by
John Wilkinson and Pierina German Castelli
During the 20th Century the seed -- a key means of production for agriculture -- became one more commodity in the division of labour between family farmers and industry. As the carrier of genetic information embedded in its genetic heritage, whether acquired over the ages by natural processes of breeding or redesigned through the labour of humans, the seed still plays a central role in farming systems, as a vector for technical progress that conditions the way we produce and consume plant and animal species.
