No difference between GMO/Monsanto seed and Heirloom

Or at least that is how the general public see's it. No real reason for starting this thread other than to bring this to as many peoples attention as I can.

I understand it could be moved to the rant forum in BTS, but I wanted the members here to get a good read before it is thrown into the shadows of ATS.

Here's what happened in just the past week.

Last week I was at the local MFA *farmers supply* and I saw buckets of really poor looking corn seed. There were several people standing around and a young collegiate type lady behind the register.

I turn to the owner who is gathering the supplies I had requested and asked him if their corn seed was GMO? He say's "HUH?" I say you know genetically modified? Like a pack of hungry zombies every person in the store turns slowly with only their heads to stare blankly at me...

The owner goes on to say "I dont know about all that, they just send the corn and we sell it, its always been that way."

I just said ah, ok then it is GMO, Monsanto. Jaws were dropped and I could feel their icy stares as I went out of the store to the back to pick up my order.

Ok so maybe I just found a little group of individuals who have never heard of GMOS.

Today, my 16 yro and I went to the local sale barn to sell tree's, shrubs, perennials, and of course a large selection of heirloom plants exclusively grown from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds about 45 minutes away from where we live.

*Sigh* We spent the whole day teaching people about GMOs verses Heirloom seeds and plants. Not a single person even knew that there was a difference!

Our huge beautiful fat and healthy tomatoes are about 16 inches high on the average, the peppers, zucs and the rest the same. HUGE healthy plants. We offered everything i brought for .99 a pot. The pots were .50 ea!!!

OK, there were a couple other people selling cheap GMO grown plants that were so sick and scraggly I even offered to give one guy water for his... he declined.

The tallest skinny sick looking plants of theirs were anywhere from a couple inches tall to 6-8 inches max.

It just makes me SICK. People were buying from that old man even though his were 1.50 a piece! His peppers were what I consider a seedling, barely an inch high while mine look like house plants! I had mine potted his were in styrofoam cups!!!

Now my son and I are good looking clean cut people, we looked nice and had a descent set up. Our attitudes were good because for us because we know that for anything we dont sell, we will sell on the other end as vegetables...

So, the thing that got me and my son was that these people deserve what they get, and when their veggies dont make it, they can blame the weather or anything else they want to blame but the bottom line is that they chose the zombie making plants over the real deal!

Whats wrong with people? Is it too late for humanity? Are the majority of people walking around simply controlled by fluoride, chem trails or any of the other poisons that we here and on other similar forums discuss on a daily basis?

I thought EVERYONE knew about Monsanto seed and GMOS? The same for Heirloom seed and the need to save seed in case the dollar continues to plummet?

Hate to break it to you guys but that may not be the case. So perhaps we do deserve a stall in Gitmo or one of the other FEMACAMPS, for "knowing". Maybe we are the thorn in the side of the NWO.

I realize this may have been some fluke, some strange rift in time, or a paranormal awakening for my own personal experience, but man, please understand that we all collectively have a lot more to do if we think that we can help spread the word about GMOs and Monsanto seed.

OK, thats it for now, just HAD to share this craziness with you guys.

Good to hear you're fighting the good fight. Issues of agriculture are some of the most, if not the most, pertinent today. I mean really, everything depends on agriculture, absolutely everything. There has been a fundamental restructuring of our relationship with food in the past century, specifically since the end of the second world war. It's wonderful that we have freed humanity from subsistence farming, but its gone too far. In the U.S., less than 1% of the population supports the rest through farming, mostly through industrial scale operations. This by itself is incredibly precarious, but when one factors in the land degradation, pesticide and fertilizer use (especially since we're nearing peak phosphorus*), its obvious its unsustainable. GMOs are another huge issue and people simply aren't aware of even the most basic problems, let alone their solutions. As much as I see positive change in some areas, we continue to slip and the future has a lot of potential to be grim. Lets be that thorn in their side and hey, piss people off, just as long as they wake up and look at their actions in a new light.

reply to post by antar


It's truly sad, isn't it, how so many are so ill-informed. And especially about the food they put in their mouths.

