
We're all criminals. There are so many laws that you'll never know how many that you break every day. So, I try to do what makes sense and not worry about the law.
|
|
|
|
Post by steev on Sept 8, 2015 22:31:20 GMT -5
I long-since realized that there are many laws the breaking of which harms no one; as an individual, I have so little power to break laws that have any significant effect: I'm not an arms merchant, a financier, an agro-businessman, a politician, a multi-national corporation, a religious authority, or a media-mogul; I'm just one person and if I can break their "laws" I will do so because they're assholes and I don't recognize their "authority".
Subvert the dominant paradigm! Render these sphincters irrelevant to your life!
|
|
|
|
Post by castanea on Sept 13, 2015 13:03:11 GMT -5
California now prohibits most unregulated seed selling and sharing unless with a neighbor who lives within 3 miles. "AB2470 makes it illegal for a farmer to “offer for sale, expose for sale, possess for sale, exchange, barter or trade” their seeds beyond an arbitrary three mile limit from their farm to “neighbors”, unless they adhere to a strict and onerous packaging process. Under this law a farmer is not allowed to share seeds at a swap meet over three miles from their farm, or exchange seeds with a friend who lives more than three miles down the road, without jumping through the same regulatory hoops designed for giant commercial seed retailers, like Monsanto. AB2470 creates unfair competition and threatens the distribution of organic seeds, favoring genetically modified (GMO) seeds." www.organicconsumers.org/news/angry-farmers-will-protest-dangerous-seed-law |
|
|
|
Post by flowerweaver on Sept 13, 2015 13:44:29 GMT -5
If that is the case, how did the Heirloom Seed Expo in Santa Rosa go then--isn't there some swapping done there, or is it entirely commercial growers offering seed?
|
|
|
|
Post by templeton on Sept 13, 2015 16:58:30 GMT -5
Wow! Can they give away their seed? Looks like it is still possible under that wording. Or trade through an intermediary in another state without similar laws? - business opportunity there for a civic minded seedsman - or woman. Set up a brokerage in seed trades...
T
T
|
|
|
|
Post by castanea on Sept 13, 2015 17:38:29 GMT -5
If that is the case, how did the Heirloom Seed Expo in Santa Rosa go then--isn't there some swapping done there, or is it entirely commercial growers offering seed? Looked like it was all commercial growers to me. But of course you never know what might be going on under the table or out in the parking lot. Reminds me a little of alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. How did that work out anyway.....? |
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Sept 14, 2015 21:12:13 GMT -5
Everytime I buy shockingly dirt cheap electronics from china my packages are always checked as "gift" even though they are purchased items. So I guess that's how they get around customs problems
|
|
|
|
Post by olddutch on May 30, 2016 19:06:58 GMT -5
A huge number of the invasive and noxious weeds we fought on the farm I grew up on were introduced and/or deliberately spread outside their normal range including a large number of alliums. Ask any dairy farmer about the effects of any allium in his pastures. That is the primary reason for quarantine, not really some paranoid idea about multinationals like Monsanto who are already bad enough to worry about without adding unwarranted charges. Spread of invasive and noxious plants and accidental spread of disease are the main cause of quarantine and if anyone thinks plant disease does not strike small growers, all they need to do is ask around about aster yellows or garlic bloat nemotode. It is far too often the small grower and hobby gardener who gets wiped out.
For the most part I keep my own starts and buy seed and nursery from certified and inspected suppliers. I certainly recommend that everybody does. Local swaps amoung friends are a bit different and far less dangerous, but cross country and international unmonitored exchanges are dangerous to all of us.
|
|
|
|
Post by kazedwards on May 30, 2016 20:42:21 GMT -5
I will send seeds and such to where ever. I figure the laws are there to cover there asses. Kinda like how there is a law about improper use of battery acid. If you use it wrong you will not be arrested but if you hurt yourself you can't sue. It's there to protect the companies that make it. I feel it is the same sorta thing with the seed laws. They are there to protect the big companies. If something were to happen it just gives them grounds to prosecute. If you do it and nothing happens then they won't be busting down your door because it won't matter. I know New Zealand and Australia are not like that but it seems to be the case here.
On a side note most garlic sold in super markets here in the US is grown in China. There is no possible way check each bulb is checked before entering the country. It would be very easy for something to come in on garlic from China verses garlic from a trade with someone in Canada. And as far as Europe they are more strict than we are.
|
|
|
|
Post by paquebot on Jun 3, 2016 21:25:56 GMT -5
On a side note most garlic sold in super markets here in the US is grown in China. There is no possible way check each bulb is checked before entering the country. It would be very easy for something to come in on garlic from China verses garlic from a trade with someone in Canada. And as far as Europe they are more strict than we are. Inasmuch as the US garlic industry is already suffering every possible ailment, anything new coming in from China may be an upgrade! Martin |
|
|
|
Post by castanea on Jun 4, 2016 0:52:09 GMT -5
A huge number of the invasive and noxious weeds we fought on the farm I grew up on were introduced and/or deliberately spread outside their normal range including a large number of alliums. Ask any dairy farmer about the effects of any allium in his pastures. That is the primary reason for quarantine, not really some paranoid idea about multinationals like Monsanto who are already bad enough to worry about without adding unwarranted charges. Spread of invasive and noxious plants and accidental spread of disease are the main cause of quarantine and if anyone thinks plant disease does not strike small growers, all they need to do is ask around about aster yellows or garlic bloat nemotode. It is far too often the small grower and hobby gardener who gets wiped out. For the most part I keep my own starts and buy seed and nursery from certified and inspected suppliers. I certainly recommend that everybody does. Local swaps amoung friends are a bit different and far less dangerous, but cross country and international unmonitored exchanges are dangerous to all of us. Some of the current quarantine regulations we have in the US were indeed implemented for the reasons you state. Many were not. Some were implemented to protect all growers. Some were implemented to prevent competition. Some were implemented intelligently. Many were not. And even the ones that were well intentioned are often poorly administered. The apparent primary goal of the federal government these days is to expand its power, not to protect the public. Witness almost everything the EPA does including its recent poisoning of the Animas River in Colorado. Recently the USDA has tried to make it more difficult for amateur growers to obtain genetic resources from GRIN. Why? Because they can. It's not for quarantine purposes. These days many of the worst pests, such as emerald ash borers, did not arrive on agricultural shipments anyway but in packaging for manufactured goods from Asia, which is often poorly inspected or not inspected at all. Why? Because it's an inconvenience to the companies that import goods from Asia. So if you want to import a few veggie seeds from China, they'll shut you down, but if your company wants to import 10,000 teak wood chairs from Thailand in wood packing crates from China, bring them on in. And state officials aren't any more competent than the Feds. Earlier this year the state of California tried to restrict sales of bare root apple trees from SoCal growers. Their alleged reason for doing so was to help stop the spread of Pierce's Disease, a serious disease that kills grapevines. The problem with their action was 3-fold: 1. The state's efforts to control Pierce's disease have been from the start poorly designed and poorly executed, 2. There is no evidence of any sort that Pierce's Disease can spread on bare root apple trees. None. and 3, the California Plant Quarantine Manual expressly exempts dormant nursery stock from the Pierce's Disease Control program. In short, state inspectors did not know their own regulations. |
|
|
|
Post by rowan on Jun 4, 2016 2:17:55 GMT -5
Well written castanea and it is the same for Australia |
|
