'Emergency Seeds' at Costco

I came across this and was a little surprised. Why would someone buy this with no intention of using it except for in some kind of unspecific catastrophe in which we all have loads of free time to garden? Buyers are putting it in their freezer and then tossing it once the seeds expire. If someone is that worried about a future with no food, I suggest they start learning to garden now. Because it isn't that easy.

What do you think? Emergency Seeds at Costco....

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11500413

That is hilarious. I would think it is more of a marketing ploy to just sell seeds to people that want a variety of seeds...hopefully. If there were a catastrophe in which we had no food, wouldn't we starve to death waiting for these seeds to grow?

Of course, I've already jokingly named my garden "my apocalypse garden", but hey, at least I'm getting ready, right?

And yet another capitalist capitalizing on the sucker just born.

I wish I were either this smart or this stupid. But, alas, I'm stuck in the middle somewhere.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:And yet another capitalist capitalizing on the sucker just born.

I wish I were either this smart or this stupid. But, alas, I'm stuck in the middle somewhere.

+1 me too. I am always just a bit behind in sitting up and taking note of that next nitch market. (sigh)

altagarden wrote:
I came across this and was a little surprised. Why would someone buy this with no intention of using it except for in some kind of unspecific catastrophe in which we all have loads of free time to garden? Buyers are putting it in their freezer and then tossing it once the seeds expire. If someone is that worried about a future with no food, I suggest they start learning to garden now. Because it isn't that easy.

What do you think? Emergency Seeds at Costco....

[url=http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11500413

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11500413[/quote[/url]]

There is always an idiot ready to buy anything...

I wonder what kind of people are buying these? I have been gardening off and on for 30 years and can't imagine if I just suddenly had to take a shovel, dig up so ground and plant garden seeds and expect to live off of it.

Lots of people are really scared right now and I guess that makes them feel a little safer. They should go and buy Mel's book and start using it.

clb58 wrote:I wonder what kind of people are buying these? I have been gardening off and on for 30 years and can't imagine if I just suddenly had to take a shovel, dig up so ground and plant garden seeds and expect to live off of it.

Lots of people are really scared right now and I guess that makes them feel a little safer. They should go and buy Mel's book and start using it.

Same folks that have been buying them since about 1945.

I think Fairchild Tropical Gardens was the first to offer them commercially & even used to offer training/courses on how to use them (to civilians and military) in the 40's

While I do believe in Emergency preparation, and the concept, most of these "Seed Banks" are very overpriced and sold as earlier posts suggested through a lot of hype.

I compared prices on a variety by variety comparison once, and was able to replicate the "bank" for about 1/3 the price through the Seed Savers Exchange. I discussed this once on an episode of my Food Growing Podcast because one can, as most here already know, put your own together.

But the biggest thing missed by most of the buyers of these things is that if there ever is a problem ( flood, Tsunami, Tornado, Strikes, Hurricanes, etc) impacting their food supply, it will be too late to get their seeds in. Seeds do no good as food when they are sitting in a can, and most purchasers don't consider growing time.

Growing Season and time is one think all of us here are well aware of.

Steve
www.growingyourgrub.com

I have the feeling that these are probably marketed towards those "survivalist" types who build bomb shelters in the back yard and stock it with whatever preserved food they're using for that nowadays - whether canned, dried, etc. - in case of nuclear attack, terrorist attack, etc. I guess the thinking is probably that they'd have their shelter's stockpile of food to hold them over until, hopefully, they can come out of their bomb shelters and get things planted. No offense to those "survivalist" types if there are any out there - to each his own!

I will try to not get to technical or "political" about this, so I ask others to do the same.

There is a company out there that has a patent on seeds, these seeds are GMO's and are supposed to be insectiside resistant, and were at first. The problem with most of these seeds is that they produce seeds that are sterile (uh can you say duh), causing you to buy more. These seeds also blow over into other crops and cross polinate (some would say contaminate) the crop they hook up with, and unfortunately this company has been able to sue those farmers for stealing their patented seed, instead of someone saying "Hey this is the same thing as a loose cow destryoing a crop, the comany is responsible for not controling it's patented seed". Baker Creek Seed has said it is getting harder and harder to NOT find heirloom seeds that have been contaminated by these seeds.

After the Hatti disaster some of the food grown from this seed was sent over there, they sent it back, as do many other countries. Some even refuse to buy from us, they see the potential problems with these sterile seeds. It would seem that this companies goal is to control the seed market, uh I thought Monopolies were illegal-remember Ma Bell (yes, I'm that old)???

