New urgency for farm and garden seeds

YOUR tips on seed saving are timely (Property & Interiors, August 20).

There is a new urgency for farm and garden home seed saving.

2011 is the first year of the UN Decade for Bio-diversity and our garden seeds are under great threat. This time it is neither habitat loss, pollution nor climate change which are the culprits, but our very own EU and international legislation. The requirements for listing, registering, permitting and testing of seeds is pushing many of the more unusual and less commercially viable varieties towards extinction.

Many of our staple foods are heavily dominated by very few varieties, not good for our food security. In Ireland it has been illegal under EU law to buy, sell or give away our native Irish grass seed. It falls to Joe Citizen to cherish our unusual seeds, save them and secure their future. Our authorities won’t.

Natasha Harty

Midleton

Co Cork