This is a Plant Your Dream Blog that I want to develop. It begins with some research. I discovered a great group that I introduce here, AGRA WATCH, that looks at the Gates Foundation and its dealings. The Gates Foundation is highly invested in GMO Ag in Africa. They are also big investors in the Svalbart Seed Bank in Norway. The Svalbart Seed Bank stories many varieties of Heirloom with the intent of preserving these seeds stocks. I feel safer having our Heirloom Gene Diversity in the care of 10,000 or more Seed Libraries.
The Seed Library Movement came to my attention because of the historic Interactions between the Pennsylvania Department of Ag and the relatively new Simpson Seed Library in Mechanicsburg, PA that came to the attention of the nearly Harrisburg, PA Department of Ag.
The Simpson Seed Library and Department of Ag Staff met July 8 to come up with Protocols that would work within existing Seed Laws that govern Seed Distribution and Truth in Labeling concerns, among other concerns.
The intent was to come up cooperatively with Protocols that would apply to other Seed Libraries in Pennsylvania. My sense is that other Seed Libraries and Seed Banks need to get involved in a national conversation about Seed Saving, Support for Seed Libraries, and GMO Education.
As far as Food Security goes, I feel safer having 10,000 Seed Libraries circulating and adapting seeds generation to generation that having the Gene Diversity in Heirlooms stored in Norway in wait of some Seed Disaster that makes their use necessary.
From my point of view, we are already in a state of economic bankruptcy because we have allowed Food processed from conventional seeds with pesticides and GMO Transgenic seeds to harm our Seed Heritage.
GMO Transgenic Seeds, form an Heirloom Seeds point of view, is an act of "Agri-Terrorism." Shortsighted Biotech applied to the farmbed has already shown that GMO Seeds contaminate Heirloom Indigenous varieties.
This is clear from the many reports that have been around for years including
this report about the loss of diversity of corn among the Indigenous people of Mexico:
http://curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=2191359
Diversity of Corn in Mexico: The Chapela/Quist discovery
Dr. Ignacio Chapela is one of two scientists from the University of California, Berkeley who documented the discovery of transgenes in the Mexican native, or criollo, corn grown here. Chapela and his colleague, David Quist, took their samples from Capulalpam, so this remote village is getting more than its fair share of visitors these days. From Rogue Corn On the Loose
Risking Corn, Risking Culture
By Claire Hope Cummings
Date: 7/27/2014 12:56:56 PM ( 21 d ) ... viewed 168 times
THE WORK OF CLAIRE HOPE CUMMINS
I also want to refer you to the work of Claire Hope Cummins who wrote the book, "Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds."
Here early essays for the World Watch Institute are must reading.
Please read Trespass by Claire Hope Cummins. Here is my Plant Your Dream Blog on this:
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=2184312
NOTE: THERE IS AN LITTLE INTERVIEW WITH CLAIRE HOPE CUMMINS IN THE ADDED FEATURES TO JEREMY SIEFERT'S FILM "GMO-OMG."
The Video, GMO-OMG by Jeremy Siefert has a small interview with Claire Hope Cummins. There are also views of Svalbart in this important video that is available on Netflix and many other outlets.
IN CONCLUSION, I TRUST OUR SEED FUTURE IN THE HANDS OF SEED LIBRARIANS AND PUBLIC LIBRARIANS MORE THAN IN THE FROZEN ICES OF NORWAY's SVALBART SEED BANK
The work of the Seed Library leaders is outstanding. This is a young movement. I am banking on its success. --Leslie Goldman, Your Enchanted Gardener
August 17, 2014
7:15 am
MY RESEARCH: FOLLOWED BY A FEW VIDEOS I HAVE MADE AND INTRODUCING THE GROW A HEALTHIER PIZZA STARTER KIT
PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THEIR FUTURE AS SEED LIBRARIES
This is from the site of the Gates Foundation. They, as well as Seed Libraries have their sites on Public Libraries:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Global-Libraries
The Opportunity
With their existing infrastructure, dedicated staff, and mission to connect individuals to information, libraries are uniquely suited to offering public Internet access and training to people who would otherwise be left behind in the digital world.
