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During World War II many heroic individuals risked their lives
and even lost them for the betterment of mankind. Perhaps the most
unusual "ultimate sacrifice" was made by a group Russian
botanists during the Battle of Leningrad (the city is now known by
its original name, St. Petersburg ).

The Germans had surrounded the city. They successfully cut off
all supply routes and bombarded the population day and yet
they couldn't force a surrender and occupy the city. 

In desperation, people were eating the bark from trees and anything
else they could find that was edible to stay alive. In the Seed
of Change, author Kenny Ausubel describes the events and
circumstances that culminated in agony and death for these
dedicated protectors of their seed treasure:

 A brilliant botanist, Nikola Vavilov, discovered in the 1920s
that there are centers of diversity around the world where wild-
plants originated and then evolved into their myriad forms. 

Tragically, in a conflict of scientific opinion with Stalinist
Russian scientists, Vavilov was banished to a military prison
camp, where he died in 1943. Meanwhile, the seed bank he had
amassed came under threat during the terrible siege of
Leningrad-St. Petersburg, which lasted for nine hundred brutal
days during which six hundred thousand people starved to death. 

His loyal botanists risked bullets and bombs to venture into
nearby fields to propagate potatoes for their collection. When
they ran out of food to eat, they faced the awful choice of
either eating their collection or starving to death. 

Soldiers entering the facility found their emaciated bodies amid
untouched sacks of rice, potatoes, corn and wheat, a legacy they
held more valuable than their own lives.

Seeds are the important element necessary for sustaining life on
earth. Without seeds our planet would be as barren as the moon.
Further, as the Russian botanists knew all too well, with seeds,
as in most other things, sameness is weakness.

The discovery in America by Sir Walter Raleigh of the tobacco
"herb" and the potato "root" that were subsequently introduced in
Europe:

"Over a wild and stormy sea Shall noble sail, Who to find will not
fail A new and far countrey A herb and root That all men shall
suit."

 However, it seems Sir Walter only introduced a single type of
potato to Europe which became known as the "Lumper." In the
middle 1800's the Lumper fell victim to a fungus that eventually
spread and destroyed the main staple of millions of people. 

All of the potatoes rotted as the blight spread. It destroyed the
whole potato crop in Ireland--history's Irish potato famine and
hundreds of thousands of people died of starvation while others
emigrated to America.

Today, there is alarming evidence that history may repeat itself,
at least with respect to the potato. The following excerpt is
from a report that appeared in the July 30, 2995 issue of the New
York Times:150 years after the Ireland potato blight, a new
cousin of the same disease is threatening.

The potent, fast-moving fungus known as "late blight" [is being
called] the worst threat to America's potato crop in decades, and
perhaps ever by scientists. It shows resistance to all chemical
fungicides. 

First reported in the U.S. in the late 1980s, it has spread up
the East Coast from Florida to Maine. This year, it has reached
the potato-belt states of Idaho and Oregon, where heavy rains
have fueled its growth. The new fungus has also been reported in
the major potato-growing areas across the world, and some
scientists predict that it could cause famine in South America.

 In Ireland, the importance of Mother Nature's "safety net" the
abundant genetic diversity of her storehouse had been ignored. 

The population learned the hard way that "mother knows best" or,
"don't put all your eggs in one basket". However, another old
adage "the only thing we learn from history is: we don't learn
anything from history" would soon come into play. 

Not long after the Irish potato famine "plant breeding" would
take a foothold in Mother's soil. The "hybrid" seed began its
invasion into the fields of "genetic diversity."

Authors Mooney and Fowler explain in Shattering:

Many seeds have long been worth more than their weight in gold.
Perhaps the biggest single environmental catastrophe in human
history is unfolding in the garden.

The loss of genetic diversity in agriculture silent, rapid,
inexorable is leading us to a rendezvous with extinction, to the
doorstep of hunger on a scale we refuse to imagine.

There are untold thousands of varieties of seeds in the world
Many have been passed down from one generation to the next for
hundreds of years. If one variety failed for some reason, others
were still there. 

They could be rotated and usually several varieties were planted
at the same time. Seed similarity was known to be dangerous. But
just as important, seeds could be saved from healthy plants and
used the next year not so with hybrids! For the most part hybrid
seeds are "sterile." 

