We hear a lot of talk about the loss of rain forest plants and some
of us are even beginning to care, but mostly it remains a vague issue that
doesn't touch our daily lives. The idea that "our: produce could
be facing the same fate probably seems ludicrous. Yet it's not.
Sure, there will probably always be tomatoes. But the juicy,
rich tasting tomatoes you remember from your childhood are no longer being
grown commercially. And if some backyard gardener isn't growing them
out and saving and sharing seeds, they're not being grown at all.
Seed doesn't stay viable forever. After awhile, if it isn't
grown, it's lost.
Our agricultural industry, and that includes agriculture departments in government, are focused on sustaining their own industry. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately what is lost in their efforts is the vastness of genetic material that fed, clothed and healed generations before us, not to mention flavor.
It used to be that plant hybridizers tried to stabilize their creations. They had hybridized to incorporate better qualities into a plant; disease resistance, heat tolerance, faster ripening, etc. Modern hybrids are never intended to be stabilized. The owners of these hybrid patents guard the plants parentage so that they are the only source of seeds. Perhaps that's still fine for the majority of home gardeners who want to buy new seed every year. It doesn't amount to much to them. But commercial farmers have become increasingly dependent on hybrid varieties, probably believing them to be superior producers on their chemical ladden, monoculture fields.
Unfortunately nature's adaptability applies even to pests, so their is an ever increasing need for some new tolerance in plants. However with the loss of each old seed variety, the gene pool for food plants shrinks and the likelihood of finding a good cross shrinks with it. Remember, the Irish potato crop failure occurred because all the potatoes in cultivation were derived from just two parents and they were all susceptible to Late Blight. No one took precautions because the varieties had never been in contact with Late Blight before and so had no history of being susceptible. Not only did they lose their source of food for that year, but they had nothing to plant the following year. Did we learn from this catastrophy? Well in 1970 15% of the U.S. corn crop was lost to Southern Corn Leaf Blight, again because of genetic uniformity. A mere two years later Russia lost it's wheat crop. They had basically
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