Customer Reviews

Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds

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I used to work for Monsanto and thought they were wonderful to work for. i got caught up in their science. as i have got older and switched from conventional to organic farming i have been keenly made aware of just what is going on. Seeing my soil come back to life, diversity in wildlife, beneficial insects and microlife is short of a religous experience. to think i was an addict and they were my dealer!!! what corporations are doing with seeds, chemicals and our freedom to farm is true. Anyone denying this, is either bribed, employed by them, or they own lots of stock and could care less what the agenda is. as our culture transformed from a rural to mostly urban one it's easy to see how most people have tuned out what is going on with their food. what a shame. Claire wrote this book with passion, i read it with passion. God, i wish i could meet her. Claire, thank you for this book, great job.

Ms. Cummings has taken a difficult subject and made it very approachable and understandable. Her use of places to describe just how serious are the problems of GMO's brings the subject into everyone's life vividly.
Uncertain Peril should be required reading by every college student and by every politician that wants to leave the earth as a better place for their grandchildren

Uncertain Peril provides a vivid description of the crisis at hand for our food system and the seed source that provides the foundation for all of the ecosystems we depend upon. Claire Cummings describes the crisis in a way that allows for understanding and action, the two ingredients that offer the only solution at hand. The book covers the current socio-political landscape surrounding genetic materials in a fair and factual manner. The book should be on the reading list of all citizens and particularly educators, high school through college, concerned with the interface of science, food, farming and health.

As our western civilization "evolves" our connection with our food supply has diminished to the point where the basic understanding of farming and the processes involved has diminished. One thing we all know despite this is that food comes from seeds. But what if seeds were no longer available or if they were only viable with the purchase of support chemicals? What would happen if the world's food supply were contaminated with a corporate gene that eliminated our ability and right to save seeds? Bob Dylan wrote in one of his apocalyptic songs from the seventies "One day even your home garden will be against the law". This is what is happening in the name of "Feeding the World", the mantra of the corporations bringing us "better living" with genetic engineering. But so far there has not been a genetically engineered crop that has benefited anyone but corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta. Claire has weaved together a compelling call to action and a succinct report of the direction agriculture is heading. I recommend that you arm yourself with this book and prepare to defend.

Claire Cummings' Uncertain Peril - Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds is comparable to Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring. It's a wake up call, to alert us to the fact of the threat to seeds and by extension to our food supply that has been taken over by a handful of corporations.

I'm struck by how seeds and the preservation of seeds have defined value in cultures through the ages. Bioneers and seeds of change brought this concept back to modern consciousness over a decade ago. What Cummings has done is masterfully and passionately focused awareness on just how fragile our legacy is. Her writing is deeply informative and evocative. The words from the end of the Epilogue continue to captivate me. "Seeds are messengers from the past. They are an embodiment of hope for the future... We can be guided by the way of the seed and by knowing that what we do to seeds, we do to ourselves. One thing is certain: the future of seeds is in our hands."
Bravo, Ms. Cummings!

Uncertain Peril provides an excellent depiction of how corporations have gained control of our food supply. It clearly describes ways that the entire global community's inherent right to grow food is under attack by a multinational corporate agenda. Cummings beautifully describes the core connection between Indigenous cultures and food and how everyone's access to seeds is being eroded by premeditated greed that stops at nothing. Claire also provides specific ways out of the peril. An important work for everyone to fully understand how the future of our food supply is at serious risk. [...]

Without researcher like Claire Cummings we are all at the mercy of corporate greed and the manipulation of our food sources. Privatizing the right to seeds deprives us of the rights to our agricultural heritage and diversity, and endangers our food supply. An important message for anyone with concerns for the future of agriculture.

Claire Cummings eloquently lays out a persuasive argument in favor of keeping seeds and their genetic material in the public domain in the public interest. With a huge percentage of traditional varieties being lost, our food security is endangered. And the big chemical corporations and corporate agriculture are to blame. Organic gardening and farming with traditional varieties of edible plants can provide a more abundant future. I recommend reading this book in conjunction with Vandana Shiva's Stolen Harvest.

Young Farmers, urban food activists, locavores and Kingsolverites--those of us who are newly concious about the food we put in our mouths, and the landscape behind that food--> If we've arrived on the scene in recent years, then we never really knew agriculture pre-biotech.

We have learned too late of the gross contamination of our food supply, the 70% of processed foods on our super market shelves that have GMO ingredients, the vast plantations of GMO soybean in Brazil, the open air testing of experimental pharma-drugs and GMOs in Hawaii, the ever more hyperbolus corn fields in our own midwest. These tragedies of monoculture are the result of a deliberate process carried out before our time, and before our involvement in the food system.

While a lot of these biotech developments occurred before my generation got involved in sustainable agriculture, the approval for these technologies and the intellecutal property rights precedents occured at the highest levels. There is a wonderful French film that just came out about Monsanto ( The World According to Monsanto) with a clip of George Bush senior touring the Monsanto research facility and saying "Well if you have any trouble with the FDA let me know, we're in the DEREG business."


With current talk about the 'spike' in food prices funding development for yet another round of "Roundup Ready" crops, with unprecedented hunger pangs, and the recent focus of the Gates Foundation on Biotech for Africa-- what better time to learn what we can from the corrupt history of the Agro-bioscience industry. False promises, superweeds, hegemony and monoculture, lets stop the proliferation of GMO agriculture as soon as we can.