GEORGE TOWN: The Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) has urged Malaysian farmers to start saving and sharing seeds.
This is to overcome the problem of seed dependency faced by farmers.
Its president S.M. Mohamed Idris said that seed saving appeared to have been disappearing as a common farm practice.
He said large corporations had dominated the food and seed production, leading to a grave scenario of seed dependency, chemically-tainted seeds and the escalating cost of seeds.
He said that Malaysia was once filled with seed saving farmers, however it had all boiled down to a handful of corporations controlling the seeds.
“Seeds once the domain of traditional farmers now have been blatantly conquered by the giant companies with the intention of controlling the world food production. Most of the seeds had been bred by farmers over millennia.
“The seeds companies are now claiming that it is illegal for farmers to save seeds. The first and foremost impact of this is a seed monopoly and the disappearance of diversity, an increase in costs and higher use of chemicals,” he said.
He said this during the Seed Sharing Fair held in conjunction with Green Action Week here today.
Idris stressed that the farmers would be facing an everlasting financial burden due to the lack of seed savings by them.
He cited an example that if a farmer wished to grow ladies finger for one acre of land, he had to spend approximately RM180 to RM240 to buy the seeds alone for one season of planting.
This, he said, would persist for every season if the farmer does not save his own seeds.
“This cost can be saved if farmers collect their own seeds. Above all, seed-dependency and slavery can be minimised,” he added.
One way of breaking the seeds dependency is through searching and identifying traditional seeds - the ones that have not gone through genetic modification, learn the methods of collecting and preserving them, and sharing and exchanging these seeds among the farmers, he said.
During the Seed Sharing Fair today, CAP launched a pictorial guide on seed saving with explanation on how to collect and preserve one’s own seeds. The guide is sold for RM10.
“This is a healthy step towards encouraging Malaysians to save their own seeds, share or exchange and use them for planting.
“Let us make seed saving a part of our life,” he stressed.