Categories: News

Hundreds of people receive mysterious, unsolicited seed shipments from China

Hundreds of people around the country have received mysterious, unsolicited packets of seeds from China in recent weeks, the Wall Street Journal reports. The seed varieties vary and many have yet to be identified, though at least one packet sent to Louisiana appears to contain water lily seeds. Local departments of agriculture and USDA are investigating, and officials have advised packet recipients not to plant them, as some may contain invasive species. It might be a very odd attempt at bioterrorism, or it might simply be an online review-rigging scam. Either way, the odd packages have spawned intense interest from home gardeners and biosecurity researchers alike. 

Related Post
The Counter
Share
Published by
The Counter

Recent Posts

Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…

7 months ago

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

3 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

3 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

3 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

3 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

3 years ago