Posted: Jun 25, 08 5:55am
My Tomatoes have blossoms on them now. Butter clover crowds their stand but it can be turned with a tined rake and provides a good feed for the soil. The basil is about ten-to twelve inches tall and getting bushy. Yellow squash has monstrous yellow-orange blossoms, and the zucchini is not far behind. The young tomato plants have a distinctive scent to them as all tomato plants do. It's a very musky pleasurable odor that I look forward to every spring and summer.
The other day I was reading a passage from a great book by Barbara Kingsolver called: "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"
I highly recommend it.
There was a part that was very interesting and at the same time, depressing.
In her book, according to a crop ecologist, in our history humans have eaten some 80,000 plant species. After recent precipitous changes, three quarters of all human food now comes from just eight species. The field so to speak, is quickly narrowing to genetically modified (GM) corn, soy, and canola.
We're losing them as fast as the rain forests. In 1970, the Plant Variety Protection Act was written into law. Anything owned by humans, of course, can be taken away from others. The removal of crop control from farmers to agribusiness has been powerful and swift.
Six companies--Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Mitsui, Aventis, and Dow--now control 98 percent of the WORLD'S seed sales.
These companies invest heavily in research whose purpose is to increase food production capacity only in ways that can be strictly controlled.
The most common genetic modification now contained in most U.S. corn , soy, cotton and Canola do one of two things.
(1) Put a bacterial gene into the plant that kills caterpillars, or (2) alter the crops physiology so it withstands the herbicide Roundup, so chemicals can be sprayed over the crop. (the crop stays alive, the weeds die) You guessed it, Monsanto controls sales of the resistant seed, and the Roundup.
With little or no variation in crops, it's kind of like having all your eggs in one basket. Something completely natural could conceivably wipeout something unnatural i.e. g.m. crops.
I'm happy I'll be able to eat real heirloom tomatoes all summer long, but I feel sorry many people don't even know they're out there. Some people have never even eaten vegetables grown in their backyard or harvested from a local farm. The difference in taste is amazing. Get to your local farmer's market and skip the supermarket once in a while.
