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2008-02-17 Protecting Biodiversity Is Illegal

Protecting biodiversity is illegal, at least in France, following the last court decision made by the state against a small non-governmental association called kokopelli. Kokopelli is a small association selling seeds to gardeners like us, we are using their seeds because they sell old type of plants/vegetables difficult to find somewhere else (e.g. like a climbing variety of tomato plant). All the seeds sell by them are also non-hybrid that means you are free to make your own seeds from their seeds (the basic idea behind preservation and conservation of the biodiversity). Of course, large seller of seeds prefer to sell F1 hybrid to keep the gardener dependent.

In that context, Baumaux (a large seller of seeds) attacked kokopelli for unfair competition and at the end (as the court case was in multiple rounds) the large seller won. They won due to the stupid regulation that forces to sell only seeds being listed in an "official" directory.

It's a bad news for the preservation of biodiversity… what can we do ? Share and preserve your seeds. and don't buy seeds that you cannot duplicate for free.

photo with old seeds photo made by Stefan Jansson and CC licensed.