Seed is pretty basic to life. Most of our food comes from eating seed. A vast majority of the world eats the seeds of wheat, rice, corn, and beans! Plus, almost all food is planted from seed. So it would go without saying that whoever controls the seed would control the people who plant and eat the seed. Seed is a powerful commodity but God's plan is to keep it in the hands of every farmer for all generations. Seed provides food for today and hope for tomorrow.
I believe that God's original plan is for us to each be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 9:7). We are each given work to do that is supposed to help to contribute to being part of this world, by God's design, where we are an integral part of fruitfulness and multiplication. This plan of bounty leads to a wonderful life where plants bring visual beauty to our senses and tasty nourishment to our bodies (Genesis 2:9). God gave these seed-bearing plants to bear seed after their kind so that mankind could keep enjoying beauty and an abundance of tasty food until the end of time. This ideal system that God has intended and designed for mankind is simply stated in Isaiah 55:10-11a
As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
Sweet corn seed being saved for the next season at our home in Uganda
When we look at a cob of corn or a pod of beans what do we see? In our "modern" western world most of us just see food. For millennia farmers have seen both the food for today and seed for tomorrow when they look at a head of grain or a pod of beans -- such is God's provision! In one cob he provides both our needs for today and the plan for tomorrow. That plan is called seed! God always puts the plan in place before the need is present -- God planned to send His Son long before He was needed as a perfect sacrifice. God put the seed in the cob long before the hunger pangs of next season would arrive. However, in our own human wisdom, couched in vices like greed, we often distort this plan in order to make control people to suit our own ends. Sin puts God's plan aside and, in our human pride, we replace it with what we think is best. This prideful replacement ends up being to our peril.
Sweet corn grown from our own seed in Uganda. Almost all sweet corn is hybrid and therefore difficult to save seed for upcoming seasons.
As we work with the rural farmers of Africa we see how they are being sold Satan's lies. "My seed is not good enough", "My soil is not good enough", "My tools are not good enough". These are all typical lies that call into question God's love, care, and plan for his creatures. As missionaries and development workers, we may be tempted to believe these lies and forget the sufficiency of God's plan which is already in place. If we believe these lies, we will only lead our people to more and varied dependency-based programs and systems. However, when we teach our farmers about God's all-sufficiency, we remind them that what they have is enough; their open-pollinated true-to-type seed is enough, their land is enough, their hand hoe is enough. They don't need loans and handouts. They don't need tractors, expensive fertilizers and hybrid seed -- they need to learn and live by God's original plan. To roll out this message of hope we need believers who understand and also live by God's plan to lead these people out of dependency on manmade solutions and into the bounty of God's ways! This is not a financially intensive or elaborate plan but a relationally dynamic and assiduous process of showing people the better way of living.
Isaac, our Ugandan Junior trainer, harvesting a cob of dry maize used to make the maize flour -- an African staple.
Isaac showing some demo plots to local farmers. Training farmers in God's ways is the key to helping them to come out of the dependency syndrome. We teach them that what they have in their hand is sufficient to provide the bounty that scripture talks about. What they need is to learn to be faithful with what God has already given them.
Governments and companies are eagerly running to gain territory in the developing world where they can use their control of seed to manipulate votes and economies, gaining the satanic goals of worldly power and prestige. Seed was not meant to be a power-leveraging tool but to be an ever-present item in every farming home as a source of food both for current and upcoming seasons.
In North America it is often illegal to replant seed or to use the seed for your own on-farm seed improvement programs. It is also very difficult to keep seed since most seed is hybrid and does not keep to the biblical "true to type" principles. I'm not saying it is wrong to plant hybrids but it is very dangerous when a whole society leaves the well-being of their agriculture in the hands of seed companies and not in the hands of it's farmers as it used to be for generations untold.
With good seed, the future is "in your hands". Chris and Isaac hold a beautiful cob of open-pollinated maize. In this large cob is a good harvest of food and good seed to start the next season!
As we seek to help people, let's remember that God already has a plan and we only need to help people find it. It's important to avoid man-made solutions where the ruts of dependency syndromes are only deepened and the bounty and beauty that God intended for each member of society are held only by an elite few. The solution is not to rip wealth away from those who already have it but to encourage all to provide lasting solutions to those who don't. God loves the poor and has a plan for them to discover the abundant life that is in Christ! An amazing part of that plan is seed and it is compared to the most amazing part of His plan -- His Word!
The Parable of the Sower
13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’[a]
16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
