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Asked by:
Jim Mumm
Posted at:
January 26, 2025
I'm the co-owner of a sprouting seed company located in Saskatchewan, Canada.Yes, this is big concern to Richters too. We are monitoring the situation closely. There is an article about the irradiation threat in the October 2001 issue of the Richters HerbLetter on our website.
I'm writing about the possibility of the US post office and Canada Post installing mail irradiation equipment in some of their centres. Canada Post is actively considering the idea. The USPS is apparently going ahead with the idea. This is to prevent anthrax mailing.
Unfortunately this equipment would also sterilise or damage any live seeds (also film and electronics) in the mail. This is a huge concern to us as we send thousands of mail seed parcels a year, and we don't have an economical alternative in our small town.
I'm looking for any ideas to head off this move, or at the very least to allow a separate stream of sensitive mail to bypass any irradiation.There has been some talk among U.S. shippers that the U.S. post office will create a separate stream of mail for sensistive items mailed by known mailers. Obviously this would necessitate a major change in operations which must be proved to be secure to reassure those concerned about terrorist activities, but we are skeptical of how quickly such a system will be developed and how effective it will be to safeguard sensistive mail. In any case, the talk is only at the local business representative level of the U.S. post office, and we have already seen how local reps are misinformed about other aspects of the irradiation issue.
So far I've come up with these possibilities:This is a federal issue, so you would have to contact your Member of Parliament, not your provincial MLA. Yes, we agree that this should be done. We intend to contact our MP.
1 - Contact our MLA, Minister responsible for Canada Post, and Prime minister's office (or US equivalents) to express our concerns.
2 - Contact mail order seed companies in Canada and US for co-ordinated efforts and to get ideas. Is there an association of these companies?The Canadian Seed Trade Association is aware of the matter but at a teleconference I attended recently it seemed to me that the CSTA did not fully understand the risk that its members face. Irradiation was not even on the agenda, though I did bring the issue up. Like the spokesperson from McKenzie Seeds in Winnipeg who was quoted in the Globe and Mail recently as saying that the company did not believe that there was much risk to seeds, I think that the CSTA has not fully woken up to the danger, or at least not as of two weeks ago when the conference was held.
3 - Talk to Canada Post (or USPS) representatives regarding the possible loss of revenue if seed (and electronics and film) shipping by mail becomes impossible.Agreed. On the Canadian side we need to establish what decisions if any have been made vis-a-vis irradiation. On the U.S. side we do know that the decision to install radiation equipment has already been made; so we need to establish how the system will work and what measures are being taken to safeguard sensistive mail.
Any suggestions, etc. appreciated.At Richters we are developing alternative plans for getting our seeds and plants to our customers. Even if the worst case scenario comes into being, we will still be able to deliver our products to our customers, though we may have to apply a delivery surcharge on some orders. As mentioned, we are closely monitoring the situation and will adjust our shipping policies on an as-needed basis.