#could you imagine botanical and ecological research with a fraction of the us military budget. oh man.

[botanyshitposts]

Hello I am dying to know your opinion on the mystery Chinese seeds people are getting in the mail

okay. so. got the text from the USDA a few days ago (july 28th, 2020): 

now, i see this and im like ‘oh wow seed mystery’ but i’m also caught up at the botany conference and kinda forget about it until the next night, when somebody else messages me about it on here. i get that message right before the virtual LGBT and allies mixer for this big academic plant conference. once the meeting is over, people start signing off, but like NATURALLY i’m like, ‘have any of you guys heard about this seed mystery?’ because man, what a highly specific opportunity there-- and of course people had Thoughts. 

everything that we talked about over the next like, half an hour are all things that were new to me at the time, but that i think are pretty well known now? like, these seeds are being sent as part of a scam where sellers retrieve peoples’ addresses from amazon, send them random cheap stuff, and then use that to write fake good reviews for unrelated products using the verified purchase thing or something, if I understand it correctly. the seeds seem to be the same kind in each package, and seem to be a variety from different plant families. it’s very strange; I texted my boss at the seed lab where I work, and she said that she didn’t know any more than I did, although she did mention that they’re apparently being tested. where they’re being tested and what tests are being done aren’t currently clear (although i think it would be pretty interesting to know, lmao. like, take it from me, working at a government seed lab isn’t the most thrilling job in the world and like 99% of the stuff we test is completely clean. the chance to look at unidentified seed crime seeds mentioned in mainstream news?? fascinating.)

honestly in short like, all the news outlets keep talking about the scamming part at best and like, ‘chinese bioterrorism’ or something at worst (my grandma was VERY CONCERNED because she saw the Evil Seed Hacker Plot on good morning america), but like....i can’t comment on the infosec side of things, but i’m not really concerned about the seeds themselves at all? my main concern seems to be more in line with the USDA’s, which is that we do not know where those seeds came from and they haven’t been properly screened for pests/diseases/pathogens/etc like is required for legally imported seeds and plant materials. i really, really do not think this is part of like, an evil conspiracy plot or something, and the people i was talking with about it on call the other night had the same kind of reaction (the fact the seeds aren’t tested is more concerning than the weird scam/the seeds themselves, etc). 

personally i would love to know exactly where those seeds were grown and how they ended up being acquired and sent by scammers to random people across the world. like, what an interesting seed life that would be. and why seeds?? so many questions. the answers are probably pretty underwhelming, but like....seed mystery. lol 

in short: it’s very interesting, not just because of the thing itself but because of how people are reacting to it like it’s an example of bioterrorism. as a true Plant Crime connoisseur, 95% of actual like, Plant Crimes ive read about and researched have actually either been between competing agricultural companies stealing each other’s ‘intellectual property’ (unreleased GMOs and plant materials-- very strange in and of itself) or large companies suing small farmers for alleged violations of contract (monsanto is particularly well known for this). that’s not to say that some kind of seed-related bioterrorism couldn’t happen in some capacity someday, but like, this isn’t even a sarcastic statement: it’s my opinion that what agricultural companies do in relation to perpetuating the precarious and vulnerable state of crop monocultures in the US right now is all far more impactful on american agriculture and the safety of our food supply than some chinese scammers sending seed packets over.

so yeah no, it’s really weird and i’d love to know all the details about exactly how it happened, but it’s not the most Wild example of real lawsuit seed crimes out there, and certainly isn’t part of some plot to destroy the US landscape via invasive plant invasion or something. like, this is hardly a hot take, but it seems to me like people are latching onto this in the wake of the wild and racist ‘china MADE covid-19 because they are Bad and Hate America′ conspiracy theory. if these people really cared about the US landscape being affected by invasive and/or destructive plants, they would fund the everloving FUCK out of conservation biology, plant ecology, and botanical research, but clearly that’s not happening. lmao