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Patented Food Threatens Crop Improvements
g8orade writes: "This NYT article presents the increasingly difficult path researchers in public arenas (universities) have distributing the results of their efforts, because of patents held on the genetic structures of food crops.
Stallman makes a big case for distinguishing between copyright and patents, but anyone want to start the Free Food Foundation?"
It's called the Seed Savers Exchange. Folks who trade seeds of open pollinated (non-hybrid seeds. No copyrights, no patents. Ever.
In principle it sounds pretty bad, but when it's actually applied in the real world, the problems aren't as horrible as they'd seem. Most research isn't being done by universities anymore. It's being done by private corporations. Whatever your philosophy about the behavior of the modern corporation, we can both agree that universities and their place within our society today are in steep decline. As enrollment has dropped and employment opportunities that do not require degrees have grown, the university experience is about to wink out. To protect the interests of these scientists is therefore a quixotic attempt to hold onto the remnants of a disappearing past.
Is this the end of the world? No. If scientists are having trouble publishing their research to a rapt audience (journal readers), then they can simply seek a new environment (corporation) where they can publish their research to an equally important and rapt audience (fellow corporate team members). They will still have all the benefits of publishing (social status, royalties) but without the legal hassle (corporations protect their own) and for significantly greater salaries (let's face it, universities can't afford to pay good salaries anymore).
Adaptation, evolution, extinction, repropagation. We're doing just fine.
Why? Because of less stress, a more interresting job, more free time... They know they will earn less money, big deal! They are going to work twice less than someone in the corporate world. And that's valuable... (especially if you plan to have a life outside your work)
Besides, reasearch does not work in a pure corporate model. There has often been 20-30 years (in the last century) between a theory and the time it get's applied. Which company will invest in a reasearch where they will have to wait that long before getting any return on investment?
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
The real threat isn't nearly as spectacular, but is simply that one of these new breeds of crop will contain a defective gene which will cause it to be susceptible to some problem.
May not happen right away, but say perhaps in 40 years, something happens and all corn in the US is hit by some problem which wipes it out because of this genetic weakness.
There are groups in the USDA, in Universities, etc. who work specifically to keep seed samples of the original species so that they are not lost.
You know, if you were starving and a new modified strain of wheat was available to help... I doubt you'd be bitching.
One of the luxuries of being fat and lazy is you don't have to worry about eating, I guess.
I hate to break it to you but all gmo food is bad because we are unsure. Eat real food (tm)
The problem with that "logic" is that "real food" hasn't been tested either. You may say "Well, natural things don't need to be tested; everyone knows that they are safe". But history shows us that products from totally non-gmo'ed plants can be unhealthy. People smoked totally non gmo-ed tobacco for thousands of years before even considering the possibility that it was unhealthy.
And French people drank a neurotoxic liquor called "absinthe" (made from the natural wormwood tree) for several hundred years without noticing the ill effects.
In this case organisations like the Seed Savers Network are protecting examples of prior art by ``mass copying, uploading, downloading and distributing''. Kind of outdoes RFC 1149 or RFC 2549.
The saved seeds are far superior collections of genetic material, in that the patented seeds are closely bred (ie, ``thin'' genetic material, won't breed true) and/or genetically modified, so almost always require special (expensive, proprietary) fertilisers, pesticides etc ad nauseum in order to produce their huge yields.
Finally, the whole idea is an open source/sharing kind of thing, very much in tune with the current software revolution.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The real problem is that even universities have started thinking of research as a patent creator rather than as a publication creator. "Publish or perish" was a doctrine that certainly had it's problems, but it did create public knowledge, and foster the desimination of same. Research to make a patent is designed to hide the results, and to slow down the desimination of knowledge. This is quite antithetical to the traditional position of the university. I think it may be even worse than the government controls that came with federal subsidies. Not that the controls were removed when the subsidies were removed. (Though they generally were eased a bit.)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This would most definitely kill Stallman's favourite motto:
"Free as in Freedom, not as in Free Beer. No, not that Free Beer, the other Free Beer, the one wher you don't pay"
Or the other way around, imagine the Free Food Foundation guys:
"Free as in Free Software, not as in Free Beer".
