[tippben]

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/We_dont_accept_this_Let_us_keep_our_seeds_EU/?ctCLIbb

[Freckles]

Shared and signed, thanks. I heard about this, its completely ridiculous How would they even police something like this!!??

Reminds me of this animation The Flower

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMM_T_PJ0Rs

[medieval knievel]

yet at the same time, people are horrified that our ash trees may soon be a memory, and give out that there weren't enough controls on tree movement around europe.

you'd feel a bit sheepish if you were innocently seed swapping with someone in france, say, and inadvertently imported a disease into the country.

[Freckles]

[My Potatoes]

Hasn't there been something similar to this in South America?

[knoxville]

There has to be some control , i agree with medieval knievel about the Ash trees, we control livestock for the same reasons.

[Freckles]

Control. You got it in one!

To the best of my knowledge seed 'controls' are already in place?

These bureaucrats are just trying to keep themselves in jobs if you ask me all the while killing off the seed supply and pushing small farmers out to make way for the corporations.

[My Potatoes]

I'm trying to remember what happened in South America. I think there were subsistence farmers that had been saving and swapping their own seeds for centuries.

Then the government and World Bank insisted they move away from subsistence farming and grow cash crops instead. And provided them with the seed. Hybrid seed that produced sterile seeds.

Due to market forces, their cash crops provide income for a short period only. And the seeds they collected now were sterile. Forcing them to buy seed for the first time.

These controls are more about generating revenue than anything else.

As for the ash dieback, unitil the EU control the wind that has transmitted it...