These strange alien structures are among the seeds and pollen conserved at the Kew Millennium Seed Bank
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Apr 12, 2009 - 9 comments

Osage orange, avocado, papaya, honey locust, paw paw, persimmon, and many more: fruits that have outlasted the gomphotheres and other megafauna. These "anachronistic fruits" can be a key to understanding their intended consumers. More. More. More. And even more.
posted by fiercecupcake on Jul 31, 2008 - 33 comments

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear. "Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination."
posted by homunculus on Apr 3, 2008 - 77 comments

Norway unveils "Doomsday Vault" design. The Svalbard International Seed Vault, administered by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, aims to safeguard the world's agriculture from future catastrophies.
posted by amyms on Feb 8, 2007 - 35 comments

The last hope of life on earth: Svalbard. Most of humanity depends on just 12 plant species, down from over 7,000 historically. Fortunately, seeds can be viable for up to thousands of years, and seed banks have already preserved many species, including the entire plant population of Antarctica. But with seed banks being destroyed as the result of wars and accident, Norway has has begun work on an underground facility, protected by polar bears, in the Arctic permafrost that is designed to hold millions of seeds, as "final safety net" for humanity.
posted by blahblahblah on Jun 19, 2006 - 36 comments

The 8th Conference of the Parties (COP8) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity begins March 20th. On the agenda? The possible overturning of the 2000 de facto moratorium on genetically modified Terminator Seeds. The US, Australian, New Zealand, and most recently Britain are already on board. Other countries and environmental groups are not so keen, and are pushing to ban terminator.
posted by stray on Mar 13, 2006 - 8 comments

Farmer Homer McFarland is being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Monsanto corporation. His crime? Replanting his crops' own seed, as farmers have done for millennia, which violates the biotech giant's intellectual property rights, the company claims. Quietly, Monsanto's aggressive "seed police" have been suing farmers in 25 states for years, often settling out of court for huge sums, according to the Center for Food Safety's new report, Monsanto vs. US farmers [PDF link]. For more information, also see a new documentary called The Future of Food.
posted by digaman on Jan 15, 2005 - 55 comments

Hundreds of kinds of mixed seeds, soil humus, and dry powdered red brown clay, form the solid components of seed balls.
posted by sudama on Jul 15, 2004 - 6 comments

Farming origins gain 10,000 years. Humans made their first tentative steps towards farming 23,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought. Stone Age people in Israel collected the seeds of wild grasses some 10,000 years earlier than previously recognised, say experts.
posted by stbalbach on Jun 27, 2004 - 8 comments

From Gliders to Parachutes, from the well-loved "helicopters"to the hated Cottonwood, here's everything you need to know about the wind-borne seeds of Summer.
posted by interrobang on Jun 18, 2004 - 7 comments

Listen to a true ready made Halloween horror story about a David vs Goliath type struggle. On her October 24th show Caroline Casey creator of the VisionaryActivism Radio show interviewed Percy Schmeiser a canola farmer from Saskatchewan Canada whose organic Canola fields were genetically contaminated with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready Canola. Schmeiser a 40 year organic canola seed saver is in the fight of his life against the powerful Monsanto corporation. This powerful interview should make you cry and provoke you to clean your pantry and refrigerator and rethink food choices like I did.
posted by thedailygrowl on Oct 31, 2002 - 17 comments

Have you ever wanted to try painting a portrait of Pappa Hemingway or Joey Ramone using poppy seed, grits, brome grass, millet, lentils, and white rice? Do you have the patience to recreate Van Gogh's Starry Night in cream of wheat and split peas? Crop art showcases artists who use only harvested natural materials to create their art. Via Coudal.
posted by iconomy on May 13, 2002 - 9 comments

While Americans celebrate history by eating (I have two cookouts to attend tonight), take a look at history you can eat. The Garden State Heirloom Seed Society is trying to make sure we don't lose the thousands of varieties of vegetables and fruit developed over the years.
posted by ewagoner on Jul 4, 2001 - 1 comment

Monsanto, the megacorp who brought you terminator seed technology, and who is known for suing farmers who harvest seeds from crops grown from patented Monsanto seeds, has had a busy couple of weeks. On April 4, they merged with pharmaceutical giant Upjohn to form meta-megacorp Pharmacia. That same day, in a spurt of overactivity, they decoded the genetic sequence of rice.

Uh oh.
posted by jbushnell on Apr 26, 2000 - 2 comments