Plants come from seeds and seeds come from plants. Seems like a simple enough combination, but in this case things are not as simple as they appear. Hybrid seed has been marketed in the U.S. since the 1920s. Hybrid seed results from crossing two related plants that are valued for different traits. The resulting generation has both of the favorable traits, often leading to huge advances in crop yield. In fact, most of the increase in agricultural production in the world since the 1920s has been a result of hybrid crops.
This increase in productivity comes with consequences: A loss of free seed for the farmer. The hybrid vigor that makes these crops so successful also makes their seeds totally worthless. Unlike open pollinated crops, hybrid crops produce seeds that, when planted, create a plant that will not grow well, produce unpleasant tasting food or otherwise be of little value to the farmer.
This forces farmers who grow hybrid crops to buy seeds from the breeding companies every year, rather than be able to save and collect their own seed. It may come as little surprise that the majority of seed given to foreign countries as farm aid is hybrid seed from American agricultural companies, locking even subsistence farmers into the cash economy.
These hybrid crops and other more recent biotechnology advances have all but destroyed the tradition of seed saving in many part of the world, particularly industrialized nations that have been a part of the agricultural “green revolution” for a long time now. This has effects far beyond just a loss of self sufficiency.
Today only three crops: rice, wheat and corn: provide 60 percent of the calories in the world. And within each of these three plants the genetic diversity has also been decreasing, due to the use of just the most highest yielding varieties. In fact, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 75 percent of crop diversity was lost during the 20th century. This is problematic on several levels.
First of all, if you have ever learned about the Irish potato famine you will know that a low level of genetic diversity makes crops more susceptible to disease. Any sort of immunity or resistance lacking in one plant in such a monoculture world is also lacking in the majority of the rest of the crops around. With fewer people saving seeds all over the world, many genes conferring resistance to all manners of blights, pests and rusts are being lost forever.
Besides resistance to pests, many genetic differences between crops make them more suitable for certain environmental conditions. Some varieties of rice do better in drier rather than wetter or colder rather than warmer climate. In the current agricultural mode the same crops are grown everywhere, regardless of how well suited they are to that particular environment. This often means an increased reliance on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation in order to prop up crops that are maladapted for their surroundings.
Loss of genetic diversity also means a lack in the diversity of our foods. Thousands of delicious varieties have disappeared that we will never get to taste. Indigenous peoples from the Andes had thousands of different, constantly evolving varieties of potatoes with all sorts of unique culinary purposes. Some were better for soups, others for drying, others for baking and so on.
There is a small but growing movement underway to cultivate more open pollinated crops and practice seed saving to preserve the remaining diversity of our food. Though labor intensive, growing a tomato that is adapted to your locality and that you are bringing back from the brink of obscurity must be extremely satisfying. As biotech corporations move into genetic engineering, patenting genes and considering the use of genes that create sterile plants, this seed saving is a way of fighting back against corporate control of the garden bed.
