2008 Mouse & Trowel Finalists – Not begging for your vote. Nope. Definitely not doing that.
The War for Seeds – The French seed bank Kokopelli was recently fined and taken to court by the French government and corporate seed merchant Baumaux for selling rare seed varieties that aren’t on the official EU-approved list. The following is an excerpt from a press release that explains what this means:
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“The European Union, has a system that restricts the sale of seeds that are not registered on their approved list. Any heirloom seeds that are sold must be formally registered with European Union governments and sold only by vendors who can afford to pay the registration fees.
By forbidding Kokopelli from selling unregistered seeds, it is likely that 99% of heritage seeds will no longer be commercially available in Europe and, according to the organization’s calculations, over 2500 varieties are at risk of disappearing.”
An online petition supporting Kokopelli is available here. – Thanks Gwynne.
Verbotomy – Are you suffering from the debilitating effects of discomposture or recychosis? You’re not alone. Help is on the way and operators are standing by to take your call.
I looked up the petition, but the entire site is in french. it was easy enough to find the place to sign, but as for reading the peition in english, well, let’s just say that my 1994-95 french class didn’t stick….
Such a sad story from the EU….
Oops yes I should have stipulated that the petition is in French.
Yeah I definitely can’t read the petition, but would like to sign based on the story you posted anyway….but is the petition only supposed to be for French citizens or people who live in the EU?
Thanks for the link (ran it through Google to translate the gist of it). Such ridiculous rules!
BTW, you already got my vote :)