Last year, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture officials sent ‘a friendly letter’ to a seed bank/seed exchange group in Mechanicsburg, telling them they need to test every variety of seed with extremely impractical and pointless tests to ensure that they are up to standards with regulations.
‘Agri-Terrorism’ was cited by officials as a reason why such regulations should be enforced on something as natural as the right to exchange and possess seeds.
There are laws in every state regulating the possession and exchange of seeds. The actual enforcement of these laws is spotty, because a lot of law is actually too complex most often to even decode, and just about any crazy thing that was once written in law can be enforced if law enforcement wants to. Also, who wants to enforce laws regulating and stifling such a productive, natural right?
“There’s almost no danger,” said John Torgrimson, the executive director of the Seed Savers Exchange. “This is not a risk to agriculture in any state. This is not a risk to our food supply.”
Pennsylvania is not alone in this fight. Regulators in Nebraska are also looking at local seed banks.
David Svik, the head of Nebraska’s ‘Seed Control Office’, says he will ‘see how to proceed’ with the many seed banks of the state who are not complying with regulations.
To quote a farmer from Nebraska on the issue, Betsy Goodman, on her opinion: “Regenerating your own seed is a human right.”
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6 comments:
This stupidity is screaming for civil disobedience - on a major scale!
As an originally agrarian society, we need seed diversity to ensure our ability to continue growing the crops necessary to sustain us.
These whacko's are getting money under the table somehow!
Read between the lines. If it is not going thru a federal or state agency, it is not being taxed.
It will just move underground. Department of Ag is the terrorist. Stay away from our food!
you idiots... this has to do with GMO's and Monsanto getting paid...
and they are poisoning you with your foods... which is why you have no choice but to buy seeds from them and every year... non from the previous year can be re used... and if you do then you get your life ruined in court for years being sued by them... because why? because they know you don't have enough money to fight them so they can drag out the legal fight all they want and you will give in...
10:38's correct and I'll expand. It's the democrat communist way.
The democrats are controlled by Big Business. Democrats want everything controlled by a handful of large companies. This is the communist way. People will have less choices including where they work and what they buy.
The democrats are very bad, very evil people and it's time people woke up to them.
Dept of Agr, EPA all of them are controlled by Big Business. Their goal is to wipe out all small businesses. These agencies came about as a way for Big Business to get around the anti trust laws. When big companies scream about the regulations they are lying. They like regulation. It's keeps out competition and limits choices for consumers.
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