Another of those senate bills-- S 510

If you have interest in home gardens and food production, please check this out and let me know what you think. I got an email this morning; and when I did some research online, it looks like it's not a fraud and a real bill, but exactly what the bill really means, I am not sure.

Food Safety Modernization Act and Seeds

I know some really do get off on creating paranoia on others; but I also know our government is too often in the pocket of the corporate interests. I am a believer in heirloom seeds; so this is a direct shot at something I consider important. It could be in the future for everyone who gardens if we found it difficult to get to a store or our supply system broken down.

Those who save seeds from season to season do cut into the profits of someone like Monsanto. Those who don't want the genetically engineered product but prefer the old-fashioned vegetable versions do also; but is that what this bill is about? I had a hard time deciding after I looked a bit online.

Check it out and let me know what you think. If you think it's a real concern, then it's time to write your senators before they vote on another bill they haven't bothered to read... If it's just another example of paranoia, I'd like to hear that also. It would relieve my mind as sometimes I feel our politicians, left and right, are just out there to 'get' us!

Update: Because I had written what is above based on an email, I got it out quickly but want to add that the synchronicity of it coming right now has blended with two other things.

One is I have been reading Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, A Year of Food life. It's about growing or buying most everything you eat locally to cut down on not only the shipping costs that are so much a part of food but also to eat more naturally and healthily. Her book is about her family's adventure in doing exactly that.

Farm Boss and I have been discussing expanding our garden next year and already knew where it was going but this book is enthusing me even more. She is very high on Heirloom seeds and plants which I am also for them being better to eat, proven over many generations more tasty, and very unpopular with the big corporate interests who create genetically modified food and want the rest of us to likewise eat what they would produce.

If you aren't really up on the problems of the corporate world for controlling our food supply, I recommend the book as it's an enjoyable read, as Kingsolver always is, but it's also very informative.

Then the second shoe that had dropped for me right now-- watching the DVD documentary Collapse which is a monologue by Michael Ruppert about the oil shortage to come and what it will mean to cultures around the world. Maybe he is an alarmist and then again, maybe not.

He ends it (I'll be writing about it again) with a big emphasis on trying to become as food independent as possible and using Heirloom seeds as part of that process. This isn't about what we do to impact our government, as he's not sure and neither am I that we can, but it's about what we do for our own families if such a time comes.

At the least being more food independent is healthy for those who can do it and everywhere I go, I see towns and cities providing small plots for individuals without yards large enough to grow food. For all the people running out to gyms to exercise, gardening provides a pretty all around set of exercises and then good food as a reward. Admittedly the elderly cannot do a lot of that; but if those of us who can, do, we can help elderly neighbors if something really does turn bad for our culture.