From the article:
"One thing people could argue is, How can a company own the most important food crop in the world?" said Dr. Rod A. Wing of Clemson University. "In Asia, rice is like a religion. To own a religion, so to speak, that's just a question. Can you do that? I don't think so."
I think L. Ron Hubbard has the answer to that one.
I'm sorry for those that do not see this as a great problem, yet this is part of a larger trend towards the bulding of fences against freedom of reasearch.
And, there is much more.
The trend to claim rights on food has gone beyond from covering really new food. Large companies are extending their grip on vegetables that exist since a long time and have also been able to stop some food importation from poor countries where such vegetables have been used for a long time.
A strongly hit country, for instance, is India. Someone has actually patented or tried to patent Basmati Rice, black pepper, mustard, etc... all eaten for centuries.
Oh! I forgot to say that these well-known companies often are the same ones that introduced genetically-modified food in Europe illegally, for years, relying on the late intervention of law enforcerers (it's always been more profitable to pay a fine later rather than stopping a good business...)
I do not exactly know about the situation in the USA, but in Italy and in Europe the problem is more felt from a general point of view than from the point of view of university studies, which are not affected so much.
I think that we should broaden our perspective and really understand what's going on because all of these facts are tightly related...
Bullshit. Research must ALWAYS be done if you want your company to have an edge over the competition.
Get out into the real world someday and see how wrong you are.
I used to work for one of those evil drug companies. It costs roughly $100-250 million and 8-12 years of time to get a drug on the market. What possible incentive is there to spend that kind of bucks if a generic drug maker can copy it the day it becomes legal? You have no edge whatsoever over your competition by doing all this work: all you get are the costs.
Patent is utterly necessary for this kind of work. Banning it would stop most research in its tracks.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Well, it's not exactly that, but Native Seeds/SEARCH is an important step. Their goal is to "conserve, distribute and document the adapted and diverse varieties of agricultural seed and their wild relatives" in the Southwest US.
These hearty species have adapted to life here over thousands of years (well, as far back as you want to go, actually, but the climate has changed radically in that period), and are already resistent to the blights found here. Plus biodiversity is maintained, so no particular scourge should wipe out an entire species.
Oh yeah, and you're free to plant as many times as you want after buying the seeds. In fact, you're encouraged to cultivate your own line.
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Sure, there are periodic famines when arid areas have droughts. In times like these, the real problem is with food distribution. Particularly, the problem is that they often try to ship (ie) corn meal from the US to east africa, and big surprise, it's rotten when it arrives. It'd be nice if they had a more regional food supply to tap into, wouldn't it? Except eveyone else in east africa is busy growing cash crops so they can "benefit" from participation in the global economy instead of growing adequate food for their region.
So the starvation excuse for GM is just that: an excuse. There are many less threatening ways to feed the world's population. Furthermore, regarding your "fat" comment: in fact, the most overweight people in western nations are the lower classes, and they suffer disproportionately many health problems on account of this. The "big corporate fatcat" metaphor is tired and outdated.
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Sort of. It has been the case for quite a long time already in chemistry/drug research that companies that make new chemicals/biologicals spend a bit of time and money researching if they have infranged a patent. This is normal and reasonnable since they themselves would like to patent their discovery and make money out of it. So if you want to use someone else's discovery, you pay them or you wait since patents don't last for ever.
Now, I agree with you that this strategy is becoming more and more difficult since all kind of crap is being patented. But, maybe it is so because more patentable discoveries are made. Maybe all this is good news. Maybe many scientists can at last make more money than lawyers and doctors (in medecine). But still, you are quite right that too many broad patents are issued.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
I quote from the article: California strawberry growers canceled a project to develop a strawberry resistant to fungus for fear that they would not be allowed to let the strawberry be grown commercially, said Dr. Alan Bennett, executive director of the office of technology transfer at the University of California, which discovered the fungal resistance gene.
