by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

"And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye
have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder
place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Mat. 17:20)
According to Webster’s Dictionary a "seed" is "the fertilized ripened ovules of a
flowering plant containing an embryo and capable normally of germination to produce a new
plant." A seed is a highly complex and previously reliable technology developed by the Creator
that produce more of themselves ad infinitum (with the exception of certain modern hybrids).

When farmers save a portion of their crop for seed, they have faith that the following year they
can plant those seeds and produce a similar and bountiful crop. This is why Benjamin Franklin gave
three ways by which wealth is built: 1. conquer it, 2. steal it and 3. plant a seed.

How does a "seed" generate wealth? One fertile seed of corn planted in the Earth can
produce a stalk with two ears of corn. Each ear can yield 500 grains or seeds. Therefore that one
fertile seed can produce another 1,000 seeds. You do the math.

When America invaded Iraq, one of the first moves that it made was to force the Iraqi farmers to
turn in their seeds and buy Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds. Why did America do that and is
this a sign of what she intends to do right here in America? Does she intend to make the harboring
of seeds by individuals against the law? If so, who would be allowed to grow?

Now let us factor in genetic engineered seeds and "Terminator Genes". The Terminator
technology (US patent #5,723,765) is a genetic technology that renders farm-saved seed sterile.

The U.S.D.A. developed "Terminator" technology in partnership with Delta and Pine Land,
a seed company subsequently purchased by Monsanto. "Terminator" is a complex of genes
that, theoretically, can be spliced into any crop plant, where it will cause every seed produced by
that plant to be sterile. Once the Terminator becomes the industry standard, control over the
genetics of crop plants will complete its move from the farmer’s
field to the seed company — to which the farmer will have no choice but to return year after year.
The Terminator will allow companies like Monsanto to privatize one of the last great commons in
nature — the genetics of the crop plants that civilization has developed over the past 10,000 or
more years (depending on whose "history" you accept).

This is planned seed sterilization on a planet wide scale, destroying the seeds ability to
germinate and our faith in the seed’s ability to do so. We would then have to have complete faith
in agricultural corporations, the "merchants of death", to supply our food.

These "merchants of death" try to equate genetic engineering with other plant breeding
methodologies. There are basically three ways to breed plants:

1) Open-pollination: Open-pollinated or "standard" varieties of seeds breed true to
their type. Seeds saved from such plants will produce a crop resembling their parents. While
open-pollinated varieties may have originated from a genetic mutation, or a chance cross in the
field, they have been stabilized and improved through years of selection by farmers and/or breeders.

2) Hybridization: Hybrids are the result of the deliberate crossing of two different parent
varieties, usually inbreeds. Typically, a corn variety will be crossed with a different corn variety
and the result will always be a corn. It is not possible through sexual reproduction to cross a corn
plant with a squash or a pig. Seed saved from hybrid plants is unstable in its characteristics.
Traits from parents will segregate out in various combinations in the next generation.

3) Genetic Engineering: Unlike open-pollination and hybridization, which occur in nature, genetic
engineering requires human intervention in a laboratory setting directly manipulating DNA. Genetic
engineers insert a foreign gene into the host DNA. Genetic engineering has the ability to cross all
natural species boundaries and its products are often called "transgenic" (literally
across genus boundaries). It is possible to insert a fish gene into a tomato or a pig gene into a
corn — which would never occur in nature without human intervention.

The push by Monsanto and other firms to get the public to accept genetically modified organisms
was set back by the market failure of the FlavrSavr Tomato and the recent failures of their other
products to be as financially advantageous to farmers as advertised. So now the biotech industry has
shifted its attention away from genetically modifying fresh vegetables and fruits towards animal
feed crops or crops that are used in processed foods. Fields of soybeans, corn, cotton, and canola
cover over 145 million acres of cropland in the U.S. and are the front runners of these GMO crops.

At our annual Ministry of Agricultures conference we demonstrated how to set up your home or
community garden. Along with the training came a manual and a package of 13 different types of
non-genetically modified vegetable seeds. If you were not fortunate to get such a package here are
some tips for getting non-GMO seeds: 1. Go on the Internet and type into a "Google" search
"heirloom seeds". This will give you a list of places to purchase seeds that have been
passed down through generations among farmers. 2. Look for or ask for the older varieties at your
seed stores, 3. Purchase the least expensive brand of vegetable seeds, because the genetically
modified seeds generally cost more.

If you still do not know why you should be concerned about seeds, please read "Food: New
Weapon of Mass Destruction", "The Miracle of Taste" and "If I were Satan"
on www.MuhammadFarms.com under the "Farmer Newsletter", just to get started. Use your
"faith" wisely and swiftly. Plant a fertile seed and save some seed, before the
"merchants of death" destroy the "faith of seeds" to reproduce themselves.