USDA wants the right to do nothing about unaproved GMO's in food supply

Thanks once again to Agrarian Grrls Journal I have something else to rant about in the form of This Article which claims that the USDA wants the legal right to do nothing about unapproved Genetically Modified contamination in the food supply.



Fair enough, the USDA doesn't want to do it's job and wants to once again bow down to the feet of the GMO monster, fine, then I and many other traditional and organic farmers want permission to destroy by any means necessary any GMO crop that violates the sanctity and genetic structure of our traditional crops by means of the stealing of traditional genes via PVP and or the transgenic contamination of our crops via free floating genetically modified pollen. In case your wondering what that means, we want permission to destroy these GMO crops the moment they touch soil anywhere in the vicinity of our farms and crops and we want the ability to sue the manufacturer of said GMO varieties and the USDA when they end up in our food supply endangering the health of our family, friends, and earth.

That should be "SUBSTANTIALLY EQUIVALENT" to what the USDA wants. IF you don't like it, too bad.

No Fear, No Regret, No remorse, Freedom from tyrants! Don't tread on me!

A patent on genotypic traits, a step beyond the normal PVP process and a Bio-Piracy grab!

Another damn agricultural rant from Alan Reed Bishop/Hip-Gnosis Seed Development/Homegrown Goodness/Bishop's Homegrown

Thanks to Agrarian Grrl's Journal, I've got a few new things to write about. I'd like to first thank Agrarian Grrl for all the hard work that she does on her wonderful blog!

Anyhow, according to this Link at www.etcgroup.org Siegers seed company in Holland, Michigan have applied for a patent on "warty" pumpkins. ETC released this press piece on the situation which was sent with photographic proof of the prior existence of "warty" pumpkins to the USPTO:

Message to USPTO: Squash the Patent on Bumpy Pumpkins; there's plenty of prior (w)art

On December 4, 2008, while most folks in the United States were eating the last slices of pumpkin pie left over from Thanksgiving dinner, the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) published patent application US20080301830A1 on a Warted pumpkin, “invented” by the Director of Sales & Marketing at Siegers Seed Company in Holland, Michigan, USA. The patent application claims a “warted pumpkin...wherein the outer shell includes at least one wart associated with the outer shell of the body.”

“The claims made by these Michigan 'wart hogs' are outrageous,” says Pat Mooney of ETC Group. “Characteristics vary more for pumpkins than for just about any other plant on earth. Some pumpkins have smooth surfaces; some are barely bumpy and some are way warty. No doubt that's been the case since North American indigenous peoples domesticated them thousands of years ago. Evidence of warty pumpkins goes as far back as the sixteenth century and runs straight through to the twenty-first.”

The patent application includes 25 broad claims covering a range of pumpkins with bumpy surfaces (i.e., 5% to 50% of surface is “warted”), a range of wart sizes relative to the pumpkin's surface and a range of wart colors. The application also claims a range of pumpkin patches (i.e., 25% to 75% of patch contains warty pumpkins). It also claims specific varieties – the application states that the “invention” may “comprise a Cucurbita pepo and/or maxima,” encompassing fruit called gourds and squashes, as well as pumpkins – and it claims plant, seed and tissue of warty pumpkins.

The patent application, if granted, would impose a monopoly position in the U.S. over all Cucurbita pepo and Cucurbita maxima exhibiting a warty surface. “It's déjà vu – like the 'Enola' bean patent all over again,” says ETC's Silvia Ribeiro, referring to the U.S. patent 5,894,079 granted in 1999, which claimed a bean variety of Mexican origin, including its characteristic yellow color. The patent owner, Larry Proctor of Colorado, USA, charged that Mexican farmers were infringing his patent by selling yellow beans in the USA and shipments were stopped at the border. Proctor also sued seed companies and farmers selling or growing the Mexican yellow bean in the USA. Soon after the USPTO granted the patent, ETC Group denounced it as “Mexican bean biopiracy.” The Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), with support from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, filed an official challenge in late 2000. The USPTO reexamined the patent and rejected all of its claims back in 2005. But the patent owner appealed the ruling and the patent is still under dispute.[1] “So for almost a decade now – that's half of a patent's lifespan – farmers and seed companies have lost lucrative markets because of a monopoly that everyone – except the patent holder – agrees is technically invalid and morally unjust,” says Ribeiro. “If the USPTO accepts this warty pumpkin patent, it will be another wart on its already blemished record permitting the monopolization of indigenous knowledge.”

An important difference between the 'Enola' bean case and the current case of the warty pumpkin is that the USPTO has not yet granted the patent, though it may decide the application's fate as early as February 4, which is 60 days after its publication. ETC Group and others, including growers and sellers of warted pumpkins in the U.S., have sent the USPTO documentation of the existence of warted pumpkins dating well before – in some cases centuries before – Siegers Seed Company's “invention” timeline, which begins in 2002. (See PDF at http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=721 for illustrations.) There's such a plethora of “prior art” that even the patent-happy USPTO shouldn't be able to overlook it. ETC Group also raised its concerns about the pending patent with The World Vegetable Center (AVRDC) based in Tainan, Taiwan. AVRDC holds accessions of Cucurbita pepo and maxima in its gene bank – some from the U.S. – and a U.S. patent could have implications for the Center's Cucurbit plant breeding and germplasm exchange. “We know from the 'Enola' bean patent debacle that even an obviously bad patent can still live a long and destructive life,” says Kathy Jo Wetter from ETC Group's U.S. office. “The USPTO should reject all 25 claims of the patent application on warted pumpkins.”