A community information center in rural Kenya that offers computer training and Internet access.
If libraries can reinvent themselves and embrace their role as online information centers, the impact on individuals and communities will be significant. Public libraries are already teaching farmers and fishermen to use the Internet to promote their products and get current market prices. Families and individuals are using technology in libraries to access information on maternal health, early childhood development and nutrition, and HIV/AIDS. Library users are going online to learn about farming methods and ways to address climate change and deforestation.
AGRA WATCH
AGRA Watch is a grassroots, Seattle-based group challenging the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s questionable agricultural programs in Africa, including its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The Gates Foundation and AGRA claim to be “pro-poor” and “pro-environment,” but their approach is closely aligned with transnational corporations, such as Monsanto, and foreign policy actors like USAID. They take advantage of food and global climate crises to promote high-tech, market-based, industrial agriculture and generate profits for corporations even while degrading the environment and dis-empowering farmers. Their programs are a form of philanthrocapitalism based on biopiracy.
FYI
In October, 2014, AGRA Watch, a program of Community Alliance for Global Justice, will host a historic three-day strategy meeting between African and US food sovereignty leaders. The meetings will serve to deepen the international struggle against the Gates Foundation’s agricultural interventions in Africa both directly and through its subsidiary—Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
A public event will be held with the participants of the meeting on the evening of Sunday, October 12 – save the date!
In recent years, the push for industrial, corporate-controlled agriculture has dramatically intensified on both domestic and international fronts. In the U.S., biotech companies have continued to promote new and untested genetically engineered (GE) seeds for agency approval, used the US Trade Representative and USAID to push their narrow interests onto the policies of other nations, and lobbied legislators relentlessly to secure passage of new GE-friendly laws. Meanwhile, the African continent is being targeted by a powerful confluence of outside initiatives—most from the U.S.— devoted to pushing an industrial agricultural development model that largely benefits transnational corporations at the expense of African farmers, consumers, and the environment. Chief among these is the Gates Foundation and AGRA with their agenda to “improve” African agriculture through inappropriate, high-tech, pro-corporate policies and practices.
In October, 2014, AGRA Watch, a program of Community Alliance for Global Justice, will host a historic three-day strategy meeting between African and US food sovereignty leaders. The meetings will serve to deepen the international struggle against the Gates Foundation’s agricultural interventions in Africa both directly and through its subsidiary—Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
A public event will be held with the participants of the meeting on the evening of Sunday, October 12 – save the date!
In recent years, the push for industrial, corporate-controlled agriculture has dramatically intensified on both domestic and international fronts. In the U.S., biotech companies have continued to promote new and untested genetically engineered (GE) seeds for agency approval, used the US Trade Representative and USAID to push their narrow interests onto the policies of other nations, and lobbied legislators relentlessly to secure passage of new GE-friendly laws. Meanwhile, the African continent is being targeted by a powerful confluence of outside initiatives—most from the U.S.— devoted to pushing an industrial agricultural development model that largely benefits transnational corporations at the expense of African farmers, consumers, and the environment. Chief among these is the Gates Foundation and AGRA with their agenda to “improve” African agriculture through inappropriate, high-tech, pro-corporate policies and practices.