Thus having seed on hand is a good thing, and most are realizing this. More and more people are picking up these survivalist seed packs, and actually using them and saving seed from them as instructed, they have no idea how to grow their own food, and these come with detailed instructions. Yes, some, maybe even most companies are trying to get in on this by playing on peoples fears.

Sounds to me like we just need to work harder on this movement called SFG, and infect everyone.

There are several facets to "survival seeds" ....

For lack of official terms (or ignorance of the official name on my part):

I. Survival seeds (rescue / recovery / aid)
II. Survival Seed ( Seed Banks )
III Survival Seed ( personal use)
IV. Survival Seed (commercial ventures).

The first types technically been around since 1776 ....

Type I and/or II are what I believe FarmerValerie is refering to in the post above (I think ).

The first three all have noble intentions and were started for the greater good of people. I think the 4th one is the situation we are talking about in the first post .... the commercial one that preys on the fears of people in order to make a buck.

The original commercial (and military) survival seeds from the 40's were intended to be used immediately after an event/situation. The idea was to get these planted immediately, so that by time you had exausted your first survival method (storage, stockpile utilization and scavenging), the crops would be ready & folks could move to that sustainable method of substinence.

The original "survival seeds" had a lot more than "veggies" in them and included plant types that would provided medicines, spices, materials for rope, cloth, feeding livestock, etc.

The newest incarnation on the shelves today does not appear to be quite so noble.

I've actually got some old newspaper articles on all this stashed somewhere at home.

Only reason I know any of this is from writing a paper or two on the history of the various programs while in college

BINGO acara, that is exactly what I was talking about. I have seen a few "survivalist seed packets" like what you mentioned, and as far as animal feed, cowpeas are great for that. It truly is worth looking into, say for example another earthquake on the Madrid Fault that runs near the Mississippi River, that would almost cut the US in half (not litterally of course), not much would cross from East to West for a time. I tend to prefer to err on the side of caution, and when you consider that most peoples first reaction these days is to panic, having things like that on hand "just in case" are worth it.

Again, as I said, most of these companies marketing these packets are just feeding on fears, or impulse buys from consumers.

I would love to read your papers you wrote btw.

Are we not all "survivalists?" I mean....I kinda like living....ya know ?

Perhaps we've been conditioned that food is a right and not something we have to really worry about; at least for our daily survival. There is no way I'm relying on Wal-Mart / FEMA to feed my family in the event of a short term disaster, so yes count me in as one of those doomsday / apocolypse kinda guys. You'd never know this from walking by me though and I only rarely these days jump out of trees in full camo and a home-made hunting spear chasing squirrels.......but Katrina should have taught a lot of people about how woefully unprepared most people are for just the simple basics / necessities. You can't plan for all disasters but trying to think ahead is at least a step in the right direction. Will these seeds do it?.....of course not but what would your family do for perhaps a week should one of these many recent tornados knock out power to your home or maybe your whole town. Could you feed your family? What do you drink when the tap runs dry? Not direct questions that you need to answer, just thoughts to ponder perhaps.

For all our advances....modernity has bred apathy in some respects.

Just sayin

Aptahy yes, but I would add complacancy and dependance, also a great lack of taking responsibility for onself.

Try to find bread on the shelf when an inch of snow is predicted in my neck of the woods. I like to buy things like toothpaste and toilet paper BEFORE I run out. My parents both grew up poor, and taught my brother and I to shop smart, and stock up.

Staf, you mentioned power outage, we are on well water, no electicity, no water. We had a generator at one time, and personally I think that should be moved back up to the #1 spot on our purchase list. 1 drunk driver hitting a pole, or one tree falling and we have no elctricity for at least a day here in the country, which is reason #1 to keep baby wipes on hand around here.

Our goal in growing our own food, is to have on hand 1 years supply of things we can grow. We have goats, and just got 10 chicks who should start laying in October.

Face it, most of us here have seed packets for survival right now in our fridge (or where ever) for next year. We even share them. I say we are smart cookies.

Nice Monsanto play, Staf. But, remember, I live in STL.....home of the chemically infused three toed genetically superior 8 foot tall basketball players that have parents working for Monsanto......hmmm, in the water? OH NOOOOOO!

