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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 20, 2016 18:59:01 GMT -5
How the seed expo does seed: They require you to have a license to sell seed in California. Joseph and I tried to get together to do the show. It was a nightmare of complicated forms and $$$$$.
Plus, without the license, they can take away your seed at the Calif. Ag Inspection Border.
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Post by steev on Jun 20, 2016 19:54:29 GMT -5
Control and exploit for corporate profit, that's the real agenda of globalization; un-patented seeds are the new drugs and contraband; un-licensed dealers in them are the new smugglers and pushers. I'm SO stuck in the 60's; the bad (though sometimes fun) parts of them only change; they don't go away. There will always be people who get off on being empowered to control/oppress others (as well as those on both sides who just want to make a living, regardless of the larger effects), just as there will always be those who get off on frustrating them. I'm tired of being either Brer Fox or Brer Rabbit; I'd druther be Pogo Possum; all this oppositional crap gives me the col' robbies.
Forward into the Past! Subvert the dominant paradigm!
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Post by castanea on Jun 21, 2016 18:54:13 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Jun 21, 2016 22:56:46 GMT -5
Yes, well, in my experience (some 37+ years gardening in the SF East Bay area), I've seen imported mites devastate Syzygeum and fuchsia species. Do I support gummint regs to prevent this sort of fuck-up? Hell, yes! Clearly they don't/can't prevent it, or this shit wouldn't have gotten through! These agencies have been hamstrung by underfunding. Oh, look! If we refuse their funding, they don't do their work! What a surprise; who could have seen that coming?
Now, I don't want to put the onus on the regulatory agencies, given that, in the USA, the regulatory agencies have been grossly underfunded for a generation, like so many other agencies that used to oversee the public good, but there needs to be more attention given to what affects people: not corporations: people, which corporations aren't.
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Post by castanea on Aug 17, 2016 21:11:25 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Aug 18, 2016 2:55:37 GMT -5
Yeah, yeah; like any government agency has the funding/interest in regulating the potential threats of global trade. Interest in promoting the profits of global trade; much more to the point. Native species? Who gives a husky fuck, when there's money to be made? If you make enough money, you can live where the prevailing species suit you just fine.
Does anyone really care about Fuchsia mite, Syzygium mite, Zebra mussels, or star thistle? Prolly only folks directly impacted, and how big a group can that be? Do they have enough clout to get Congress to fund regulatory agencies to a level adequate to the work? If not, they should shut the fuck up and get out of the way while the entrepreneurs make their money and split, before the results are apparent.
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Post by prairiegarden on Aug 22, 2016 9:08:27 GMT -5
The whole business of restricting seed travelling from individual to individual whereever they are all got into overdrive as a result of Monsanto et all pushing the Alimentary Codex, or so I understand. That started in Europe a number of years ago when all sorts of stuff that had been grown for years, sometimes centuries suddenly became illegal to grow in some countries but not in others, both in the EU.
Thus, as a real example, people who wanted to thatch a roof in accordance with the original thatch material used in the 1700s were no longer allowed to grow it in Britain, but must import it from Spain. Well, they could GROW it, but only if they somehow already had the seed, they weren't allowed to buy or trade for the seed, or even be gifted it, or else they were breaking the law, and whoever gifted it or sold it to them was also subject to fines or even jail. The last time I was able to access seed from the Real Seed Company in Britain, they charged me a penny to belong to a club, as that was the only way around the regulations, now they won't sell outside the EU at all because the restrictions are too onerous and the gain/penalties not worth the hassles.So now the only way would be presumably to go there and smuggle it back or have someone smuggle the seed in for you. Easier with lettuce seed than peas grown as far back as there are records but which are now illegal to sell as they have apparently suddenly become dangerous as they aren't on an "approved" list of varieties.
It is interesting that the laws regarding seed are written in almost precisely the identical language and phrasing in every government around the world. It's like saying "oh no, there's no collusion" when every gas station of every brand raises the price of fuel on precisely the same night by precisely the same amount. It has come into effect in Canada as well under the former Harper government, supposedly as a requirement if Canada wanted to get access to European markets via the treaty the EU was trying to push for support from Britain before the Brexit vote.
