Natural Commodities
Planting is a cyclical process. Left to their own devices, many plants eventually drop seeds onto the ground, some of which might take root, whether in the shadow of the original plant or carried elsewhere by wind, water runoff or birds and insects. A new plant might grow from this seed and start a new cycle. So how does it work when, instead of being left alone, the plant’s seeds are harvested, stored, packaged, sold and planted elsewhere? What does it mean for a commodity to have its own life cycle?
The commodification of seeds takes the natural life cycle of plants and adapts it to new scales of time and space. The seed trade, in tandem with its consumers, allows each generation of plant to thrive in a different geographic location, on a schedule at least partially determined by the person who plants it. Humans cannot get too far away from a plant’s life cycle (or at least they could not with nineteenthcentury developments in botany); they can rush or retard growth, for example with the application or removal of heat or light sources, only within certain bounds. In the United States during the nineteenth century, horticultural practices were most frequently viewed as an annual cycle. Even in places (such as the extreme Southern states) where the climate might allow for multiple harvests of particular crops, individual plants needed their periods of renewal, or dispensed seeds for a next generation. The very categories in which plants were classified, and sold, recognizes this yearly sequence and its variations: annuals, perhaps the largest category of seeds sold, required yearly planting of new seeds; biennials required two years to reach fruition and produce seeds; and perennials could keep producing blooms or produce for more than two years without renewal by replanting.
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Marina Moskowitz