Seed Saving

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_saving

http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Seed_diversity-varieties.jpg

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http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt - Vandana Shiva

"There are two trends,” she told the crowd that had gathered in Piazza Santissima Annunziata, in Florence, for the seed fair. “One: a trend of diversity, democracy, freedom, joy, culture—people celebrating their lives... And the other: monocultures, deadness... We would have no hunger in the world if the seed was in the hands of the farmers and gardeners and the land was in the hands of the farmers..."

Shiva, along with a growing army of supporters, argues that the prevailing model of industrial agriculture, heavily reliant on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fossil fuels, and a seemingly limitless supply of cheap water, places an unacceptable burden on the Earth’s resources. She promotes, as most knowledgeable farmers do, more diversity in crops, greater care for the soil, and more support for people who work the land every day. Shiva has particular contempt for farmers who plant monocultures—vast fields of a single crop. “They are ruining the planet,” she told me. “They are destroying this beautiful world.”

The global food supply is indeed in danger. Feeding the expanding population without further harming the Earth presents one of the greatest challenges of our time, perhaps of all time.

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