Plan Be
Friend and fellow blogger Mike in South Africa just moved his blog. What better a time to mention him here so all you new readers know who he is, and to help Google find the new address!
For those of you who know him, be sure to update your blogroll and bookmarks.
If you don’t know him, be sure to have a look! His new blog is here, but he hasn’t migrated his content yet. You might also want to have a look at his old blog so you can see what he’s written in the past.
New EU Seed Law
In what’s an obvious first step to clear the way for patents and GMOs, the European Union is preparing a new seed law to replace the existing one. Several months ago the EU considered what to do with the current legislation and discussed 3 possibilities; maintain current legislation unchanged, modify current legislation, or drop current legislation. In their wisdom, they decided seed legislation was necessary, but should be changed. With this as a foregone conclusion, they have opened a period of public consultation on how best to change the current seed laws.
In their published documents they offer a number of scenarios, and while some are worse than others, none are completely acceptable.
There’s honestly little hope they’ll actually take public opinion into account, but it’s still very important to give them a run for their money. Maybe, if they get a large response, and they can see people are very upset about their plans, it may have some impact. Please try to submit a response if you can. If you’re unable to read through all of their documents and submit a response using their form, please just send them an email stating your objections to seed laws in general and the registration of varieties.
I’ll try to put together as much information as I can together with arguments, before the deadline for submission. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please give them here! I’ll also post my response, so if nothing else, please consider replacing my name with your own and submitting it yourself.
The European seed laws affect everyone everywhere on the planet, and everyone everywhere should respond to this public consultation. The EU is the largest economy in the world, and rules that become established here will be pushed onto other countries as well. Above all else it’s vital to protect our rights to save and regrow our own seeds, no matter where in the world we live.
Plot With a View
Heguiberto of Weird Combinations sent me an email a few days ago to tell me about his blog. It’s been around for a while, but I hadn’t noticed it before, and I was very happy to hear about it.
Check out the view from his community garden! It looks out on the San Francisco Mission neighborhood, Twin Peaks and the Sutro Tower, parts of the Civic Center with a glimpse of the upper parts of the of the Golden Gate Bridge towers.
One of the nice things about his blog is he makes the connection between gardening and food, which of course some other blogs do too, but it’s still nice to see. He and his partner eat mostly vegetarian, so this is emphasized in the blog too.
Blogs, Catching Up
I have several posts to make over the next day or two as I catch up from the Christmas holidays. First, a few blogs and posts for your reading pleasure.
Mike of Subsistence Pattern has been a reader and commenter here for a long time. One of the things that really stands out about his blog are the discussions he cultivates among his readers. If you want to chat with him and other well known veggie bloggers, it’s a great place to go.
Laura of Mas du Diablo in France has for many years been an active participant in the Blogger Seed Network here, as well as actively blogging about her garden and cooking. I recently exchanged some emails with here, and got some links to new blogs she working on, showing off her paintings, more paintings and cooking. Imagine 4 blogs! I have a hard enough time keeping up with this one.
Leigh of The Extreme Gardener recently posts about her experiences growing TPS (True Potato Seeds). Great post!
New Links!
Sal just sent me an email to tell me about his new blog Sweet Rock Farm, and garden/farm on Gabriola Island off the BC coast in Canada. He has a great plant trade list, including a number of fruit trees and vines. He’s now been added to the Seed Network here. Have a look at his blog, and stop by and say hi!
A fried of mine here in Holland, Anita, has a expat blog. It’s called Greetings from Holland. I keep meaning to mention it. I don’t often write about Holland, and in fact Anita and I were recently talking about that. She thinks I should write more about Amsterdam and the Netherlands, instead of all the difficult subjects I address here, and she’s probably right. Anita on the other hand writes a lot about Holland, including things about really interesting places she visits. She has a lot of great pictures. If you want to learn something about living in the Netherlands, hers is the blog to visit.
Finally, Randy who lives in North Carolina has a blog called Randy and Meg’s Garden Paradise. He also has an associated blog about his carpentry projects called the Liberal Handyman’s Blog. He has some really amazing photographs on his blogs, and his carpentry projects look really interesting.