I'm always aghast when I find people who know nothing about high fructose corn syrup.

Then there are people like my friends (who are also unemployed) who know better - but the HFCS ice cream is cheap! We can't afford the Ben and Jerry's. [sigh] And I watch my friend battle diabetes and overweight, knowing that much of her issues is from this poison. And her husband just gets fat.

Why don't people CARE?

reply to post by OrganicAnagram33

Well I hope that we palnted a few seeds today and said as much to my son on the way home.

One man who was selling veggies across from us actually tried to convince 'me' that gmos are the way to go because they are less disease resistant. He also asked me what kind of pesticides I use to keep pests from devouring my plants.

His came to market today with a powdery film on them... He said it was a fungicide. I wont even go there but he asked me what pesticides I use and when I explained that so far in the past 10 years I have used the very same bugs that are on the plants, blended and mixed with water and anything i feel to add, usually vinegar or baking soda, depends on the plants and what I feel the mix needs.

At this point a couple people were standing by and they all threw their necks up and backwards at the thought of me blending the bugs and pouring over the plants... I said well no one likes to eat in a grave yard...

He said well wont that kill the plants? I said not so far just the bugs. For anyone reading this you only use a very small amount maybe a tablespoon in a full blender of water and anything else you want to use, I have used a little cayenne pepper.

Everyone standing by began to talk about the various poisons they place on their plants, I was shocked. I mean why pollute your own food by choice? Again the man said well what about tomato worms, cutworms, Japanese beetles? Again I was surprised to find out how much trouble people have with insects that buy gmo seed and plants!

Do these gmos also attract the very same insects which then need the Monsanto poisons to control? VERY scary conversation imo.

I suppose because i have been buying Heirloom for as long as I have farmed, I just never understood when people began to freak over the bugs that were attacking their plants in the summer. Yes there are bugs that come and I once saw grasshoppers eat an entire plot of corn, but for the most part our Heirloom plants are not what they are designed to attack or be attracted to.

Last year at the end of the season my zucchinis had those army bugs we call them get on them, I let them have the one on the very end of the row and killed by blender any that traveled over, it worked, it was a respect and a reverence for even insects.

We also create frog habitats around the gardens and welcome them to come eat the bugs. Bats, are another friend here.

I dont know, I am not saying that I couldn't lose crops or garden plants, but man has become so disrespectful to nature and its needs accepting the rational of Monsanto and those crazy idiots rather than common sense and sensitivity, intuition.

I am by no means perfect or any example to follow, but I know that each day I do everything possible to create clean and healthy nutritious food for first my family, friends, neighbors and then community.

Check out what I am up to in the corn field this year, if weather holds out my family is coming over Tuesday or Wednesday to start plowing a few acres to get this going. I will then have the Minnonite neighbors come and spread poop, it will then be amended, tilled and around the7th or 8th we will begin planting.

Now I am also going to use nature to help put nutrients into the field by planting beans about a week after the corn is up as well as specialty pumpkins in between the rows of corn.

Call me a nut job because when you see in this video what we will have to do to keep the corn from contamination, you'll think gmos are the way to go... NOT!

*(I have had gmos contaminate my heirloom seed last year, we did not save or eat it...)*


www.youtube.com...
www.maizegdb.org...

reply to post by Amaterasu


I know and I have no room to talk as I too am a fattie from not the amount but what I can afford to eat especially in the winter months. Good to know you'd still love me as a chubby, but if the NWO has its way we will all be as skinny as a rail soon enough. If I would eat only what I grow I would not be fat I do know that but that is derailing the topic at hand which is so important and just confounding to me, I guess I have lived a protected and informed life and the ignorance was just astounding to me.

reply to post by antar


I'm unclear how to actually teach people in numbers that count. I guess it's just one mind at a time - unless you can find a large audience.

