Seed Diversity and Disaster Capitalism

I wrote the following letter to the editor to the New York Times on chef Dan Barber’s wonderful article on agribusiness pressures on seed diversity. (“Save our Food. Free the Seeds.” June 9, 2019) I’m in Mozambique, and one of the issues I’m investigating is what seeds aid agencies will be providing to farmers to help them rebuild after Cyclone Idai devastated farmers and others in March. I continue to be struck by the parallels between Iowa and Mozambique, two places that couldn’t be more distant, geographically and in agricultural development. More to come. For now, the latest from a large file of Unpublished Letters to the Editor.

To the Editor, NY Times:

Dan Barber’s brilliant warning about the loss of seed diversity, for eaters and farmers, should be a wake-up call, particularly as climate change disrupts farming worldwide. Disasters like the flooding in the Midwest are what the seed conglomerates use to further limit our choices. Few realize that hybrid corn seeds, which farmers have to buy every year, got a skeptical reception from farmers before the droughts of the mid-1930s — the Dust Bowl years — which wiped out farmers’ saved seeds. In came the companies with their new, more expensive technology package. By 1940, Iowa was using nearly 100% hybrid seeds, and a profitable seed industry was born.