"Survival Gardening" rant

Recently, my internet wanderings directed me to infowars.com, where I noticed a prominent add on the side of the page, stating "New Survival Seed Bank Lets You Plant a Full Acre Crisis Garden!" Take a look at the page here. Being a budding gardener, I of course had to check it out. As I was reading the page, I became more and more amazed. I would almost think the whole thing a big joke, if they weren't really charging you for it. They are doing their best to prey on the fears of the paranoid. Anyone who actually buys their "seed bank" probably wouldn't even know the first thing about gardening. And they think they're just going to throw some seeds in the ground in the event of an emergency and suddenly have enough produce to sustain themselves?

Let's say some big national food crisis happened, even during a prime planting time like mid-spring. The grocery store shelves empty out within days. So you pull your seed bank out of the ground where you buried it (the add states: "Indestructible Survival Seed Bank Can Be Buried To Avoid Confiscation."), and toss those seeds in the acre of ground that you somehow have access to in this catasrophe. You probably don't have any compost prepared and don't have access to a rototiller. Maybe you have a pitchfork. You think you're going to cultivate that entire acre with your pitchfork? During a national crisis? Then, even if you get your seeds in the ground, AND they grow sucessfully with no disease/insects/critters destroying them first, it'll be another 2-4 months before you get any produce out of it! Since the grocery stores are no longer functioning, what are you going to eat in the meantime? What if this food crisis happens in mid-winter?

Complete self sustainability is NOT something that can be learned within a few days during an emergency. Most of us were brought up with no real survival skills. We can't function without our cars and electricity. We can't feed ourselves without grocery stores and restaurants. How many people can just go out into the wilderness, and using a few hand tools, build their own house and cultivate a sustainable farm? I'd guess not too many. Learning to survive with minimal reliance on the rest of the world would take most of us years of learning and baby steps.

What really got me going was this paragraph:

"So here's the deal: I'm trying to get the word out before the food crisis becomes too apparent to the general public and there is a run on these seed banks. I've decided to sell the Survival Seed Bank at a discounted price to our customers who use this website to order. For the general public, the price will be a fat $297.00 - no discounts... even to FEMA or military personnel. Take it or leave it. But for existing Solutions From Science customers, as long as you buy online from this site, I will send you everything for just...


$149 Until We Run Out!"

Even taking into consideration their special "indestructable" packaging (and who knows if seeds packaged in such a way can really remain viable for 20 years, as they claim?), I thought that price was a little steep. So I did some research to confirm my suspicions. I thought most of the seeds they were offering looked very familiar, because of the amount of time I've spent browsing the Seed Savers Exchange catalogue. So I looked them up, one by one, on the Seed Savers website. Nearly all the seed varieties they offer are straight from Seed Savers Exchange, even the pictures and some of the descriptions are identical.
I compared the prices for seeds from Seed Savers versus this Seed Bank. I won't bore you with all the details. Here were my totals, for nearly the same plant varieties:

Seed Savers Exchange: 28,037 seeds for $131.60 (not including shipping)

Emergency Seed Bank: 10,055 seeds for $149 "until we run out", then it will be $297. (not including shipping)

The verdict is pretty clear from these numbers. And yet, some people must be duped into to be buying these "seed banks", or else they wouldn't still have their add online.


It's really just makes me laugh.