Perry Henzell, ContributorAlmost 20 years ago Ed Bass, the youngest of the Bass brothers from Fort Worth, Texas, who had first inherited billions in oil money and then become the largest shareholders in Disney, invited me to his chateau near Aix-en-Provence in southern France. Here he held an annual get-together of people who he felt would want to meet and talk about their various fields of interest for a week, aided by great food and wine, and stimulated by the fact that everybody there was cutting edge in space travel, medical research, psychiatry, cybernetics, agricultural planning and so on.
After every lunch and dinner one of the guests would get up and give a talk, and of all the speakers what one in particular had to say stuck with me. He reported that there had been a meeting between the heads of the 14 largest agricultural marketing and seed companies in the world, together with the largest manufacturers of fertiliser and pesticides, and that they were planning ahead to make sure that when the oil age came to an end everybody who had to pay for oil to switch on lights or move from a to b, or otherwise do a hundred things a day, would henceforth have to pay capitalist oligopolies to eat.
Their plan was to capture the seed stock of the planet and addict every seed to a chemical formula they devised. Hence, no food would grow unless they were paid for the seed that was planted. They would especially try to make sure that their seeds would not produce seeds so that each year farmers would have to buy everything they were going to plant anew.
A MALICIOUS THOUGHT
I was so appalled by this idea that I could scarcely believe it. After all, seeds are the most basic of gifts from nature, or God if you like, to man. Plant one seed and you not only get food to eat, you get hundreds of seeds to plant again. Ever was it thus from the beginning of time. To interfere with that process, deliberately and with malice aforethought, seemed to me like the greediest and most evil plan I had ever heard of, and I decided then and there to one day buy a piece of land where I could make sure to grow good old-fashioned food from good old-fashioned seeds because it seemed obvious that, apart from being able to keep eating, such seeds would become worth their weight in gold when this babylonian plan came to fruition.
Well, I bought the land. I have not yet started to plant because all the farmers in the area are already addicted to chemical fertiliser and refused to get involved in any plan without using it, but things are getting urgent now and the time has come to get help from abroad if necessary to make ital farming a reality in my little neck of the woods.
chemically addicted seed
Consider this: Monsanto, the biggest and 'baddest' of the companies selling genetically modified, that is, chemically addicted seed, worldwide, is sending out spies all over the U.S.A. and elsewhere to haul anybody into court and into jail if their seed is planted without their being paid a royalty. This happens even if the farmer has derived the seed from his own soil and a previous crop! They have even hauled farmers into court when seed blown from other farms by the wind have caught and grown in their fields, completely unbidden. Needless to say, they have the backing of the WTO.
In the meantime, millions of consumers pay a large premium to buy good old-fashioned food grown without chemical fertiliser or pesticides. They have made ital food the fastest growing and most prosperous market in the agricultural sector worldwide. Our farmers should know this. Our agricultural extension people should study and promote organic farming. Market vendors should pay more and demand more for ital food than for food many
people feel can give you cancer. And above all, as a nation, we must make sure that gene banks that preserve seeds which do not require fertiliser to grow are established and maintained.
Remember the oil crunch in the 70s when the whole world was held to ransom? Such a thing could happen for food in the future if we make ourselves vulnerable.
Not being able to drive is one thing. Starvation is another order of panic altogether.
You can send your comments to perryhenzell@yahoo.com or infocus@gleanerjm.com