http://www.seattleglobaljustice.org/agra-watch/
Critics allege that the Foundation has a preference to make grants that benefit multinational agribusiness, such as Monsanto,[31] that do not take into account numerous local needs in Africa.[32]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#cite_note-Bill_2014-59
ABOUT THE SVALBART SEED VAULT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure seedbank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) from the North Pole.[4] Conservationist Cary Fowler, in association with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR),[5] started the vault to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds that are duplicate samples, or "spare" copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault is an attempt to insure against the loss of seeds in other genebanks during large-scale regional or global crises. The seed vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen).[6]
BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION AND ITS INFLUENCE IN AGRICULTURE IN RURAL AFRICA
Agricultural development[edit]
International Rice Research Institute: Between November 2007 and October 2010, the Gates Foundation offered US$19.9 million to the International Rice Research Institute. The goal of the aid was to support the increasing world demand for rice. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation claims: “To keep up with worldwide demand, the production of rice will have to increase by about 70 percent in the next two decades.”[30]
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA): The Gates Foundation has partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation to enhance agricultural science and small-farm productivity in Africa, building on the Green Revolution that the Rockefeller Foundation spurred in the 1940s and 1960s. The Gates Foundation has made an initial US$100 million investment in this effort, to which the Rockefeller Foundation has contributed US$50 million. Critics allege that the Foundation has a preference to make grants that benefit multinational agribusiness, such as Monsanto,[31] that do not take into account numerous local needs in Africa.[32]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#cite_note-Bill_2014-59
FROM A LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA:
This was originally intended as a petition, but the feedback I have received is that it might not serve best that way, or directed to the President. I am editing it as an Open Letter to the President. More work needed!
Events at the Joseph T. Simpson Public Library in Mechanicsburg, PA and concerns from their State Department of Agriculture about how their Seed Library was running have opened the need for a national conversation about Seed Saving and related issues of GMO education. Issues of liability from Patent Seed Infringement, the inherent Birthright of Gardeners to Save Seeds, as well as the safety of heirloom seeds from GMO contamination are all up to be addressed.
http://curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=2193991
QUELLING THE INTERNET RIOT SET OFF BY THE NAOMI CLEASON JULY 31 STORT INTHE SENTINEL CALLED
A service I aimed to provide in my Plant Your Dream Blogs of August -August 9, 2014
TO DO; AGRI-TERRORIST COMMENT CAUSES INTERNET ROIT OF FEELINGS TO EXPLODE
aug 11,2014
MY INTENTIONS
THE GROW A HEALTHIER PIZZA STARTER KIT
THE CAMPAIGN TO GROW A HEALTHIER PIZZA BELIEVES that when thousands and thousands of new gardeners get engaged in growing their own food with heirloom seeds and ancient grains, this will lead to Uncle Sam getting engaged to Anti (Auntie) GMO,
GET ENGAGED:
HELPING UNCLE SAM GET MARRIED TO "ANTI" (Auntie) GMO
WE GOTTA GET ENGAGED GROWING HEIRLOOM SEEDS BEFORE THEY (UNCLE SAM & AUNTIE (anti) GMO GET MARRIED!
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=2181365
Helping Uncle Sam Marry “Anti” GMO
http://lifeconnectionmagazine.com/category/features/articles-features/
By Leslie Goldman
This year I am creating the intention that there is a celebratory Wedding up ahead for the United States to regain our original vision. Will you help build a grassroots movement so that Uncle Sam gives up his unholy relationship with Biotech GMO in the farm bed and gets married to “Anti” (Auntie) GMO? The invitation to the wedding goes out to all who get engaged growing Heirloom seeds and ancient grain. The wedding date is in your hands! Being a matchmaker for this wedding is a job that belongs to many Anti-GMO Activists who I want to encourage to become gardeners. In taking up gardening, we can fulfill the vision of the Founding Presidents of America.
WITH PHOTOS…MY COMPLETE STORY
http://lifeconnectionmagazine.com/helping-uncle-sam-marry-anti-gmo/
A NATIONAL CONVERSATION ABOUT SEED SAVING AND RELATED ISSUES OF GMO EDUCATION IS NEEDED
Events at the Joseph T. Simpson Public Library in Mechanicsburg, PA and concerns from their State Department of Agriculture about how their Seed Library was running have opened the need for a national conversation about Seed Saving and related issues of GMO education. Issues of liability from Patent Seed Infringement, the inherent Birthright of Gardeners to Save Seeds and return seeds to Seed Libraries, as well as the safety of heirloom seeds from GMO contamination are all up to be addressed.
INSPIRING A NATIONAL SEED BANK MOVEMENT
TEACHING HEIRLOOM SEED VALUES
The freedom to save seeds…Jere Gettle
TEACHING HEIRLOOM SEED VALUES
The freedom to save seeds…Jere Gettle