Photo: Dylan Johns
Borrowing books from libraries is old hat. The new hotness is borrowing seeds to plant in your garden. That's what the Basalt Public Library and the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Colorado are offering:
Here's how it works: A library card gets you a packet of seeds. You then grow the fruits and vegetables, harvest the new seeds from the biggest and best, and return those seeds so the library can lend them out to others.
NPR's Salt Blog has the story, but no mention on what happens if your plantings failed to produce the seed that you need to return to the library: Link
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Obviously because Monsanto wants to keep on selling their seeds year after year. They've used things like terminator seeds technology to ensure that the crop's seeds aren't plantable for next year's crop.
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I grew up in central Illinois. Driving down country roads, every corn field had a sign describing which variety of Pioneer seed was growing. What an idea! Letting the corn sell itself.
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Monsanto goes even further -they don't let farmers keep seeds for their own use the next year.
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Thanks for checking up on it, Kristina! I suspect that the seed library would focus on common and easy to grow plants that won't infringe on anybody's rights.
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I checked the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute's website and they are dedicated to the idea of preserving genetic seed diversity. The seeds on offer by the library have been donated by organic seed companies themselves, so no worries, either about copyright or future health implications from consuming fruit or vegetables from a lab-altered seed.
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