(My friends make fun of me for reading labels before I eat anything - and turning down stuff with HFCS, MSG, propylene glycol, GMO, artificial sweeteners, etc. 'Course, now they have Neotame - and can sneak it into "Organic" food without a label! It's a BETTER rat poison, so concentrated it doesn't have to be labeled.)

reply to post by antar


Mealy tasteless and bland vs succulent plump and juicy. To me thats the big difference between genetically modified and heirloom vegetables.

I woke up this morning thinking about this, and as embarrassing as it is, there were people saying "I'll take 12 of the better boy..." The man across from me was selling so many and it was as if people were afraid of the Baker creek heirloom seed I was selling, gifting them. But why?

What kind of minds would come out looking for tomatoes and buy little sick looking walmart seeds over big beautiful non gmo plants at a lesser cost?

I am humble about my plants even though people seem to have some twisted idea that GMO seed will produce bigger, tastier, higher yielding plants that require 'less' pesticides than a God given natural seed?

Here is a list of what I was offering:

Big Beef Steak (Red)
Kentucky Beef Steak (orange)
Amish paste (red)
Chadwick Cherry (Red)

To name but a few that I have growing.

My son and I only loaded a few of our tomatoes for yesterdays sale, but come on! I was told by one woman who drove 90 miles round trip to pick up over 40 plants over a month ago for herself and her friends and family in the city that last year they decided Big beef was an undesirable type as it was mushy in the middle and the size was no greater than that of other more tight varieties.

The other thing that I was wondering was, why did the man across from us have to have pesticides already on his small plants? Is there something in the seed itself that causes a fungus early on which requires the purchase of fungicides?

People who buy their big box tomatoes and veggies assume that they are going to have to preemptively battle pests and so buy chemicals at the same time they purchase plants. He did rattle off several different types of chemicals he uses to ward off a wide variety of problems.

He asked us what we do about tomato worms, I said we keep a bucket of water handy and then the kids pick them off if they come which is not every year, he never let me finish trying to say we pick them and drown them in water...

I can see if you have a thousand acres the need to find herbicides to keep certain worms from eating your crops, but for the backyard small growers it is so unnecessary imo.

I think there are some survival threads around here with members natural cures for the garden, if you are reading this and know of any please post them here for others who may want to read including myself.

With all of the members here new and old in all honesty I wonder how many of you purchased seed and or plants from stores rather than seeking out heirloom type seeds? Even with what we know, it is convenient but not any more expensive I can assure you in the short term and a hell of alot less expensive in the long run as you will have seed to share with your great great grandchildren from what you raise this year.

reply to post by newcovenant


Ok that gives me an idea, I think I will compare to some of them and give a report back here later on my honest findings. I will not grow any here as they scare the hell out of me for cross contamination, that and we have 5 varieties of bees who come to enjoy our property each year that even though are finding other gmos else where know we have the good stuff. We have seen them hang out here for days resting at night under the leaves of sunflowers or hiding in closed up hibiscus when it rains...

If bees and birds know the difference why cant man understand the importance of his choices?

I will be honest I am so freaked about the corn patch this year, I am doing the process I think I showed you in this thread to keep the strains pure. It is going to require so much manpower and time. But it is my duty to at least give it a go and help retain non gmo seed for the future. I realize corn is the poster child for GMOs but everything is at risk.

Don't they sell devices to repel pests by sound waves? I have several Black & Decker pest control sound devices in my house, couldn't the same idea be applied to gardens/fields of crops? If the frequency generated by these things can repel spiders, ants, mosquitos, etc then why can't they be used instead of pesticides?

reply to post by antar


Great thread Antar, SnF for you. I am amazed that this issue isn't forever in the ATS recent topic bin...but sadly aliens or bigfoot or big guns aren't involved, so folks just don't really get excited. It's the same issue with my personal issue, world water rights/quality. Amazing threads get yawns from the public.

But anyhow, two things:

You hint at the idea a couple times that GMO's could be designed to draw in the insect of choice to force another sale of pesticide. If you know someone who acts a certain way, you can reasonably expect them to act in that way in a hypothetical situation as well, right?
Monsanto designs seeds that won't sprout without their fertilizer. They die without monsanto pesticides. They (want) to release sterilized plants...making themselves the supplier of seeds, not God.
With all that, how could anyone doubt their intentions? If they found a way to attract bugs using the GM process...OF COURSE they would do it!

