Hybrid Seeds vs Open Pollinated
Hybrid seeds are the first generation offsprings of two distant and
distinct parental lines of the same species. Seeds taken from a
hybrid may either be sterile or more commonly fail to breed true, not
incorporating and expressing the desired traits of the parent.
The development of hybrid seed enabled the beginning of the
commercial seed market. Farmers were persuaded to buy new hybrid seed
each season, replacing the traditional practice of farm-saved seed,
due to the "hybrid vigour" which can improve yields.
Hybrid seed is also known as "high response" seed. These seeds
require fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and lots of water to
achieve their high yields.
Hybrids have been bred with an emphasis on yield at the expense of
hardiness and resistance. Breeders will sacrifice disease resistance
where pesticides are available.
Reliance on these seeds enforces the use of chemical inputs. Hybrid
seeds and their required fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation
systems have trapped many of the world's poorest farmers into a cycle
of debt. In India hundreds of farmers have committed suicide due to
debt caused by hybrid and gentically rendered seed.
The substitution of chemical fertilizers for organic methods of
returning nutrients to the soil, such as composting, crop rotation
and manure creates lifeless dusty soils prone to soil erosion. An
estimated 24 billion tons of soil are eroded from the world's
agricultural land each year. Dust levels in the lower atmosphere have
tripled in the last 60 years. As have soil runoff in streams caused
in part by clear cutting and harsh agriculture practices.
Modern hybrid seeds require large amounts of water often
necessitating the construction of irrigation systems and dams. The
experience in poor countries is that dams serve the rich minority and
disrupt the natural watersheds essential to poorer farmers. To build
these dams millions of people have been forcibly moved from their
homes and fertile soils in river valleys have been flooded.
Open pollinated seeds
Open-pollinated varieties are the traditional varieties which have
been grown and selected for their desirable traits for millennia.
They grow well without high inputs because they have been selected
under organic conditions.
These varieties have better flavor, are hardier and have more
flexibility than hybrid varieties. Breeders cannot manipulate complex
characteristics such as flavor as easily as they can size and shape.
These seeds are dynamic, that is they mutate and adapt to the local
ecosystem, as opposed to modern hybrids, which are static.
Commercial breeders lack the incentive to produce new open pollinated
varieties from which farmers could save seed and replant...
http://www.primalseeds.org/hybrid.htm
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