Whilst in Africa in a small village in Zimbabwe standing knee deep in maize kernels as young girls shucked the dry kernels from the cobs into an enormous granary bin, I asked the farmer how much of his crop he would save to replant. The farmer looked at me and threw his arms in the air in despair. He said his father and his grandfather and his grandfathers father all were farmers and always saved their seed to replant but now, these hybrid seeds they cannot be saved, and if you do try to grow them a second time you get a very hit and missed crop. And they require the chemicals to fruit and have ruined our soil. This man was responsible for feeding 46 people in his extended village family and US government had just put sanctions on the Mugabe government as part of a human rights campaign. The Zim Dollar deflated almost overnight and the world government demanded the people pay in US dollars to purchase seed, fertilizers and petrol, US dollars which nobody had.
In that moment it was like being hit with a sledge hammer, it was more than the penny dropping it was the biggest wakeup call I have felt in my life! I realized that that between the first “Green Revolution” and the total corporatization of Agriculture there was a seriously insidious evil plan going on to intentionally starve the 3rdworld man and steal their land. Think of it, even if you sell chemicals, seeds, fertilizers and equipment cheaply if you have millions of people buying it, then someone is getting very rich.
And rich they are as those same companies who became so rich on selling fertilizers and pesticides decided to take it one step further and start Genetically Engineering our food. They have the billions of dollars it takes to do sweeping brainwashing campaigns to convince people that it is good for them, that it is the only way we shall feed the world ect ect. LIE upon lie upon lie!
In 1999 I did my Seed saving internship with Jude and Michelle Fanton of Byron Bay Australia. Part of the training required us to read the literature from the huge seed conglomerates like, Monsanto, Aventis and Norvartus to name a few. I read this nightmare story as some sort of scary evil sci-fi episode in the book of human drama. Some of the first seed that were genetically modified were actually labelled ‘Terminator Seeds” because they were made by a technology called “Terminator technology” with their soul function being to reproduce once and the seeds themself would be made infertile to put a complete stop to any human ever saving and sharing seeds. Instead forcing them further and further into debt so they have to keep buying seed every year. This is one of the largest factors contributing to Mass World hunger and starvation.
Through this insidious greed driven plan, farmers with their families and whole communities have gone into so much debt they have been forced to lose their family inherited land and become either slave workers on corporate farms or beggars in the growing sprawl of urban centres as they try to find any source of income to try to feed their families!
I became so disturbed by it I held an anti GE rally in Byron Bay back in 2001. At this stage there was no GE in Australia, legally and we were pushing for a 5 year moratorium until research could prove its safety. Basically I wanted to pull restaurant owners, supermarket management and even our local health food store owners out to address the people as to their policy about GE, because basically if they didn’t have one, then they were feeding their customers GE food all the time as companies refusing to label GE and then were also putting it into many product already. I remembered reading in their literature that stated by the year 2025 they wanted to own the worlds food supply.
Like any good business model, a company looks at where it is and what its goals are and then plots out a step by step methodology to get them there. Since 2001, we have seen more loss in the bio diversity of our food than any other time on the planet, we have seen laws passed that protect the corporate giants and forbid farmers from saving and sharing seeds. We have seen GE test crops planted in close proximity to conventional and organic crops contaminating farmer’s crops and then farmers being charged for the contamination and loosing the court cases based on these unethical laws which were past, most of them behind our back while we were sleeping exhausted from working so hard just to feed our families!
I became passionate about the cause to inform and educate and also to plant and share seeds. This is the antithesis to the corporate agenda. Plant, Save and Replant keeping the biodiversity alive and well in all gardens.
I have a lot of Earth wisdom about seeds and why they are so important to not only our survival but also our connection to the Earth and our ancestors. I love to share this education with those who wish to learn and especially with children as they will have to be the next wave of Eco-Warriors by standing tall with open hearts so they share their voice with the world.
I have been sharing all over the world in departments of agriculture, communities and schools. I am the creator of “The Ethical Feast” if you would like to organize an Ethical Feast in your area please contact me to inspire this Global Movement spreading awareness and building community.
When I think of our Earth Mother Gaia, my heart skips a beat for the intense love I have for this little amazing, living, breathing, incredible blue green planet we live upon. Not a day passes that I am not in awe of Her beauty, Her incredible biodiversity, and to stop and feel into the fact that we are on a small living sphere spiralling through a spiralling galaxy placed just so in our Universe, close enough to our sun and far enough away from our sun, just so all of this could happen! That is a miracle of Divine intelligence at its greatest!
As a child I had the same fascination with seeds as I do now with the Earth. Seeds, this little speck of insignificant matter which so many people over look and yet they are the building blocks of life. They are the first stage of all life including you and me. We were all just a seed at some point in our evolution. If we take a seed and place it in the right conditions, give it water and sunshine and let it germinate, the life force energy in that tiny grain comes to life and burst from the darkness of the soil to bear its greenery and grow its fruits in a never ending cycle of death and birth. One cycle marks the ending which gives rise to the next cycle. As is the microcosm so is the macrocosm.