a seed

Whatever we do lays a seed in our deepest consciousness, and one day that seed will grow.  ~Sakyong Mipham

When I think of beginnings I always think of seeds. 

I am often deeply concerned for the safety of our seed... yes safety of our seed.
What is going on with Hybrid seeds is frightening!!! I am not proud of what the FDA is doing and allowing in most aspects of our food. Which of course includes seeds, they are the beginning of food.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                

I love Open Pollinated Seeds / Non-Hybrid 

I buy open pollinated seeds! I am proud and believe it is the way nature intended. I found a great place to buy Open pollinated seeds on line from http://www.victoryseeds.com/  They have always had good variety online and we have loved our tasty crops each year.....Open-pollinated/ non-hybrid seeds are NOT easy to find here in Utah that is why I buy online.

Open-pollinated varieties are the traditional varieties which have been grown and selected for their desirable traits for millennia. They grow well without high inputs because they have been selected under organic conditions. 

These varieties have better flavour, are hardier and have more flexibility than hybrid varieties. Breeders cannot manipulate complex characteristics such as flavour as easily as they can size and shape.

These seeds are dynamic, that is they mutate and adapt to the local ecosystem, as opposed to modern hybrids.

Commercial breeders lack the incentive to produce new open pollinated varieties from which farmers could SAVE SEED and REPLANT!!! 

Hybrid seeds

Hybrid seeds are the first generation offsprings of two of the same species. Seeds taken from a hybrid often are sterile and will not produce YIKES! They also don't incorporate or express the desired traits of the parents.

The development of hybrid seed enabled the beginning of the commercial seed market. Farmers were persuaded to buy new hybrid seed each season, replacing the traditional practice of farm-saved seed, due to the fact that hybrids can improve yields.

Hybrid seed is also known as "high response" seeds. These seeds require chemical fertilizers, harmful herbicides, dangerous pesticides and lots of water to achieve their high yields.

Hybrids have been bred with an emphasis on yield at the expense of hardiness, resistance and future health of the species. Breeders will sacrifice disease resistance where chemical pesticides are available. Reliance on these seeds enforces the use of chemical inputs. Hybrid seeds and their required chemical fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation systems have trapped many of the world’s poorest farmers into a cycle of debt. In India hundreds of farmers have committed suicide due to debt. Wow! The substitution of chemical fertilizers for much needed organic methods of returning nutrients to the soil, such as composting, crop rotation and manure creates LIFELESS  dusty soils prone to soil erosion. An estimated 24 billion tons of soil are eroded from the world's agricultural land each year. Dust levels in the lower atmosphere have tripled in the last 60 years. I saw an amazing Movie about dirt called "Dirt" at Sundance Film Festival in 2009. It was an amazing Documentary about the skin of our earth a must see for all you Dirt lovers... I was super excited about it.