Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize. Just heard over the radio that the big, American seed companies are leasing seeds to farmers. The plants produce no seeds. Within ten years farmers will have no seeds in stock and will be totally under control of the giant seed companies.
FOOD is power.
And the United States has just taken a crucial step towards consolidating the global food market, much in the way it has with those other forms of power - weapons, money and information. Three months ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, along with Delta and Pine Land, the world's largest cotton seed company, received a patent for a genetic engineering technique that has ominous implications for the safety of the world food supply. Already perfected for tobacco and cotton, this technique will soon be available for use on all sorts of commercial seed, including crucial crops like soybeans, wheat and rice, that are staples for three-quarters of the world's poor. The strategy is simple. The companies that sell the seeds which feed the world hope to continually increase their sales of proprietary, genetically engineered seed.