Getting Rid of Crop Seed
Sounds
pretty ominous. It is. A
new technology has been developed, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
that could potentially sterilize the seed produced by all crops,
preventing the seed from being replanted. The
Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), dedicated to protecting
the rights of farmers and growers, calls the new technology the
“Terminator.” Others call it “the neutron bomb of agriculture.” At
this juncture, you might ask, “Why would anyone wish to get rid of
seed?” The answer is simple enough: There is a lot of money to be made
by controlling the food supply. Hybridization
was one step in this direction; Terminator will complete the process. Hybridization
occurs when two varieties are crossed to produce a plant with certain
desirable characteristics. These improved varieties have certain
advantages to farmers, such as increased yield and vigor. But commercially
bred hybrids do not produce offspring that is of the same quality of the
first generation. This forces the farmer to buy higher-priced commercial
seed every year. So it has both advantages and disadvantages. But
the new Terminator technology was solely developed to control seed
supply; it does not improve the seed or the plant in any way! It was
designed to make money for big business. This, of course, will place
everyone—farmers who grow the crops and the rest of us who buy and eat
those crops—at the mercy of a few powerful cartels. Edward
Hammond, program officer at RAFI-USA in Pittsboro, North Carolina, says
the new technology is far more advanced than the standard plant
hybridization that has been practiced for years. “This new technology is
aimed solely at preventing the germination of anything that is grown in
the farmer’s field. There’s no agronomic benefit in exchange
for the technology,” Hammond declares. The
new Terminator technology was developed by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA)
in partnership with Delta & Pine Land Company, a large commercial seed
breeder. On March
3, 1998, Delta & Pine announced it had been awarded a patent on
the invention. At
the present time, only cotton and tobacco seeds are under the new patent,
but a much broader range of crops is expected to be under potential
Terminator control by the year 2000. While
hybrid seed produces plants with inferior second generation seed, the
Terminator has the ability to switch the plant’s reproductive processes
on and off. Rice,
wheat, sorghum, and soybeans are primary targets for Terminator because it
is difficult to hybridize them. Any seed which cannot be controlled,
cannot be patented, and the big agribusiness breeders cannot make money on
it. But Terminator will change all this. In
order to avoid intervention from the U.S. Congress, the
Terminator-patented versions of previously open-pollinated crops will at
first be sold by the agribreeders only in third world nations. Those
poor farmers have for thousands of years been breeding, saving, and
replanting their seed. But that is going to change. Hammond,
of RAFI-USA, says “The sole purpose of Terminator is to sterilize
seed.” He is deeply disturbed that the USDA is helping to develop the
process, and that the immediate target is control over seed in the
hunger-plagued third world. But
the reason is “agronomics.” Sounds scientific, doesn’t it? But the
word just means devising ways to make more money on crops. If
third world staple crops, such as rice and wheat, can be locked up by
Terminator, investors will pour money into commercially bred seed that
farmers will have to buy year after year. Until now, business interests
were not interested in developing seeds for such markets. Developers
of Terminator maintain that it is a harmless development, and that local
farmers can choose to plant regular—not Terminator—seed. But that is
not true. Camila
Montecinos, an agronomist with the Chilean organization, CET, says crop
geneticists have told them that it is likely that crops carrying the
Terminator trait will infect the fields of farmers who reject or cannot
afford it. Their crop will not reveal the defect—until the next year,
when they attempt to plant the seed saved—and discover, too late, that
it is sterile. If the technology is transmitted through recessive genes,
irregular harvests could produce dramatic declines in crop production in
ever widening areas. Half
the world’s farmers are too poor to buy commercial seed every year. They
feed 100 million in Latin America, 300 million in Africa, and 1 billion in
Asia. Not only would half the world’s farms face extinction, so would
the 1.4 billion people fed by them. Now
you can see why it is called Terminator. Control
the food and you control the people. “Food is power. We use it to change
behavior. Some may call it bribery. We do not apologize,” exclaimed
Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the World Food Program at the Beijing
Woman’s Conference, in September 1995. Throughout
Africa, during his recent trip, Clinton told the people that the U.S. had
plans for them: “We must build classrooms and companies, increase the
food supply, save the environment, and prevent disease. The United States
is ready to help you.” So were representatives of multi-national
corporations who comprised a major part of Clinton’s 700-member
delegation. Surely,
we are nearing the end. Signs all point to it. The threat of this new
fearful device, the terminator, recalls to my mind God’s promise that He
will soon have to destroy the destroyers of the earth (Revelation
11:18).
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