Most people who garden even a little bit, have seeds on hand that they could use after a disaster of some kind. Those who would buy those packages of survival stuff, most likely wouldn't know how to use them anyway, instructions or not. To me it seems that those things are yet again another way to prey on people, rip them off and continue to inflict what I call "Chicken Little syndrome" on them.

Many of us on here have lived through the Cuban Missile crises and the cold war. And guess what, my family never stock piled our basement with tinned food or built a bomb shelter in our back yard. Then there was Y2K...the biggest hoax of the 20th century. If it isn't that it is Quebec threatening to separate from Canada and now 'Global Warming'. The list goes on. Keeping the masses under control by fear and intimidation really works guys. And people take advantage of each other by preying on those fears and selling them all kinds of useless things for exorbitant amounts of money. And we run around crying like Chicken Little..."The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

The reason I like to use rain water, solar power, wind power and grow my own food is that I like to be self sufficient. My ancestors came here from Europe, bringing with them seeds and things to carve a living out of the earth. I like learning their stories of survival, all alone on the Canadian prairie. It makes me proud of my heritage and I like to be able to do the same. I have lived in places where we would have power outages once a week when it is 40 below zero. Not a good time believe me. It is important to me to have an alternate energy source so I can heat at least one room in the house and cook. Every spring the Alaska Highway would wash out and food supplies could not make it through, often for over a week and there were times when food would be brought in by Hercules jets. It is important to me to have alternate food and water sources if for some reason supplies get cut off. And even in big cities they get cut off. A blizzard, a tornado, a flood, an earthquake. I am continually amazed by the amount of people who do not know how to survive a simple blizzard that shuts down the city for a couple of days. People get in fist fights over bottled water in Costco when city water gets contaminated by spring run-off.

I like knowing how to de-contaminate my own water and grow my own food. I like knowing how to live off the land and provide for myself and my family. I like knowing how to build shelters and fix things and make use of stuff that people throw away. I like not having to depend on someone else for my existence. It takes someone else's control of me away from them and puts it back in my hand where I want it. It gives me confidence to face all the scary things that are supposed to happen according to David Suzuki and Al Gore.

Gwynn

Monsanto reference????

Don't know what you are talking about....

I just like pretty colors and random patterns. But seeing as YOU brought it up.......

Yeah, I loved your pretty colours and patterns too. LOL! Amazing how that happened.

Gwynn

I'm all for trying to be more self-sufficient - it's actually one of the reasons I garden. I hope no one takes offense at my comments here. But I saw the effects of Katrina up close and personal. My square foot garden, as much as I love it, would not have helped us in the least. It would have been blown away/washed away long before the houses closest to the gulf were. Almost EVERYTHING was gone or in shambles in worst hit areas. The true scope of it -the enormity - just couldn't be seen from the tv footage.

The needs of some were absolutely immediate after the storm - they had nothing to eat because their houses and any garden and any reserve canned goods and any change of clothing were blown away/washed away along with their houses. Stores were not open. There was no gas to be had to drive to another county/state for groceries and debris blocked the way even if there had been gas. In the worse hit places, some had to loot stores to find food. It always bothered me to hear some say that people here should have been better prepared, with stored food to last till help came. If the houses were gone, where was the food supposed to have been stored so it wouldn't wash away when everything else had?

I wasn't in the worse hit area and my house survived, thank goodness, but I experienced enough to know how horrible it was for those without food nor drinkable water to wait, anxious not only for themselves, but for their babies and their children and their elderly parents, wondering when help was going to come. If you've never had to be in a situation where you honestly had no idea when/if you were going to eat or have fresh water to drink again, count yourself blessed. I've never had absolutely everything - home, clothing, food, dignity - ripped away from me, but I've seen it happen to others.

I just wanted to say that there are some situations - and you never know when you may be faced with one - that you simply can't prepare for and that any effort at being more self-sufficient aren't going to help. Let's hope that our government learned some lessons from Katrina that will help others get the help they need faster in the future. Sorry, I didn't mean to get on a soap box, but the mention of Katrina brought some unexpected emotions washing over me.

Oh, I wondered why some of the letters were different colors.... Duh, I'm a bit slow at times. Cool idea, wish I had a prize to send you.

We here saw the after effects on those who were hit by Katrina. We are on the evacuation route for those in the Gulf, and were one of the stops for those evacuated on buses. Hotels fill up, and supplies are low even way up here. Yes, it is true that those who have lost everything have lost everything. A lesson I learned early in life is that when you "stock up", you have enough to share with those who lost everything. The church I was attending was asking for anything and everything, including baby bottles. This is also a reason I like to have meals in the freezer, in case a neighbor is in need, or someone loses a loved one, you can just grab and go.

