Who is sending the seeds ? Image Credit: Facebook / Washington State Department of Agriculture
Packets of unidentified seeds have been turning up, not just in the US, but also in Europe, Canada and the UK.
Last week we reported that households across several US states had been receiving mysterious packets of seeds in the mail.
The packages, which seemed to have come from China, were marked as containing jewelry - apparently in an attempt to bypass seed transportation restrictions.
Since then, it has been revealed that the mysterious seed packets have been turning up in other countries too, such as Canada, New Zealand and the UK.
International authorities are now attempting to determine who might be responsible.
"Biosecurity is of vital importance and we have robust checks in place to protect our plants and wildlife, including for online plant sales," said a spokesman for Alpha - the Animal and Plant Health Agency of the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
"We are currently investigating packages of seeds marked as 'ear studs' sent to people in the UK. Anyone who has received such seeds should not plant them and instead report them to us."
A spokesman for China's foreign ministry claims that the Chinese addresses have been forged.
There is also the question of how the sender acquired the recipients' names.
"We don't have enough information to know if this is a hoax, a prank, an internet scam or an act of agricultural bioterrorism," said Kentucky state agriculture commissioner Ryan Quarles.
They could have send empty bags for their sale brushing and people would have said that they countain virus... Most of the pictures show citrus seeds, these seeds are recalcitrant, they need to be fresh to germinate, so they are just there to add some weight it seems. Good luck planting them...
The technique is quite old and it's called "brushing scam". It basically consists in generating fake orders to boost ratings. A good example of the practice:
That was 10 years ago, meanwhile local and smal manufactoring sector has bewn encouraged to produce and supply products to all of the major chain supliers. Will you buy steering parts from China? No it is from Mexico. Walk in a clothing store; it's now Bangladesh, go to buy food and you'll see enough local and S american groceries.
In your dreams. Check, for example, the steel and aluminium demand in the US which cannot be fulfilled by domestic capacities. Another example: active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and finished drugs. The 2 main supply and manufacturing countries are China and India. Also in this case, the US demand cannot be fulfilled by domestic capacities. Same for electronics and a lot of other stuff as well Car manufactures do, US car manufacturers as well. I dont buy cheap and/or Bangladesh made clothes as a matter of principle. And BTW, I didnt talked about potatoes&apples, which should be from ... [More]
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