OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Has Reuters become a PR agency for Monsanto?

The vault is meant to be a fail-safe for national collections of everything from potatoes to coconuts, a sort of Noah's Ark in case of disasters such as nuclear war. It has capacity to store about 4.5 million samples, or 2 billion seeds.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your response to my comment. For the sake of well researched reporting it would be enlightening to know who is funding any research by Stanford University into breeding new seeds and so called "climate-proof" crops.

Also who funds or has interests in the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

In addition whether the "new" seeds/crops are dependent on finite phosphates, nitrates derived from finite natural gas and chemicals for weed and pest control.

While seed saving of "heritage" seeds is vital to maintain diversity and the vault in the Norwegian Arctic is most laudable, it would be interesting to know who all the participants involved in the project are and the degree to which those individual participants are funding the project.

I would contend the "urgency" to develop new seed varieties is nothing more than a pernicious attempt by corporate interests to gain control over the worlds seed/food while at the same time gaining control of the worlds heritage seeds.

It must be noted that the growers of heritage seeds/crops once contaminated by cross pollination from GM plants, become unconscionably liable for growing crops in which some of the plants may have patents attached to them.

With regards to liability, the proponents and growers of GM crops must accept liability for the consequences of Gene Transferre into the natural environment and any/all of the effects which may impact on maintaining the relative stability of all living things.

I look forward to seeing/hearing a more balanced and informative report on the subject.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Davis.