Note:
[1] See ETC Group, “Hollow Victory: Enola Bean Patent Smashed At Last (Maybe),” 29 April 2008, available on the Internet: http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=683


For more information, contact:

Pat Mooney - ETC Group (Ottawa, Canada) etc@etcgroup.org
Phone: +1 613 2412267 Cell: +1 613 240 0045

Silvia Ribeiro – ETC Group (Mexico City) silvia@etcgroup.org
Phone: 011 52 5555 6326 64

Kathy Jo Wetter - ETC Group (Durham, NC, USA) kjo@etcgroup.org
Phone: +1 919 688 7302


Anyhow, as anyone worth their weight in agricultural experience knows, Siegers, Regardless of their claims, did not invent this novel and attractive trait and in fact do not deserve a patent on this trait, their variety or any other living organism. First and foremost the claims are broad enough to include pretty much any species of the Cucurbrita family which show some amount of the bumpy trait, any intrepid breeder or preservationist would surely realize the immense scope of such a statement and the amount of varieties that it would cover and in term give "ownership", legal rights, and the ability to sue traditional farmers, plant breeders, and individual gardeners to Siegers, you see this "Warty" trait just happens to show up in hundreds of traditionally bred hybrid cultivars in the public domain as well as hundreds of Open Pollinated cultivars in the public domain, this includes summer squash such as the C. Pepo yellow crookneck that shows this warty characteristic in a repressed state a maturity, tons of gourds, and obviously in C. Moschata, C. Pepo, and C. Mixta winter squash varieties (for those unfamiliar with the abundance of the "Warty" characteristic go take a look at the pictures on www.rareseeds.com or seedsavers.org of squash for the scope we are speaking of). In other words this sets up almost all Open Pollinated seed traders, savers, and plant breeders to face legal action via Siegers due to their supposed "invention" being apparent in home garden crops. Bio-Piracy in the truest sense of the word, or as I am wont to call it "Bio-Terrorism".

You see, Siegers didn't "create" this trait, they didn't even "find" it, they only took a common trait to the Cucurbrita family and tried to patent it with a wide definition of what they "own" in a power grab. The "warty" trait has been documented as far back as the mid 1700's in the cucurbrita species and it is nearly a certainty that Native Americans ferreted out this gene and worked with it for several thousand years before that time, and yet they had the respect for humankind and nature to know that they did not own it, fast forward to the 21'st century and some corporate shill, piece of trash in a suit setting in an over sized office at Siegers believes he can "own" that trait, I don't think so my friend. Trust me, when I read this on Aggrarian Grrls site this morning, I was livid. So much so that I call Siegers, and guess what, I managed to get the e-mail and phone number of the fellow in charge of this clusterfuck and I've got some questions to ask him. Granted, I don't know if the patent has been accepted or not at this point in time, but at some point someone has got to hold the fire to the feet of these "bio-pirates" and while I know that my phone call is but a tiny contribution, it still makes them aware that we will not have our rights as an agrarian culture taken from us.


It's as simple as this, even if the patent is granted we will not stop growing varieties showing these special traits, neither will we stop using them for breeding material, and neither shall we stop trading these varieties amongst the fellow citizen-farmers of our beautiful planet. These genes belong to everyone and can not be privatized by any person or corporation, at current there are a number of intrepid independent plant breeders working on a limited creative commons license which will leave seed in the public domain but out of the hands of corporations, meaning that we will be able to keep the novel traits bred into plants by our ancestors and folks at places like Monsanto and Syngenta and Siegers will never be allowed to place their filthy hands on traditional varieties or traits..

Just for clarification, to my knowledge Siegers is an independently owned seed company, however they recieve many of their selections of seed available from their cataloug from a Monsanto subsidiary, more importantly, even if they didn't associate with Monsanto the patenting of such "life" should be considered unacceptable to any traditional farmer and as such Siegers should be boycotted. Perhaps Siegers would feel differently about their claim of "ownership" if they had to pay reparations to the Native Americans, Independent Plant Breeders, and Preservationist who kept this novel trait around, bulk payments to the descendants of these groups would be acceptable as well.

More Conspiracy and Political News

Well, we are a couple of weeks into the Obama administration now and nothing has changed, if anything what was once open and common knowledge is now being even more well concealed from the American public, for example, Gitmo will be closed, unfortunately new prisons will be opened on the U.S. mainland and around the world and the Gitmo prisoners will find their new "homes" here. Then you have Obama's lovely new financial plan, because one banker bailout just wasn't enough! A few other things you might be aware of though:


Obama continues CIA's Rendition Program

The New Administration and Great Brittain find themselves at odds over torture evidence


HR 645 is introduced to set up FEMA camps in case of "disaster", in other words "internment" camps

Oh and in an update to our blog covering the story of The London Times absolutely disgusting "BlackJack" series, there is a brand spanking new Part 3 Covering the North American Union, FEMA camps, martial law and more propaganda!

