If I could I would but I can't say enough about this person. Geri Guidetti is a lot of great, complex things. On the practical side of the matter she is a biologist by training (she knows how to disect gnats, has had first-hand experience with genetic engineering, has worked at the Center for Disease Conrol), and a world class organic gardener with 25 years experience under her belt. She is the founder of the Ark Institute which is dedicated to helping people learn how to garden organically with non-hybrid seeds. Seeds that will grow vegetables and grains that will produce another crop the following year which is a highly suspect outcome (at best) when using the varieties of hybrid seeds sold at seed stores and in catalogues.

She is also well known in some year 2000 circles for being the moderator of Gary North's non-hybrid gardening forum. More about that in a minute, but first these first few paragraphs from her June 5th, 1998 Grain/Food Supply Update, a periodic electronic newsletter she produces:

Food Supply Update: June 5, 1998

Seed Terminator and Mega-Merger Threaten Food and Freedom

Copyright ) 1998, by Geri Guidetti

There have been times in human history when the line between genius and insanity was so fine that it was barely perceptible. In the world of biotechnology and food, that line has just been obliterated. Announcements made over the past 90 days suggest that an ingenius scientific achievement and subsequent, related business developments threaten to terminate the natural, God-given right and ability of people everywhere to freely grow food to feed themselves and others. Never before has man created such an insidiously dangerous, far-reaching and potentially "perfect" plan to control the livelihoods, food supply and even survival of all humans on the planet. Overstatement? Judge for yourself.

On March 3, 1998, the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Delta and Pine Land Company, a Mississippi firm and the largest cotton seed company in the world, announced that they had jointly developed and received a patent (US patent number 5,723,765) on a new, agricultural biotechnology. Benignly titled, "Control of Plant Gene Expression", the new patent will permit its owners and licensees to create sterile seed by cleverly and selectively programming a plants DNA to kill its own embryos. The patent applies to plants and seeds of all species. The result? If saved at harvest for future crops, the seed produced by these plants will not grow. Pea pods, tomatoes, peppers, heads of wheat and ears of corn will essentially become seed morgues. In one broad, brazen stroke of his hand, man will have irretrievably broken the plant - to - seed - to - plant - to - seed - cycle, THE cycle that supports most life on the planet. No seed, no food - unless - you buy more seed. This is obviously good for seed companies. As it turns out, it is also good for the US Department of Agriculture.

In a recent interview with RAFI, the Canada-based Rural Advancement Foundation International, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesman, Willard Phelps, explained that the USDA wants this technology to be "widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed companies." The goal, he said, is "to increase the value of proprietary seed owned by US seed companies and to open up new markets in Second and Third World countries." The USDA and Delta & Pine Land Co. have applied for patents on the terminator technology in at least 78 countries! Once the technology is commercialized, the USDA will earn royalties of about 5% of net sales. "I think it will be profitable for USDA," Phelps said. (Royalties? Profits? For a Department of the US Federal Government? Whats wrong with this picture?)

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The "Food Supply Update" link above will take you to the rest of the story. It's an interesting one. Geri once told me that she thought y2k might just be "the icing on the cake." Her Grain Updates will show you why she says that. She has a phenomenal scope on the world food/agriculture situation. There's a link to those updates on her Ark Institute web site. You might want to read a few of them...

Although I'll post this in the farm and garden categorey too, this link will take you directly to that Nonhybrid Gardening forum associated with Gary North's web site (link on Millennium Salons home page). There's some good information there...

-- Bill (billdale@lakesnet.net), June 06, 1998