Tuesday, August 10, 2010

This Is A Travesty

The oldest seed bank in the world could soon be torn apart and seeds that are genetically different than 90% of the rest of the worlds supply destroyed, to build cheap housing.

Some body needs a severe beating for being so short sighted.

Pavlovsk seed bank faces destruction'

Priceless collection' in Russia was never registered so is therefore worthless and does not officially exist, say developers

Twelve Russian scientists famously chose to starve to death rather than eat the unique collection of seeds and plants they were protecting for humanity during the 900-day siege of Leningrad in the second world war. But the world's first global seed bank now faces destruction once more, to make way for a private housing estate.


The fate of the Pavlovsk agricultural station outside St Petersburg will be decided in the courts this week. If, as expected, the case goes against it then the collection of plants built up over 85 years could be destroyed within months.
snip

More than 90% of the plants are found in no other research collection or seed bank. Its seeds and berries are thought to possess traits that could be crucial to maintaining productive fruit harvests in many parts of the world as climate change and a rising tide of disease, pests and drought weaken the varieties farmers now grow. As it is predominantly a field collection, Pavlovsk cannot be moved. Experts estimate that even if another site were available nearby, it would take many years to relocate the plants.
snip

The station was established in 1926 by Nikolai Vavilov, the man credited with creating the idea of seed banks as repositories of plant diversity that could be used to breed new varieties in response to threats to food production. During the siege of Leningrad, 12 scientists chose to starve while protecting the diversity amassed by Vavilov, even though the seeds of rice, peas, corn and wheat that they were protecting could have sustained them. Vavilov died of malnutrition in prison in 1943, having criticised the anti-genetic concepts of Trofim Lysenko. But Russia has since elevated him to hero status.


More at the link.

How someone could let this happen to build cheap housing is beyond my comprehension.
Especially the oldest one on the planet that has such diversity.
Greedy fucking bastards, that's how.
Unbelievable.

Some people would dare call this progress, I would call it suicide.

9 comments:

  1. Sad. Nice catch on an important story Bustednuckles.

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  2. Fear not Busted there's a back up in Norway.
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529

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  3. It's called "capitalism", and it's all about eating your seed corn for immediate profit. Which is why any viable society has to have some degree of socialism to protect the seed corn (i.e., provide schools and universities and libraries and fire departments and other necessary institutions that have no immediate profit), or else ceases to be a viable society.

    - Badtux the Socioeconomic Penguin

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  4. The true ignorance of man becomes more apparent each and every day!

    At least the US doesn't have a corner on the stupid nd greedy!

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  5. demeur,
    did you happen to read the article you cited?
    It's a fucking horror story, the seed bank in question is run partially by Monsanto, the Rockefeller group and Bill Gates's philanthropy.
    Go read the article and see what the author thinks about the motives behind that certain seed bank.
    Take the tin foil with ya.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Ha,

    Good catch, Busted.

    My response was to not worry because Bill Gates was gonna save us (again!). (And I had no idea what Demeur's take was . . . .)

    But you beat me to it.

    Love ya,

    S

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  8. Anonymous7:20 PM

    Demeur is fucking right on money fellas. These assholes are making the "vault" to stock some matrix (non-modified yet) seeds collection in case their fucking Monsanto/DuPont crap will go belly up or crap the Earth fields unexpectedly, so they could control above and beyond.

    This is really fucked up.
    Russians were having their own collection of seeds and were eating the real deal as some of your locals do but lesser and lesser due to monopoly of seed distribution and cross-pollen (in this case simply contaminated). Americans who shoping at department store do not have that luxury any longer. All the garbage we eat is screwed and fucked by eagg-heads of New World Order sonsabitches.
    Read this, its fucking INSANE: "In a case involving agricultural giant Monsanto, the U.S. Supreme Court has lifted a ban on genetically modified alfalfa seeds.

    The move will likely affect the regulation of other biotech crops, including genetically modified sugar beets, and could make it easier for GM crops to stay on the market, since it will be no longer be possible to ban an approved crop without a full hearing.
    "
    http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/science-scope/monsanto-supreme-court-lifts-ban-on-genetically-modified-seeds/2532/

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  9. Anon it's worse than that. Monsnto is getting a lock on all the worlds' seeds and crops. They sell their genetically modified seeds to a farmer. The farmer plants part of his field with the Monsanto seeds and what he had left over from last season. The two crops merge and now his new crops are considered Monsantos because they are now altered. Hitler couldn't have come up with a better plan.

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