This changing world !

Gardening is entrenched in the human mind because centuries ago it was important to survival. In many cases the humble kitchen garden was the difference between eating well - and famine !

Ask any old timer about the methods used. Gardening was a science, but the most important aspect was securing enough seeds for next year's crop. Seeds were collected from the most prolific plants and carefully stored away until the coming spring.

Those days are long gone. Gardeners who today collect seeds from this years crop are in for a surprise. Those seeds will not germinate. Science - and the multinational companies who run the seed business - have introduced genetics to ensure that the seeds you buy from the plant shops produce one crop only - and their progeny are sterile.

The multinationals claim they need that protection because of the huge amounts of money they spend to improve seed lines and increase the crop yield. What they have actually done is create a monopoly. The " one crop " seed means that every year you have to pay their price - or forget about a vegetable garden.

That may be acceptable in a developed country like Australia, but in the developing world it condemns farmers to using old fashioned, low yield plant lines - and accounts for food shortages in much of the world.

The multinationals carefully guard their profits - and they are reluctant to help improve third world farms unless they control the seed supply - and gain a steady income.

The world has set up " seed banks " where samples of the world's crops are stored against some agricultural catastrophe that wipes them out. Obviously these are base seeds that do not contain the bio-encryption that stops them from producing multiple crops.

If the world is to avoid future famine because of it's growing population efforts need to be made to improve crop yields in under developed countries. To achieve that, we need similar research to that going on in the laboratories of the multinationals - but if this is provided by a world body working on a " not for profit " basis - then the resulting seeds can transform third world economies - and banish the scourge of starvation from this productive world.