If they do reproduce at all, their viability is decreased
substantially. So growers and farmers are forced  to the
seed companies whenever they need seeds; the "standard"
open-pollinated varieties in which case seeds can be saved from a
mature plant and used the next year. 

And there are some sources in the United States if you know where
to look. There is an explanation for the reason standard seeds
are difficult to locate. On Oct. 7, 1985, The inian Pilot
newspaper reported:

Genetically created corn is first plant to win patent. A new corn
plant genetically engineered by a suburban Minneapolis company
has become the first plant to be patented. 

The decision by the U.S. Board of Patent Appeals and
Interferences in Washington, announced by the company last week,
could have a major impact in the $3 billion-a-year seed corn
industry, analysts said Friday. Seeds, plants and plant-tissue
cultures produced by genetic engineering previously had not
received such protection against imitations.

In one catalog source for non-hybrid seeds, Rent Whealy's The
Garden Seed Inventory, Kent explains: Plant patenting legislation
has definitely made seed companies attractive for multinational
corporations. 

During the first week after plant patenting legislation was
passed in England, one company, RHM, bought 84 seed companies.
Shell Oil of Great Britain has bought out 56 seed companies since
the ; passing of the legislation in England. Royal Dutch Shell
became the world's largest seed and agrichemical company, almost
overnight. 

Seed company take overs in the United States have also reached
epidemic proportions: Atlantic Richfieid (ARCO) took over Dessert
Seed Company; Celanese bought out Joseph Harris Company;
Ciba-Geigy (of Switzerland) purchased Funk's Seed; ITT now owns
W. Atlee Burpee, Co. [since bought by George T. Ball, Inc. which
markets its seeds to gardeners]; Amfac took over Gurney's Seed &
Nursery and Henry Field Seed & Nursery Company. ..Monsanto
purchased DeKalb Hybrid Wheat. And these are just a few of the
more than 60 recent North American seed company take overs.

In 1987 the Reader's Digest sounded the alarm in an article
titled "SOS-SAVE OUR SEEDS" This scientifically oriented article
referred to Kent Whealy's work and stated:

The global hybrid revolution has brought powerful social and
economic changes, most of them positive. But there are hidden
dangers we have only recently begun to address. 

As our food crops change, so do diseases and pests that
relentlessly develop new ways to penetrate the defenses we devise
for our vast fields of grain and other crops. When one hybrid
falls prey to such assaults, our bioengineers must rush to
replace with hybrids carrying new, more resistant genes. But to
do this we must constantly find fresh genetic raw material.

These "new genes" come from three sources: the ancient land-race
plants of the Vavilov Centers, other distantly related wild
varieties, and heirloom plants that went out of favor as newer
hybrids came along. But ironically, today's hybrids are pushing
many old-fashioned food plants to the brink of extinction. 

Today, entire nations are becoming dependent on genetically
identical plants. History teaches the dangers of such
mono-culture. 

Moria Timms writes: In Europe, growing or selling the seeds of
plants not contained in the Common Catalog of the European
Economic Community is illegal. In a deliberate attempt to clear
the market as quickly as possible for the new patented varieties,
sometimes hundreds of varieties a month are deleted from the
catalog, and violators are prosecuted."

Long before Seeds of Change was published, Dr. Wolf D. Storl
wrote the book Culture and Horticulture and voiced his concern: 

The consequences of the loss of native seed germ plasm
staggering, when one thinks that within one short generation,
human beings could throw away key evolutionary links in the food
system all in the name of progress. 

Germ plasm has been lost that took generations of careful and
loving selection by farmers and gardeners to develop. They were
lost because they were unsuited to machine production...The
result of uniformization brought about by agribusiness, where
hybrids have been selected for only one or two characteristics,
is that our food plants are put on a very narrow genetic basis. 

The "miracle" wheat and rice of the Green Revolution, which is
Causing the mass extinction of  locally-adapted native varieties, is completely
dependent on high energy input in the form of chemical
fertilizer, insecticides, irrigation and machinery. Rarely will
hybrids reproduce true to type, so you cannot save seed from
them.

Sun Bear wrote of his concern in Black Dawn/Bright Day: In the
United States and Europe, hybrid plants have been developed to
produce high crop yields. But they have bred the immunities out
of these plants in the process. 