It caused a stir here when it meant that farmers learned that as a result, they are no longer supposed to save their own seed but must buy seed every year. I don't know if is being in any way monitored or enforced, but it's there. I also don't know if the same restrictions regarding seed selling/swapping/gifting are part of the legislation, the government of the day had a nifty way of getting around any debate in parliament by bundling up all the legal things they wanted to do in every department into one omnibus bill which nobody had time to read or think about and shoving it through in one monstrous jumble sale of laws. It's probably in there somewhere. It certainly was in the law they tried to push through in NZ and appears to be in the law in the US, since there have been reports of seed libraries being raided, the seed confiscated and the librarians threatened with jail. That was under the aegis of the "Food Safety" bill which has turned up in countries everywhere.
This has nothing whatever to do with invasive species, it has to do with corporate control of the food system. And as the latest shenanigan in the US of taking the teeth out of the GMO labelling laws which finally got passed and making them virtually meaningless, thus voiding the right of the States to make law for their own citizens, indicates that this is going to get worse instead of better. The US is now pretty much officially run by such as Monsanto, Dow, Bayer etc. with the government of the day only able to do whatever they allow them to do, elections are only there as part of the facade of democracy.
I'm waiting to see if in Canada we have the courage and the intelligence to get out of the trap or not.We got rid, finally, of the weasel that put us into it, but not sure that the present government is much more than a pretty face running a "business as usual" sort of government. So far I haven't seen much to inspire confidence, Justin is not his daddy. But he is at least a lightyear better than Harper, if only because we now have some debate back in the government. So perhaps there's hope. But it's tricky, who wants to fight the idea of food being safe? As that is certainly the way it would be promoted by Monsanto et all... the same company that promised pcbs were safe, or glyphosate.
So far, I've had no issues getting seed from any company anywhere that's been willing to sell it, including from Australia and certainly from the US. The thing now, is the exchange rate and the sudden huge leap in shipping costs, which have more or less quadrupled. I've been urging people in gardening forums in Canada to start saving their own seed, and it is astonishing to me how many people ..some of them gardeners for years... who think that it's difficult, or that the resulting plants will be poisonous or something. The whole tradition of buying seed every spring is well ingrained. Admittedly I suffer from it as well...variety is the spice of life etc.. but I save seed too.
Since Monsanto and others have been quietly buying up the heritage seed companies and not changing the name so people don't know, there is undoubtedly going to be a lot of pressure on the others to cave in or sell out,like the small family business trying to compete with Walmart. A small Canadian mostly mail order seed company that's been in business for years has been quietly bought but is still operating under its original name. It's a sad and scary world on so many levels these days.
BTW, just as an aside, and not to be an apologist for the zebra mussel, but apparently along with all the damage it does, it is also cleaning up the water that we have been so busy polluting, something that nothing else so far has been able to do. This was an astonishing thing to learn. Nature works on a different timeline than we do, and sometimes ( not in reference to zebra mussels, but in general) we would do well to remember it. ATM I tend to think we won't be around as a species anywhere nearly as long as the dinosaurs were, or even as long as cockroaches, for all we think we are so very clever.
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Post by philip on Aug 22, 2016 15:14:59 GMT -5
"BTW, just as an aside, and not to be an apologist for the zebra mussel, but apparently along with all the damage it does, it is also cleaning up the water that we have been so busy polluting, something that nothing else so far has been able to do. This was an astonishing thing to learn. Nature works on a different timeline than we do, and sometimes ( not in reference to zebra mussels, but in general) we would do well to remember it. ATM I tend to think we won't be around as a species anywhere nearly as long as the dinosaurs were, or even as long as cockroaches, for all we think we are so very clever."
This makes me think of an article i read on invasive plants not long ago where the author claimed that it's a way the planet is healing itself, because plants that are invasive usually grow faster than the native ones and produce more biomass and will usually flourish on "disturbed" or "unhealthy" land. The article also mentioned benefits of japanese knotweed in wales where it creates habitats for grass snakes if i remember correctly. I am not sure if i completely agree with that, but it's interesting to note that invasive species can have good effects on the environment.
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Post by steev on Aug 22, 2016 22:42:10 GMT -5
I often doubt we'll last as long as whales, let alone dinosaurs, sharks, cockroaches, or amoebae (in order of persistent survival). That invasive (non-native species to which a given ecosystem lacks effective controls) can have some good effects may eventually ameliorate the short-term havoc they can cause (just look at what we've done since we invaded the entire non-African world), but it is so often to the terminal disadvantage of species that were getting along just fine without the newcomers (the dodo, mammoth, Passenger pigeon, Easter Island palm, and giant sea-cow come to mind).
