Loosing control of our seed supply

By Clive Blazey
When Jared Diamond wrote Collapse he explained the reasons for the downfall of almost every civilisation from Greeks to the Romans, the Incas and more recently the Easter Islanders, was caused by the impact of overpopulation on soil fertility. But a new documentary on Apple Movies, also called Collapse, is a frightening prediction of economic and population collapse which will be caused by the depletion of oil supplies. Our recent dependence on oil is a major contributor to a rise in population from 1 billion to our current level of 6.5 billion in just 110 years. The former CIA operative who wrote the script shows a really scary graph of the rise of population and the exploitation of oil. Of course now that we are beyond Peak Oil the inevitable conclusion is that population will collapse in conjunction with the dwindling supply of oil. (The CIA view is that the US was so concerned about falling oil reserves that the Republicans installed a puppet president George W. to respond to the real power behind the throne - oil man Vice President Dick Cheney. This explains George Ws strategic decision to move the focus of the 9/11 war from Afghanistan to oil-rich Iraq.) The shattering conclusion of the film is that the population collapse will take rich Western countries back to the Dark Ages. His concluding advice is to stock up on seeds and gold! Had the Americans not had such a blind spot for Castros Cuba they would have realised that whilst cheap oil and cheap food are inter-connected the collapse of population is not necessarily given. The Cubans rejected globalism and became self sufficient in food when their source of cheap oil was cut off after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in the 1990s. Forced to grow food without Russian oil, or fertilizers, or pesticides and global hybrid seeds, Cubans took over disused building sites, replaced tractors with horses, recycled the manure, replaced hybrid seeds with farmer-saved seeds and in a few years the capital Havana produced 60% of it food, 80% which is organically grown! (I doubt Melbourne or Sydney grew more than 1% of their food within city limits!) Oil is a global commodity that fuels our tractors and semi-trailers allowing our food to be grown on huge distant mono-culture farms and shipped across the world at the cost of climate change. Cuba found a way to be not just self sufficient in seeds but to be as energy independent as it is politically independent. Australia is totally dependent on global seed companies for up to 95% of our vegetable seed supplies. Monsanto which controls 90% of genetically modified crops around the world has also acquired the worlds largest vegetable seed company, Seminis, and the worlds largest breeder of Glasshouse crops. Australia is so totally dependent on overseas companies for supply of seeds that when the looming food crisis happens then we are in a weaker position than Third World countries like India and Africa whose farmers have saved seed for replanting. Global seed companies like Monsanto and Syngenta have in the space of twenty years almost total ownership of our food supply either by patent on GM crops or by restricted re-sowing of F1 hybrid seeds. Our cargo cult mentality has led to seed serfdom encouraged by our ignorant government administrators. In the film Collapse we are urged to buy up seeds or gold. What isnt explained is that many of these hybrid seeds are now more costly than gold and there is only one source global seed companies like Monsanto. Didnt you know that when you lose control of the seed supply you lose control the food you eat?

First published in Diggers Summer Garden 2011 www.diggers.com.au