Open Source Seed Initiative Includes Vermont’s High Mowing

Here’s something people interested in GMOs and Vermont farming might want to take note of – an open source seed intiative.

You might be familiar with free and open source software. Coders give away the program and underlying source code with the stipulation that others using it do the same. The open source seed initiative is similar. They are releasing seeds in such a way to “make sure that the genes in at least some seed can never be locked away from use by intellectual property rights.”

To that end, OSSI has developed an Open Source Seed Pledge that commits anyone receiving OSSI seed to keep that seed – and any derivatives bred from that seed – freely available for use by others. Explains OSSI member and Wild Garden Seed breeder Frank Morton, “That’s free as in speech, free as in liberated, not free as in beer!”

The OSSI Pledge also incorporates a commitment to acknowledging the breeders of its varieties. Too often seeds are sold without attribution or credit to those who originally developed them. People and companies sharing OSSI released varieties will pledge to share the origin stories of the seeds they acquire, use, and distribute.

At the event in front of the Microbial Sciences building on the UW-Madison campus, OSSI speakers will explain why they are pledging to freely share the seeds they have developed. OSSI seed will be distributed to the crowd, and people will be asked to read aloud the Open Source Seed Pledge that is printed on every OSSI seed packet.

Vermont’s High Mowing Seeds are part of the program.

Says Tom Stearns, president of High Mowing, “We are proud to offer these seeds to the farmers and breeders of the world in order to spread diversity and ensure a stable, sustainable local source of food for farmers and gardeners. These seed varieties and new strains arising from them can never be owned by anyone but the public and that is important to us as a commercial seed company with a social mission at its core.”

It seems like a great step in the fight against corporately-owned and controlled nature, and companies such as Monsanto.

You can find out more here:

http://www.opensourceseedinitiative.org