Saturday, December 7, 2013

Seed diversity has collapsed more than 12-fold since early 1900s

(NaturalNews) From the looks of an average produce section in a typical American supermarket, it might seem like modern society has access to basically every major type of fruit, vegetable and herb one could want. But a survey conducted by the U.S. National Seed Storage Laboratory back in 1983 found that the diversity of our food supply has been progressively shrinking since 1903 when a previous seed stock inventory was taken, with fewer than one-twelfth the number of unique crop varieties available today compared to 100 years ago.

Known today as the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP), the laboratory collected seed data on 10 common produce items: beets, cabbages, sweet corn, lettuces, muskmelons, peas, radishes, squashes, tomatoes and cucumbers. NCGRP compared the availability of seeds for each of these items in 1903 to their availability in 1983, which was still long before the time genetically modified organisms (GMOs) hit the scene.

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