Many of them can no longer fight off insects, molds or other
pests. Also, the seeds have been developed to work best with the
chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Another thing to keep in
mind about hybrid plants is that you can harvest the plants, but
their seed is no good to plant. 

You have to go back to the seed companies to plant next year's
crop. So the seeds, in reality, are owned by these companies
which are owned by multinational corporations. Since these
companies have a monopoly on hybrid seeds, farmers are finding
that prices are I going up every year. 

It is very frightening that we are dependent on gasoline-driven
engines and petroleum-based chemicals for our fanning. I look
around and wonder what will happen when there is no petroleum.
This is a very dangerous time because we are totally dependent on
the oil companies for our food supply and they are largely
dependent on oil from the Middle East.

 Hybrid seeds 'are Built' from existing genes and plant stock'
Ausubel explains. "No breeder has yet created a new gene. Such
breeding contributes to more varieties, but not to diversity. 

The world today relies on just one hundred fifty food plants, and
only twenty of those produce 90 percent of our food. Nine are
widely used, and account for three-quarters of the human diet. Of
these, just three rice, corn, and wheat account for half..." 

In 1993 the Union of Concerned Scientists asked about the growing
interest in genetic engineering and agricultural biotechnology,
"Does biotechnology represent a promise or a peril to humanity
and our environment?" 

The following excerpts are their answer: Genetic engineering is a
biotechnology that allows scientists to move genes into organisms
without regard to natural barriers.

Technologists have already transferred genes from moths into
potatoes and from flounders into tomatoes and they are just
beginning. Biotechnology promises sheep that will serve as new
sources of insulin, but also brings the possibility that the
release of altered forms of life into our environment may have
devastating consequences. 

Biotechnology promises tomatoes with a longer shelf life, but has
the potential for wiping out wild varieties of squash that harbor
the genes that we might someday need to prevent a blight. 

Companies are investing millions of dollars to create novel crops
and animals for food and fiber products. Such organisms have a
combination of traits not found in nature. Most will be intended
for good purposes, but can exhibit unpredicted behavior upon
release.

 Traditional practices have already created environmental
mistakes. From gypsy moths to kudzu, we have experienced both
purposeful and accidental introduction of "exotic" species that
have spread with disastrous results. Genetic engineering will
permit the creation of hundreds of thousands of organisms that
will be in some sense exotic everywhere on this planet. 

Some of these may have unexpected and harmful consequences.
Scientist have transferred growth hormones from cows to produce a
faster growing fish, but they originally put their fish ponds in
a flood plain, inviting an escape that could have led to the
decimation of native fish. 

Crops engineered to be virus-resistant could instead help to
create new viruses that can damage agricultural crops. Engineered
resistance to herbicides and pesticides could spread, making
chemical control procedures more difficult and expensive. 

And engineering plants to "manufacture" potentially toxic
substances like drugs and pesticides could have unplanned I
results, such as poisoning birds that scavenge their seeds. 

It is also possible that new genes will spread to wild plants,
creating new seeds whose invasive properties could seriously
damage the existing remnants of the native biological diversity
of North America. 

It is currently impossible to predict what will happen to
engineered plants, animals, or other organisms once they escape
or are released. Our understanding of ecological processes simply
lags behind our knowledge of genetic engineering. 

And since there are big profit potentials in biotech and few in
ecology, the lag can be expected to widen in a business-as-usual
situation. This reality is exacerbated by the fact that the money
for much of agricultural biotech today is coming from chemical
companies. 

Monsanto, DuPont, and Ciba-Geigy want to be able to sell more
herbicides and pesticides, so are developing and seeking to
commercialize plants that will survive their chemicals. Big
industrial companies are much more likely to be concerned with
their bottom line than with the adverse effects on farm workers,
consumers, and the environment.

 In the June, 1996 issue of the Earth Changes Report Scallion
reported:

At first glance, gene-splicing to produce new super-foods with
longer shelf life, greater resistance to pests, or more nutrition
seemed like a good idea. But now, some very troubling questions
are beginning to accumulate. In March, the New England Journal of
Medicine reported that a gene from Brazil nuts that was
engineered into soybeans made the beans allergenic. 

That's bad news at a time when the ability of soy-based foods to
reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer ensures that their
consumption will increase, probably dramatically. 