The whole mega-corporations-trying-to-rule thing is nothing new, just a somewhat new twist on an ancient behavior pattern; the mass of humanity used to be ruled by a minority supported by "Divine Right", which is being replaced by "Force of Law"; tomayto, tomahto (patented); you have no right to grow your tomayto, because I think it's a threat to my tomahto (patented) which I have developed at great expense and from which I have a right to profit greatly, since I have had the initiative to produce the glorious tomahto (patented), while you've just produced food, you scruffy peasant!
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Post by templeton on Sept 6, 2016 8:30:21 GMT -5
Will Brexit mean the seed laws in Britain will change?
T
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Post by prairiegarden on Sept 9, 2016 13:42:52 GMT -5
Doesn't seem as though anything is going to change very soon, they don't yet seem to have a plan of any sort. Or if they do, it seems to be saying that Brexit was the decision and therefore they must respect that, but they don't intend to actually DO anything about it. To be fair the prime minister ( past or present) was not a proponent for Brexit but even so you'd think there'd have been some sort of contingency plan.
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Post by steev on Sept 10, 2016 1:23:42 GMT -5
Aw. c'mon; a contingency plan for if the electorate was totally HUA? Nobody plans for the eventuality of the electorate being bat-shit. That's why it's such a surprise.
"Oh, look! The Rulers guessed wrong; ain't that a bitch."
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Post by castanea on Sept 10, 2016 17:28:44 GMT -5
"BTW, just as an aside, and not to be an apologist for the zebra mussel, but apparently along with all the damage it does, it is also cleaning up the water that we have been so busy polluting, something that nothing else so far has been able to do. This was an astonishing thing to learn. Nature works on a different timeline than we do, and sometimes ( not in reference to zebra mussels, but in general) we would do well to remember it. ATM I tend to think we won't be around as a species anywhere nearly as long as the dinosaurs were, or even as long as cockroaches, for all we think we are so very clever."
This makes me think of an article i read on invasive plants not long ago where the author claimed that it's a way the planet is healing itself, because plants that are invasive usually grow faster than the native ones and produce more biomass and will usually flourish on "disturbed" or "unhealthy" land. The article also mentioned benefits of japanese knotweed in wales where it creates habitats for grass snakes if i remember correctly. I am not sure if i completely agree with that, but it's interesting to note that invasive species can have good effects on the environment.
"Invasive" is completely a human concept applicable only to human culture and human issues. Nature doesn't give a shit - whatever is strongest survives. Period. Humans also look at the world in very short segments of time. If things are not the way humans want them to be in the next 25-100 years, they freak out. Nature just doesn't care. |
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Post by prairiegarden on Sept 11, 2016 1:30:39 GMT -5
Aw. c'mon; a contingency plan for if the electorate was totally HUA? Nobody plans for the eventuality of the electorate being bat-shit. That's why it's such a surprise. "Oh, look! The Rulers guessed wrong; ain't that a bitch." Well before the vote the polls said it was close, so it shouldn't have been such a surprise. I don't agree that the brexit decision was batshit, but then I don't approve of trying to concentrate power as far away possible from the people being ruled. Not that my approval or otherwise carries the weight of a wing on a dead mosquito, but I think they got it right. Why should it be assumed that there can't be trade and such without giving up control over your own laws, or that cooperation is impossible unless coded into legalese ? It's all about control. |
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Post by templeton on Sept 11, 2016 17:32:56 GMT -5
This makes me think of an article i read on invasive plants not long ago where the author claimed that it's a way the planet is healing itself, because plants that are invasive usually grow faster than the native ones and produce more biomass and will usually flourish on "disturbed" or "unhealthy" land. The article also mentioned benefits of japanese knotweed in wales where it creates habitats for grass snakes if i remember correctly. I am not sure if i completely agree with that, but it's interesting to note that invasive species can have good effects on the environment.
"Invasive" is completely a human concept applicable only to human culture and human issues. Nature doesn't give a shit - whatever is strongest survives. Period. Humans also look at the world in very short segments of time. If things are not the way humans want them to be in the next 25-100 years, they freak out. Nature just doesn't care. An interesting take, Castanea. 'Conservation', 'extinction', 'beauty' and 'compassion' are also human constructs, but that doesn't make them irrelevant to our actions. Nature doesn't give a shit - but when say a bacterial infection is causing my dog pain, should i do nothing because nature doesn't give a shit? I think perhaps the arguments for and against invasives are a bit more nuanced. In addition to humans looking at short time periods, I've noticed northern hemisphere residents, living in their depauperate post glacial environments are often blinkered to ecological processes that take place in the rich and unique environments that have evolved elsewhere - but perhaps this discussion has wandered a bit off topic... T |
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