Finally, I was at a farmer's market last summer. I was looking at tomato plants from a college botany department sale. The college kids were confused when i asked if they were GMO in any way...They thought I was asking about crossing plants!

Starred and Flagged. I like this post and will be keeping my eyes open about this attitude that the general public seems to have concerning pesticides and GMOs. However, perhaps the title should be changed from "No difference between GMO/Monsanto seed and Heirloom" to something like "Majority of public believes no difference between GMO and Heirloom Crops"

When I bought my seeds earlier this year, I refused to buy anything that was non heirloom or hybrid. I've tried to tell people over and over, I've tried to explain it. But, no one wants to listen. They fall into the sheep category, they're told it's ok, they dont want to believe anything bad could come from the "official sources". There's nothing we can do about it. I get the same looks and comments when I try to explain what fluoride is and what it can do to your body. Even after showing them things like news footage. The just can't help it. They are unreachable. Like you said... They deserve what they get.

I would of bought your plants.

i tell people about GMO's and most of the time i get a blank stare, or a comment like "I understand the GMO's are better for you they have built in vitamins and can grow where regular plants can't' , and I'd say did you ever wonder why they can grow in harsh places, ? Vitamins ? you mean built in pesticides don't you ?

I don't get it, most vegetables in the stores look and taste like crap.

Unfortunately the "general public", doesn't know or even care that GMO plants and produce are dangerous. They buy into the propaganda put forth by the MSM and the big agra companies. I think the truth is that most folks don't want or like to learn anything that might shake their beliefs in the powers that be.

They are happy to be told what to do and really don't want to extend the effort that it takes to actually research GMO's and heirloom varieties. They are truely like sheep, blindly following instead of learning the facts.

As we have created a society that is further and further from nature and the land, we have taken ourselves away from the knowlege and safe pratices our forfathers took for granted.Today people have little understanding of what produce in previous generations were like.

At least many ATS folks deny this ignorant approach and do the research and learn the difference.Thank you for this thread and the knowlege it contains. The video was very interesting, as was the website posted.

This is such an important topic s&f for sure! I wish more people knew about this. I've been catching up my family members who never really understood the benefits of heirloom seeds.

I'm trying my first garden this year and I made sure that I bought Heirloom seeds. The first thing I noticed was that there were MORE seeds in the packets then the gmo packets that you buy in the store. They came guaranteed to be viable (no sprouts, get your money back, where do you see that on one of the gmo labels?). They were more cost effective, (I paid $150 for 71 different kinds of seeds [which also included herb seeds] with 50-60 seeds per packet, you're looking at around $300 or more for that same amount of gmo seeds), the company that sells them (if you can prove you grew organic and they have a strict list to follow) will also buy the seeds back from you, and the greatest reason of all? I have food for life, like someone said above that their grandchildren will be able to grow from the seeds they have this year, that is just so fantastic to me. Do I really need that much of a variety of seeds? No, not really, I only have a small yard, but I have been sharing the seeds with friends and family and sharing the gift of life with them, and I get to reap the rewards of the ones with the bigger properties (ie room for corn and wheat) because they'll share as well. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

And OP I would've bought your plants over the other man's any day, people will wake up sooner or later, hopefully sooner, but unfortunately I'm guessing it'll be when we're (the ones of us who grow heirlooms) are the only one's left that can feed people. I'm still holding out hope though, with people like you and others explaining the difference and benefits of heirlooms to people. .

Ranthenae:

You got a really sweet deal for 150.00. Please share a link to your supplier as others could use it too. Even if you are not in a position to grow your own 'this' year, people could start purchasing a package here and there to eventually have a small store for the near future when economics make life next to impossible to purchase from the stores.

