Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I call the House's attention to a document from the Southern African Seed-Initiative which states in part with regard to the restoration of sustainable agriculture in the future, ``We are appealing to the regional international community and to organization in disaster relief and development assistance to take precautions: 1, to prevent the importation of inappropriate seeds to the southern Africa region which can undermine agrobiodiversity and thus food security for years; and 2, to support efforts to reconstitute locally adapted planning material and quality seed material/varieties, like indigenous landraces or farmers' varieties appropriate to the various ecosystems'' this sheet goes on to claim: ``Food aid, combined with the importation of often poorly adapted seed varieties, can lower yields and keep them low for years.'' This information from the Seed Initiative from Southern Africa is very instructive, and reflects most seriously on the matter at hand because the truth of the matter is that all of us in this House who are very concerned about reducing hunger in the world must be careful not to create a circumstance that in our desire to use technologies that seemingly could reduce hunger, that we inadvertently use technologies which are poorly adapted to seed varieties that can end up actually increasing hunger.”