Diminishing Biodiversity

Large industrial "argribusiness" farms that can be 100's of acre's in size mostly consist of a mono-culture, one crop, and its usually corn. Each plant is genetically the same as the next, all of the plants are clones of each other through genetical engineering making these plants GMO's (genetically modified organism) . The corn is genetically modified for one purpose, production. After harvest the seeds of these plants are disregarding and new seeds are bought to replace the old ones. This is a complete paradigm shift from the generations before us when farmers collected seeds and used selective breeding to fulfill many needs; to increase the robustness, (resistance to weather and pests) increase output of crops, as well as producing desirable traits such as its nutritional benefits as well as aesthetics, taste and appeal. These two different paradigm I see as the difference of starting a garden where you want to grow a crop such as carrots and your choice it to buy seeds from Monsanto or a seed bank. With Monsanto you would also need to buy pesticides which have been integrated into the process so that they become essential. You may have a few different option of the types of carrots that you could purchase with Monsanto but at a seed bank there could be hundreds even thousands of different varieties of carrots;different colors, taste, and resistances. Having recently harvested some carrots from a small farm with four or five varieties I much more enjoyed the carrot that I picked from the ground no more than a mile and a half away from my house, sweet and crunchy loaded with nutrients, pesticide free, GMO free instead of a grocery store carrot that has traveled halfway across the country or even the globe boring and dull doused with pesticides its whole life cycle and possible being a GMO. Since agribusnisses such as Monsanto are profiting so well, by exploiting resources, polluting genetics and polluting the planet with pesticides, it has allowed them to cut corners from old traditional ways and is quickly allocating their growth making small sustainable farming less profitable by being undercut from the consumption of agribusiness crops vs local and small sustainable crops because of its availability and its usually significant lower price. As Monsanto and other agribusiness continue to grow they are becoming closer and closer to controlling what we eat. Allowing this would eventually make it impossible for small competing farmers to survive as well as the diversity of genetics saved through the seeds that the farmers have collected, traded, and inherited passed down many generations.