OldHippie, I don't have the wisdom and experience that you do, although I've shared similar experiences, although not to that degree (temperature), but I did spend as much time as I could at the knee of some who "lived it". My great-grandmother talked about the Great Depression, from time to time, during a situation, her words of wisdom and experience will pop up. Sad thing about "Chicken Little" syndrome is that most people are too complacent to do anything for themselves, I'm glad to see that is changing though. We've become far to dependant on modern convieniences and unfortunately it's made us lazy and dependant. I have a camping coffee perculator in my cupboard, it's my sanity in emergency. I can handle using an outhouse if nessicary, but I'm not going with out coffee-HOT coffee.

As for those who scream the loudest on the latest "thing" I tend to watch how they personally live, I'm not buying into anything they say if they still fly private jets and leave the lights shining on their trees for Earth Day (AG). Why would you shine a light on a tree anyway, everyone knows they need dark to grow, just like turtles need lights at night to climb up on the beach.... Oops, too political.

OH YA HAPPY EARTH DAY EVERYONE!!!

Sherry,

No offense was taken. Not soap boxish (is that a word?) at all.

While many of us have faced adversity due to emergencies or disasters of one sort or another, most of us have not had to endure the tragic situations of such severe devastation that have been thrown at different regions of the US and the world.

We all should be prepared for emergency situations, but you are right, you can't prepared for everything.

Sherry, no offence was taken at your post and I hope none at mine. It is impossible to plan and prepare for absolutely everything. There are disasters of epic proportions which completely strip some areas of anything they may have had in terms of emergency preparedness. The earthquake that hit Haiti, the Katrina disaster in New Orleans and the recent Japan earthquake disaster and subsequent reactor issues are just a few that come to mind. I hope nothing I said gave the impression that those people were poorly prepared.

Even though I like to learn and do as much as I can to be self sufficient, it is not meant to be a criticism of others. I hope that is not how I sound . My heart goes out to the people of New Orleans, Haiti and Japan. I can't even begin to imagine what you experienced.

Gwynn

Goodness, no, Gwynn, you, nor anybody else here offended me. I find everybody warm, humorous and eager to help with gardening problems and love it here. Perhaps I shouldn't even have said that I didn't want to offend anybody - I guess that kind of conjures up the feeling that offense must have been taken by the person saying that - and that's not true here.

I just wanted to make the point that there's always a possibility that some disaster can come along that's fierce enough to wipe out any well-intended preparations. The people of my beloved Mississippi Gulf Coast are well aware of necessary preparations and how to stock emergency supplies - we've had plenty of practice at hurricane preparation. But there's always the possibility that due to some disaster, people, through no fault of their own, might be unable, at least for a while, to be self-sufficient.

I hope that there will be no more catastrophes here in our country or elsewhere of such apocalyptic proportions as Katrina or the earthquake in Japan. And I hope that the agencies responsible for rendering assistance in such situations will be far more efficient much more quickly than they were in the worse hit areas of Mississippi and New Orleans after Katrina. I didn't mean to get onto a depressing subject, it's just that thinking about the "K" word suddenly brought back this flood of memories.

Now - back to happier subjects!

Sherry, no one took offense to your feelings nor your post, it was a welcome reminder that even the best preparations can be rendered unusalbe. They say, If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans, He laughs at me ALL the time. Kinda like those levies, trying to keep the Mississippi River at bay, she's a mighty river, and not one to be messed with. Man boasted about the unsinkable ship named the Titanic. We can never truly prepare for dissasters or emergencies.

I am sorry for your loss, a friend I went to school with in IL lived in Mississippi when Katrina hit, she lost everything and has not even been back.

It is good to be prepared, but its also good to keep in mind, those plans can be changed in the blink of an eye, thanks for reminding us of that. Those who can "stock up" are usually more than willing to share with those who lose it all, it's one of the best things about this country. I know many who emptied their freezer when the evacuees came here, we were one family who did, and we have been so blessed in return.

I am all about being prepared I want to be able to help others in an em. if I can, but I do think the canned survilist seeds are just a way to tap into peoples fears and make money. I have had a very hard time convincing my mother and brother to get on board and get ready for hurricane season. I come from a long line of procrastinaters.
@Staf don't knock squirrel till you try it. LOL.