Adventures of Citizen X

I recently came across this blog on the net and realized that I shared quite a bit in common with the blogger political views, little did I realize until yesterday just who the blogger was. In another one of those weird interests crossing over coincidences it turns out that the blogger is none other than Glenn Jacobs, better known to wrestling fans as WWE's Kane. Yeah, that's right, I'm a wrestling dork, it's the best of both worlds, athleticism and drama and believe it or not it takes a lot of talent to make those story lines convincing.

Seriously though, regardless of weather you are a wrestling fan or not check out The Adventures of Citizen X.

"The Wyrm": Modifications and aggressively harvesting worm castings

I've had to go back to the drawing board on "the wyrm" project due to some circumstances. In particular with regards to catching the water using plastic lined bins with wells. The issue didn't decide to make itself apparent while I was running the wood stove, presumably because the water was evaporating quickly due to the heat and I was watering on a relatively common basis. If your wondering what the issue that I am having is, it was a massive die off of worms. There are many reasons for this die off including an accumulation of stagnant water in the bottom of the bins coupled with a low oxygen environment, an acid build up due to using some composted chicken manure in an experiment and just overall a build up of issue upon issue of mistakes, including having to cut the power to the greenhouse and subsequently the heat during the coldest part of the year and only a day after watering, due to an outrageously high electric bill that we still haven't figured out (it was shocking to see the number on the bill to say the least and the electric company won't admit it was a mistake even though they admited there was a problem with the meter that they replaced, in other words the worms got cold and migrated deeper into the bin where the stagnant, anearobic, and acidic environment of the lower bin quickly overwhelmed the population.

Don't get me wrong, my friend Paul (my co-conspirator) has a great idea when it comes to reusing the water from the worm bins and it would have worked well for myself too if I weren't already in the habbit of watering my worm bins as though they had drainage and in a routine from my four previous years of vermicomposting here on the farm, when I find a system that works and works well I just have to learn to stick to it. The good news is that Paul now has access to the last four wooden bins needed to complete the infrastructure of "the wyrm" project. His help and friendship has been greatly appreciated!

Needless to say the last couple of days have been busy, I am slowly getting the first six bins emptied back out, harvesting the available worm castings, dumping the rest of the compost into a new pile to dry out and be used for field ready compost, and cursing.....a lot.

When I make a mistake I do a terrific job. Fortunately the remedy is pretty straightforward. Once the bins are emptied out I'll drill some drainage holes in the bin and fill the bins 1/4 full of new cow manure, something I should have done in the first place but didn't since I already had a population of worms living in an old pile of compost and used it to fill the worm bins near the top and topped the bins off with manure.....or as I call it now, mistake number 1.

I will then be placing an order with Tripple G Worm Ranch (a great couple and good friends) for an additional 10 lbs of worms. I will divide the 10 lbs between the first six new bins and re-establish a worm population relatively quickly (I hope) The worms will only be fed what they can consume in a two week period and over the next 365 days I will slowly build each bin and population and start opening up new bins, this time next year with any luck we will have an enormous population of worms and a large harvest of castings. From now until then we should recieve another three loads of cow manure from the neighboring farm. Though this did put an additional dent in the soil fertility plan for this season it can be made up for by using the abundant source of thermophillic compost that we have on the farm at the moment.


Which brings me to the next part of the two most stressful days of winter so far.....harvesting what was in the bins and sifting compost.

Since the worm population in the bins was dismal and some of the bins were made up of old compost anyhow and I have to empty the bins of their compost to make the necessary adjustments to my set up I decided to harvest off what I could for for sifted castings for use in seed starting soil blocks this season, a job made all the more difficult due to the weight of the wet material and it's physical properties when run through the Homegrown Worm Harvester. I run each wheelbarrow of material through the harvester twice and the leftover material that has been digested then gets limed and put into a pile for use in the fields this comming spring, at the same time I am also sifting through the conventional compost piles using the harvester to glean usable potting material from those sources. Needless to say, this process and rebuilding will take a bit, a week or two anyhow, so from time to time updates may be slow.

At some point I also need to start cleaning out the chicken coop and composting that material and starting on the Humanure project, but that's a whole other blog right there!

Questions for Tim Peters

Next up in our series of Homegrown Goodness interviews with independent plant breeders and preservationists is Tim Peters of Peters Seed Research. Tim is an expert when it comes to grains and most importantly Perennial Grains, any questions you might have for Tim you can leave in the comments below! Give us a hand in exploring the amazing world that Tim has helped to build!

http://www.annapolisseeds.com

One of my new friends over at the Homgrown Goodness Message Board has started his own small seed company called Annapolis Seeds, there are lots of good selections over there for you to check out, be sure to surf on over there when you get a chance and check it out friends!