For some seasons now, I’ve been saving zinnia seeds to sow the next year. I can’t believe how a tiny seed can hold this wealth of beauty and grace.
Though I am a just one gardener growing on a very small scale, I claim my right to collect and save seeds so that I can play a part in crop biodiversity, and to keep the seed free. I don’t mean “free” in terms of I’m giving them away, but free from corporate control, free from copyrighting and patenting like how Monsanto does.
And the question of seed sovereignty and control is one that we urban gardeners can answer. The practice of seed collecting has been around ever since humans could identify what a seed was, and for the agribusiness goliaths to make it a crime for small farmers to keep their own seed is criminal.
The life force of the seed is the life force of the people, and when big companies take that away from us, they are essentially killing us.
In 1995, Indian Agriculture was reoriented from being focused on National Food Security, which rests on the livelihood and ecological security of our small farmers, to being focussed on corporate control and corporate profits, which are made possible by the corporate written rules of “free” trade, trade liberalization, and globalization. Enabled by these rules, agrichemical giants entered India and started to control the seed sector. Where once farmers grew, saved, and replanted seeds, they were now forced to buy seed-chemical packages that allowed companies to extract super-profits from farmers through royalty collection.
–Dr. Vandana Shiva, April, 24, 1995
And since 1995, almost 300,000 farmers in India have committed suicide.
Live seed or die.