So are you saying that growers don’t really have a choice in what seeds they use? That is less cool.
The difference is, that’s how apples grow, and it’s only because we’ve been unable to figure out how to consistently grow apples from seed that produce the fruits we want that this is so. Corn we’ve got pegged, and making the seed a time bomb is pulling the self-sustaining ability away from farmers. It’s holding farmers hostage to the seed companies. The analogous activity with apples would be making grafting impossible.
As Lazlo pointed out, existing traditional maize is quite different from genetically modified Monsanto strains. If you want to read a lenghty explanation, I would point you to the english page of Save our seeds, which explains the reasons against genetically modified plants. Otherwise I have to type things out for a long time.
To the OP: the biggest question is:
do you have some free garden space and want to experiment? Then I would put any seeds you find into the earth in spring (mid May after the ice Saints, or starting small inside in March and transplanting out later) and see what comes up, as a fun surprise.
Or do you need to grow your own veggies to supplement your budget? Then I would look for contact with gardeners in your area or on online forums for free gifts in srping when plants shoot too much, and later for trade, so you get variety besides tomatoes, squash, zucchinis 8which famously swamp gardeners in autumn).
As for size - at least in the agrobusiness, al ot of varieties that have been bred for big size have lost taste, vitamins etc. in the process. Big sucessful strains also are not specially suited to your climate and your soil composition, unlike old local varieties (which you might ask old or organic gardeners for). Old varieties also often have resistance to diseases or insects in “exchange” for less sweetness or other more desirable traits.
One of the several problems with Monsanto and other GM maize is that GM as a whole is still completly untested, despite the reassurances and simplifications by the companies doing them. When the German ministries had to approve experimental GM fields, the companies swore up and down that the pollen of the GM maize would not spread beyond the safety zone of 200 m because it could not spread beyond 50 m and they had modified it that way. Of course, when Greenpeace and other non-affiliated parties looked, they did find pollen far beyond the safety zone.
So we have a new technology still in the process of testing because we don’t know if there are possible long-term consequences, therefore we want to make sure that no non-reversible effects take place. Yet the companies are so intent on making big bucks come what may, pressuring govt.s to change laws to allow their stuff, that they don’t care about long-term consequences for the food variety.
In several other cases of “traditional” agrobusiness, a wide variety of breeds for local soil, climate, with different taste and contents, different resistances against plants, drought, or mildew, have been replaced by a few streamlined brands that are maximised for size at the expense of other content.
This is worrying enough that some countries have started seed banks. But the seeds can’t simply be put into liquid nitrogen and stored for the next 100 years; they must be regularly grown again to keep fertile. This isn’t possible if pollen of GM plants is everyhwere born by the wind or carried by the insects.
Addiiontally, with both the climate change leading to different conditions in the world, and with growing resistance of molds or insects against conventional chemicals, a wide variety of plants is important for research. Again, GM makes this impossible by wiping out existing varieties.
The other nasty thing about Monsanto GM foods is the way they ruined organic farmers and then got around paying damage money, instead demanding license fee (what happend was that a plant - either soya or rice) was grown both organic and GM in the US. When tests found GM plants in the organic harvest, the organic farmers had not only to destroy their whole harvest (they couldn’t sell it as organic with GM pollution), but Monsanto took them to court for not paying license fees on the GM. The fact that the plants had escaped from the seperate fields despite Monsantos promise that this would not happen did not matter in court, as the law said “it doesn’t matter that the GM came onto the organic fields through neglicience of Monsanto and not through an intentional act of the organic famers; the only thing that matters is that the GM plants were found on those fields without the necessary licence”.
Most people outside Monsanto think that is unjust.
Actually there are heritage forms of corn that can be carried over year to year. All it would take is some farmers with enough land to get a bug up their arses and decide to sell the non GMO corn to farmers to kickstart an anti-Monsanto movement at least on a small scale.
Which seems to be exactly what that Save Our Seeds group is doing.
After just reading an article in the German Edition of National Geographic (the Aug. 2011 issue) about the dangers of “genetic erosion”, they mentioned an US group:
from Heritage Farm, its headquarters.
I did some seed-saving from organic varieties of edamame (green vegetable soybean) and nasturtium that I planted, as well as cilantro. Worked very nicely.
Let the plants bolt and the seed pods dry on them, and then collect the seed pods and shove 'em in paper bags in a cool dark drawer or cupboard until next spring. Take the seeds from your biggest/healthiest/most productive plants for best results.