Loss of genetic diversity in agriculture is leading us to a rendezvous with extinction--to the doorstep of hunger on a scale we refuse to imagine. To simplify the environment as we have done with agriculture is to destroy the complex interrelationships that hold the natural world together. Reducing the diversity of life, we narrow our options for the future and render our own survival more precarious.”

“More than 7,000 apple varieties once grew in American orchards; 6,000 of them are no longer available. Every broccoli variety offered through seed catalogs in 1900 has now disappeared.”

Quotes from Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney

“Shattering: Food Politics and the loss of Genetic Diversity”

While the loss of old varieties and the irreplaceable diversity that has gone with them is of concern, we may now be in a new period of expansion of locally-based vegetable crop diversity as a result of a strong resurgence of interest in growing traditional varieties and in grower-based breeding amongst both amateur and professional growers — the formal sector needs to work with the maintainers to put in place strategies to capture this diversity, as well as nurturing the culture that is responsible for creating and maintaining it.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in Britain

“Vegetable landrace inventory of England and Wales” Paper.

K. V. Raman, a professor of plant breeding at Cornell University and an authority on potatoes in Mexico and Eastern Europe, observes: The conditions prevalent in today’s Russia are all too reminiscent of those of Ireland in the mid-19th century. That was the time of the Great Famine in Ireland.. As was the case then in Ireland, Russia today has a population dependent on the potato and an aggressive blight out of control. In this, Russia is not alone. This time, the impacts are expected to be global.

At the start of the Neolithic period – about 9500BC – scientists estimate that species were becoming extinct at a rate of 20-30 per year. Since the population explosion of modern humans, that is estimated to have increased to 20,000-30,000. Most have never been documented by scientists. And in a couple of decades, Wilson reckons this will have increased to 200,000-300,000.

Prof Edward Wilson, Guardian.com.uk

Proprietory seed markets (seeds covered by exclusive monopoly and protected by intelectual property laws) now accounts for well over 82% of commercial seed sales world wide.

The global propprietry seed market in 2007 totalled over 22,000 million US dollars.

Monsanto now accounts for about one quarter of the global proprietry seed market.

The top 3 seed companies in the world Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta account for almost 50% of the world proprietry seed market.

Extracts from ETC Group Report “Who Owns Nature”

99% of all turkeys raised in the U.S. are Broad-Breasted Whites, a single turkey breed specially developed to have a meaty breast. The breasts of these turkeys are so large that they are unable to reproduce naturally; according to the FAO, without artificial insemination performed by humans, this breed would become extinct in just one generation.

www.sustainable table.org

(This is an article from within the first edition of the Backyard Farming Magazine. The complete magazine is available as an electronic download by clicking here.)