Five seed stories from the past week, each linked to the people who reported it. The summaries stick to what they found. The part under My take is where I argue with it.
1. Ukraine sends seeds to the Arctic vault in the middle of a war
Crop Trust · Oct. 13 · Interfax-Ukraine · Oct. 15
Twenty-one genebanks deposited 16,676 seed samples at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway this week, adding to the more than 1.4 million samples already stored there, according to the Crop Trust. Six CGIAR research genebanks supplied a little over half, and Mexico's CIMMYT sent the most, 3,370. Ukraine's national genebank sent 773 samples of 10 crops, among them triticale, buckwheat, millet, white lupine and Sarepta mustard. Interfax-Ukraine reports that it's the country's second deposit and the first since the full-scale invasion, and that about 10 percent of a national collection of more than 154,300 samples has now been sent.
My take: I mentioned this deposit in last week's list. Svalbard is a backup. A sealed box in a mountain doesn't grow anything, and nobody should mistake it for a seed system. Even so, this one got to me. My grandma is from Ukraine but unfortunately I never got to visit before the war. Ukraine's genebank kept shipping buckwheat, vetch and clover to the Arctic while the country is at war, and that still leaves about nine-tenths of its collection without a copy there. Most varieties that feed people are kept the other way, by being planted every year, saved and handed on. That's what our film is about, and it's why story five (below) matters. I'd like to see the living collections, the seed libraries and farmer networks, get even a fraction of the attention a vault gets.
2. California moves to list the weedkiller atrazine as a cancer risk
The New Lede · Oct. 9
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment says it intends to add atrazine to its Proposition 65 list of chemicals "known to the state to cause cancer," The New Lede reports, with public comment open until Nov. 9. The move follows the International Agency for Research on Cancer's classification of atrazine as "probably carcinogenic to humans." The EPA dismissed that classification, echoing criticism from Syngenta, which makes the herbicide. According to the article, U.S. farmers apply about 70 million pounds of atrazine a year, mostly on corn, sorghum and sugarcane, and an estimated 60 countries ban it, including every country in the European Union.
My take: A Prop 65 listing doesn't ban anything. It means a warning in one state, and after the Supreme Court's June ruling on Roundup labels, which I wrote about last week, I'd expect a fight over whether a state warning can stick at all. What I'd want people to notice is the water. Nathan Donley of the Center for Biological Diversity told The New Lede that over a quarter of U.S. rivers and streams are contaminated with atrazine, which is a lot of rivers for a chemical Europe decided it could farm without. If you want to weigh in, California takes comments from anyone until Nov. 9. And if you're shopping, certified organic corn can't be grown with it.
3. Big Food's regenerative programs are improving, but most still leave pesticides alone
As You Sow · Oct. 15
As You Sow, a nonprofit that pushes companies through shareholder advocacy, graded 19 big food companies on their regenerative agriculture programs. The average grade rose from a D to a C, 20 points out of 45, and 16 of the 18 companies rated both years improved. McCain Foods scored highest at 34, followed by PepsiCo and Nestlé. Conagra was the only company to drop, from 18 to 11, after it stopped publishing pesticide disclosures. The report found that 12 of the 19 companies aren't working to reduce pesticide use in their programs, and that many programs rely on one or two practices like no-till or cover crops while conventional inputs stay the same.
My take: A D to a C in a year shows movement, and farmers getting paid and trained to change is the most useful thing on the list. But twelve out of nineteen not even trying to cut pesticides tells me what the word "regenerative" is worth on a cereal box right now. Cover crops are good. Cover crops killed off with a herbicide and followed by the same chemical program are better than nothing, and I wouldn't call them regeneration. Last week I wrote about the Regenerative Organic Certified label, which at least requires organic as a floor. That's the difference between a practice and a standard, and Conagra's backslide shows why disclosure has to be part of it. If you can't see the inputs, you can't judge the claim.
4. Bayer says gene editing could soften Europe on GMOs
AgNavigator · Oct. 15 · AgNavigator · Oct. 13
Speaking at a webinar on a report Bayer commissioned, the company's head of public affairs, Matthias Berninger, said that as new breeding technologies show what they can do, "the conversation on biotechnology will soften." He compared the EU's political agreement on new genomic techniques, or NGTs, to a peace settlement after "30 years of conflicts on biotechnology." The report says EU crop production grew 0.1 percent a year from 2011 to 2023, against 1 percent in the U.S., and Bayer notes that 92 crop protection products or active substances left the EU market in seven years while one new synthetic product was registered. Separately, Spanish seed company Semillas Fitó signed a long-term deal with Dutch gene-editing firm Hudson River Biotechnology to work on tomato breeding lines, ahead of EU rules expected in 2028.
My take: I'll give Mr. Berninger this, he said it out loud. For years the pitch for gene editing in Europe has been that it isn't GMO and shouldn't be treated like it. Now the company that owns Monsanto is talking about edited crops as the thing that could make the older GMOs easier to accept. Those are his words, and I think Europeans should hear them before the rules are final. The other number in that report says a lot too. Bayer counts 92 products leaving the market as a loss. To an organic grower that reads like a list of things Europe decided it could live without. I wrote about CRISPR back in 2016, when USDA decided most edited plants didn't need regulating. Ten years on, my questions are the same ones: who owns the edits, and will anyone tell you what you're eating?
5. In eastern Uganda, farmers go back to their own groundnuts
Nile Post · Oct. 16
Small-scale farmers in Amuria District told visiting government officials, researchers and local leaders that traditional groundnut varieties called Obino and Egoromoit have held up better than some improved varieties during dry spells, the Nile Post reports. ESAFF Uganda, a farmers' forum, set up a community seed bank there that keeps indigenous varieties and lends planting seed when farmers need it. "Farmers should not abandon traditional seeds without understanding their benefits," one farmer, Peter Ocen, told the paper. Another, Christine Amongin of the Orungo Farmer Field School, said younger farmers need to learn how to save and multiply the old varieties so they don't disappear.
My take: This is the small story of the week and it's my favorite. Nobody in Amuria needed a genome sequenced to figure out which peanuts survive a dry year. They planted, watched and kept the ones that worked, which is how every crop we have got here. The word "improved" deserves quotation marks. Improved for whom, and under what rain? A variety bred for high yield with reliable water and fertilizer can lose to a local one the year the rains don't come. I've said before that heirloom seeds are waiting to be found in a lot of places, and this is what that looks like in practice. Ms. Amongin has the hardest job of anyone in this post. Teaching the next generation to save seed is how a variety stays alive, and no vault can do it for her.
Also worth a look
- Two University of Colorado researchers argue that herbicide spraying on Western public lands is growing and often unnecessary (The New Lede, opinion, Oct. 14)
- The National Organic Standards Board's public comment webinars on organic seed are this Tuesday and Thursday, Oct. 20 and 22, ahead of its Oct. 27 to 29 meeting (Organic Seed Alliance, still developing)
Seen a seed story I should be following? Drop it in the comments with a link and I'll take a look before next Sunday. And if you're new here and wondering why one filmmaker cares this much about seeds, Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds is the long answer.
Seed Sunday summarizes reporting from the linked sources. Commentary reflects the author's personal opinions.