Which makes me alos state that as I said before corn has become the poster child for GMOS/Monsanto but cross pollination can happen to just about all varieties and so even if you grow their seed it is no guarantee that the seed you return to them has not been cross contaminated... a real problem for sure and much more research should be going into this rather than some of the other crazy things that get the research grants today.

Another suggestion would be to save back several of the seeds from each packet, I always do even if it is just 2 or 3 seeds, I do this because of paranoia? I dont know it is a security measure in case something happens to that seed and I can no longer attain any more.

For years I have had the sense that this could be the final year and always make prep's for next years food by buying over what I plan to plant this year and saving back from what I planted.

One more thing Id like to say is that you must feel so proud of yourself, the entire awakened collective consciousness is! I know that there is one more person who in times of trouble will have real viable seed and that is worth its weight in platinum.

You know gardens dont have to be in rows, they dont have to be grouped together in the same area. If you have even an 1/16th of an acre you can grow thousands of plants. It can be as creative and artistic as you can imagine. A nice tilled garden plot is wonderful, but spreading it out in complimentary groupings can reap high yield as well as look absolutely fantastic.

Lonegurka:

What you say has really been the basis of my discovery, I am shocked because I really thought people made these choices out of financial necessity but when I slashed the price just to have less to haul home, I was really amazed. I am this business to sell plants trees and shrubs, I do the veggie thing as a service to others...wow.

Also there have been times when I felt like leaving ATS, but you know we really are if only in practice the salt of the earth and a huge base for knowledge. People here are really smart and make conscious choices whenever possible.

Guitarist:

I know I know. Its something I really thought people knew and just did not have the choices, but when those choices are put right before their nose, like some kind of zombie pre-apocalyptic hive mentality swarmed to the very thing that was bad bad bad fro them and more costly in every way.

Notsofast

Are the people who chose the gmo yesterday the very same that will not make it? The percentage was very low of those who did begrudgingly buy mine. I mean, who knows? Perhaps the seed itsself has some chemical which people are attracted to? The plant throws off something which is like brains to zombies?

Michiganswampbuck I considered a few titles but felt like this would serve what I discovered yesterday. You know like that funny saying we coined here on ATS long ago about "Nothing to see here folks, just move along"? But read what i wrote to notsofast, maybe there is something which is being emitted by the plants themselves which cause a feeding frenzy? Bizarre out there thoughts I know, but just saying...

Blamethegreys: I have a friend who is in college herself to become a scientist in botany, even she finds herself as the minority in these same matters, these students know better and still are so heavily preconditioned to think that science is good, that if it is for the betterment of man, to feed the starving masses worldwide then it is best to go along.

Jibbyjedi I think there are things out there like that but I am a conspiracy advocate so anything which is similar in fashion to that I would not trust. High frequencies could harm my pets, family even the local bird and animal populations. It would be great though to have a real chance to move them away by sound waves, but think about it, what if it ran off the bees, butterflies and other insects like lady bugs and things we want here?

I get where you are coming from and think it is admirable but it would need much more work to make it happen in the right way.

reply to post by antar


I don't want to be too harsh, because you seem like a nice person, but it sounds to be as if you must be spending too much time in very small, insular communities like this, if you truly didn't realize that the vast majority of people don't know or care about -- well, about almost anything, really.

I'm not trying to be hard on you for that, because I understand it was upsetting for you. But the truth is that if you only ever come to places like this, you will end up with a very distorted view of what the rest of the world thinks and cares about, which is generally nothing that resembles reality.

Originally posted by antar
reply to post by OrganicAnagram33

 

*(I have had gmos contaminate my heirloom seed last year, we did not save or eat it...)*


how were you able to tell that your heirloom seed was contaminated with gmo?(actual question, not part of quote)

edit on 5/1/2011 by kitosoren808 because: put question inside quote by accident

reply to post by sepermeru


HUmm you make wise and bold statements, I have to say that it could be due to something they are being given, because it has not always been so. Is it possible that the plants themselves are rebelling against the GMO/poison and emitting some form of toxin which causes people to become complacent, uncaring disassociated like someone who is in the death phase? Or is a a biproduct of bad science? I personally think the later.