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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: j g cordes who wrote (29903)	1/26/1999 10:45:00 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

agri-business Having grown up on a farm, and having current farm owning brothers, I have an idea about how agri-business works. I don't want to dispute you about the danger of mono-culture nor the effects of of monopoly or near monopoly on the farmer. This is just why the farmers keep buying from the big seed companies. The key concept is variability, the cornerstone of evolution. It is the variablility which allows some plants to survive disease or pesticide or drought. The surviving plants make the basis of the next generation. Variability is very good for the plant. Variability is not good for the farmer. A typical small farm has between 500 and 2000 acres of land of which two thirds will be in active cultivation. This can be farmed with two or three people if they can use modern equipment. The equipment works most efficiently if the plants are all alike. Starting with seeds that are the same size, plants that grow to the same height, and fruit which is of the same size and characteristic, even to the point of ripening at the same time. It is the seed companies which try to unite these different goals. They want to maintain a stock of variable plants (even to the point of introducting genes) but produce a uniform seed. This is done through hybridization. In a hybrid, the seed stocks are grown separately (clear across the country from each other) and culled until they no longer share certain genes in common. They are almost but not quite separated to the point of being different species. The male and female parts of the plants are joined in laboratories until just the right offspring develops. Because the male and female are almost a different species, the resulting child plant is not very fertile and usually stunted. This aids in the next step. The desired male and female are grown in isolation, often a greenhouse or on the island of Hawaii to get several plants which are nearly identical, there is even cloning and growth from cuttings to ensure a pure strain. Once a few hundred pounds of seed are available they can be grown one more season in fields rented from the farmers. The male and female plants (at least for corn) are grown in alternating rows. Each plant actually has both male & female parts, so they are castrated or neutered. Once they are nearly mature, any non uniform plants are removed from the field. The resulting seed from these plants is uniform, but will not produce much of a next generation. The typical farmer does not have the resources to duplicate this effort. If he does not use the uniform seed, then much is lost at harvest time and the yield is greatly reduced. There are farmers who use natural seed, and older less demanding machinery. There is almost no market for their produce just because of the seed they use, so they nearly all adhere to organic standards of no pesticide etc. since there is a market for these products. TP