And public-interest groups note that Food and Drug Administration
safeguards are full of loopholes. For instance, biotech companies
must alert the FDA, conduct safety tests, or label genetically
engineered foods only if they plan to transfer genes from eight
or ten of the most commonly allergenic foods. 

Besides, such reporting by companies is purely voluntary at
present. What about the lesser-known allergens to which many may
be sensitive ? As generations of food allergy sufferers have
learned, avoidance of disruptive foods is often the best or the
only defense. 

Then there is the threat of the super-weed. It seems almost
comical legions of gardeners in combat with a weed even more
resistant than usual to lawn chemicals via accidental
bio-engineering,

 But the implications may be enormous. Scientists in Denmark
crossed a plant genetically engineered to resist a common
herbicide with a weedy relative. Then they bred the hybrid with a
wild form of the weed. 

They found the resistance to herbicide was transmitted to the
next generation of the wild plants, Scientific American reported
last month. That means the genes might spread, and would
certainly be hard to find and control. 

Despite the discovery genes can be spread in this way, the
Department of Agriculture has proposed streamlining of the
approval process for companies that want to field test
genetically engineered crops. 

The proposal is opposed by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Again, the Mahabharata from ancient India predicts that, the Kali
Yuga will be close at hand when the following comes to pass: 

"When men begin to slay one another, and become wicked and fierce
and without any respect for animal life, then will Yuga come to
an end. . and when flowers will be begot within flowers and
within fruits, then will the Yuga come to an end. "

There are many prophecies that claim severe weather will play a
part in bringing about food shortages. In Phoenix Rising, Mary
Summer Rain writes:

 When the hot winds blow across the land, they will wither the
earth into dust bowls. They will absorb the underground springs
and evaporate artesian water and create great sink holes over the
land like massive moon craters. 

These dry winds will leave devastating erosion in its wake.
Excessively high winds will blaze across the country, caring
little for the freak deaths they leave in their paths. Tornados
will increase and become the rule rather than the exception in
certain areas. 

Hurricanes will rip into the coastal regions with increased force
and destruction. Summer thunderstorms will release a ten-fold
energy through intensified lightening and hail. Winter will bring
frigid temperatures with its ferocious blizzards causing week
long blackouts and untold fatalities.

The plains states are on the brink of an extreme drought that
could grip the central U.S., says Mike Smith, founder
of weather data in Wichita, Kansas.

The prophet of Ramala adds another dimension: When the Bible
speaks prophetically of the plagues to come, that is indeed one
of the events which will take place. At present Humanity controls
the Insect Kingdom with its poisons and its pesticides, but that
system will fail. 

The insects will begin to multiply more and more and to bring a
scourge across the face of the earth, for the force which would
keep them in check has been destroyed by the Human Race. 

The natural balance is gone. The Insect Kingdom will cover the
earth and will bring about much Human destruction. There are
scientists today who recognize this fact and are working
desperately on new methods to control this potential and lethal
invasion.

 Perhaps, in one respect, the Ramala prophet was referring to
Africanized "killer bees" that have spread from Texas to New
Mexico and Arizona and are rapidly invading California. 

At the other end of the spectrum, agricultural scientists are
very concerned about the threat to a "good" insect, the honey bee
population, that is indispensable as the pollinators of much of
our food suppiy. In June of 1996, the Associated Press reported:

 Crop experts in Virginia and Wisconsin are the latest to show
concern about the reductions in bee population. Virginia
beekeepers have lost 40 to 90 percent of their hives. Farmers
will have difficulty getting bee colonies for pollination. 

The Virginia State Apple Board predicted that this year's crop
would be about 60 percent of normal. In Wisconsin, because of
cold, soggy weather and parasitic mites, the number of honey bees
has dropped to its lowest level since the government started
keeping records in 1945. 

The Wisconsin Bee Keepers Association, said at least 50 percent
of Wisconsin's 75,000 bee colonies were wiped out b parasitic
diseases and freezes...

 We have many in the U.S. that are about to go off !! One
volcanic eruption created the year without summer in 1816, and
volcanic activity is expected to increase. Volcanic ash spewing
into the earth's atmosphere will circle the globe many times for
years. 

Consequently, the sun's rays are blocked and the global
temperature is affected. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes go
hand in hand. They are both the result of disturbances in the
earth's magma-the molten lava beneath the earth's crust.