Survival Seeds Promise to Feed Your Family in Famine, Disaster

By Rusty Surette, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY – For a price, "survival seeds" are promising to feed your family in a famine or other disaster, but are they the real deal?

For $150 plus shipping and handling, you can be the proud owner of a garden…in a can. Inside the can are seeds to plant 22 fruits and vegetables, from squash to carrots to melons.

The company selling this "survival seed bank" claims it's enough to plant a one-acre garden. The kit even comes with a so-called "super solution" that should give the garden a 'super' start.

"After all, securing a source of food for your family is the single most important thing you can do," said one television commercial for a survivor seed product.

There's dozens of companies that sell these survival seeds and the marketing clearly targets those who fear an economic collapse or a food shortage crisis.

Critics have been quick to call it a scam, one that's feeding on the fears of thousands of people who are willing to dish out hundreds of dollars. NEWS 9 ordered one of the kits to find out if the seeds are fruitful. After receiving the package, we took it to a group of experienced farmers for feedback.

They like the idea of families having their own gardens.

"I think people need to learn more about growing their own food," said Barbara Stelle, a farmer in Blanchard.

The farmers said the seeds are the real thing, but there is a buyer's beware.

"It's not a place to farm. It's hard here," said Blanchard farmer Larry Hocking.

There's a different set of rules for gardening in Oklahoma, and unless you know what you're doing, these farmers say the ground is more likely to yield a headache than a bounty of fruit and veggies.

To help with that, the company, Solutions From Science, who sells the Survival Seed Bank, promised to send an instruction manual for planting seeds with the order, but it never came.

Instead, NEWS 9 received a bundle of political fliers like one that says "New socialist policies will create massive food shortages!"

And remember that super solution that came with the seeds? The farmers said it's a marketing ploy and nothing more.

The company that sent NEWS 9 the seeds refused to talk, so we found someone else who does the exact same thing.

"We have 50 bins here for our 50 varieties of heirloom vegetable seeds," said John Lipscomb, who runs Survivalistseeds.com from the town of Toronto between Wichita and Kansas City.

For three years, John Lipscomb and his family have run a Web site called Survivalistseeds.com.

Inside a small building they hand package each order that comes in. Last year he averaged 25 orders a day at $129 per order. Last year, business was good, because the economy was bad, and criticism was sky high.

"It's odd that we are often considered by the mainstream as eccentric and taking advantage of people when all we're doing is saying 'Hey, how about raising your own food?'" Lipscomb said.

Most of these seed companies advertise with conservative radio and television programs. Even Lipscomb admits at one time his target was patriot groups and militias.

"They tend to be naturalists and this is a very naturalist way…to grown your own food," Lipscomb said, who said he is personally of a patriot philosophy.

But Lipscomb said it's his own simplistic way of living that keeps him selling the seeds. He'd like to see more Americans like himself, independent of big business and big government, but he said he knows he'll always be the minority.

"I believe unless we have a complete collapse in civilization starting with an economic collapse…It'll always be 10 percent," Lipscomb said.

Depending on which company you go with, the seeds are supposedly good for 10 to 20 years after the date of purchase.