Do you think they are trying to save the world from hunger? With strawberry! Yeah right!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
you, the eater, by eating our genetically modified and/or enhanced food, agree to the following terms:
1: buying and eating our food does not constitute ownership of the food. we own the food at all stages and permutations. yes, that means we'll own your crap, too.
2: the food may or may not be nutritional.
3: unforseen genetic diseases caused by eating our food products are not our fault.
4: you are what you eat, and since we own the food (see #1 above) that helped build you, we own you. report to soylent facility green for immidiate assimilation.
i worry that someday, a serious version of this "license" will become a reality. as corporations (and some individuals) continue to try and own every small aspect of existence, what chance do we have?
Enrollment has not dropped. In fact, it has increased 14% between 1990 and 1999.
Source: http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/00trends/EA1.pdf (page 25)
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I've got to admit that it's companies like Monsanto that took my Radical Libertarianism (you know, "die government die! stabbity stabbity!", Libertarianism) and shattered it over it's kneecap. You would have to be a fool to give a company like this any more influence over the way the world is run.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
There are groups in the USDA, in Universities, etc. who work specifically to keep seed samples of the original species so that they are not lost.
Oh, that comforts me (not). Why don't we just use those "original species" in the first place? The parent to your post is right - no one is looking at the "playing God is going to FUBAR our veggies" factor.
Why are we so set on genetically modifiying our veggies in the first place?
It has NO benefit to humans, and a HUGE potential to fsck things up with our [health|crops|economy]. Oh wait, I forgot, corporations can make more money... never mind, forget I was even here!
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
To that end, patents should be for unique items/processes. When the end result of said patent is reproduced through other means, that patent should be nullified.
Can you imagine it if some neanderthal had managed to patent the wheel?
UGGTHUG--"Me Make Round Thingy!"
ATHGAR--"Me Want Round Thingy!"
UGGTHUG--"I are Patent. You No Have Unless Pay UGGTHUG!"
ATHGAR--"Me Make Round Thingy Then. No Pay UGGTHUG!"
UGGTHUG--"ATHGAR Can No Make Round Thingy with UGGTHUG Patent!"
ATHGAR--"Where This Patent?"
UGGTHUG--Points to head
Insert repeated sounds of club whacking and screaming here.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
Attn Moderators...
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
There's the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) based in Iowa, America and founded in 1975. They are particularly interested in "heirloom" seeds. You can become a member of Seed Savers and that gets you a bunch of publications every year.
This group alos has an organised arm called the Flower and Herb Exchange (FHE), which you can also purchase a membership for.
SSE has a Heritage Farm, a living historical museum of plan varieties. SSE also has a commercial store in Wisonsin, America.
Then there's Seed Savers Network (SSN) based in Byron Bay, Australia and founded in 1986. Their goal is to "preserve the diversity of our cultural plants". They have subscriptions of various kinds and have newsletters, seed exchange, a seed bank, workshops and they publish a handbook.
The SSN is setting up networks in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, The Caribbean and Cambodia. They also assisted the Southern African Seed Network (SASN) in setting up in Zimbabwe.
Then there's the Irish Seed Savers Association (ISSA), whose website is under construction. They are "dedicated to the location and preservation of traditional varieties of fruit, grain and vegetables".
The Seed Savers Aotearoa New Zealand (SSANZ), based in New Zealand and probably founded in the year 2000. Their goal is to "facilitate the sharing of information and resources between regional seed saving groups"
Seeds of Change (SOC) founded around 1989 in Sante Fe, New Mexico. SOC "is committed to improving the lives of this and future generations by preserving biodiversity and promoting the use of sustainable organic agricultural practices". They have a commercial store hosted at Yahoo, and a research arm close to Santa Fe. Their website has a lot of different sections and seems to be aimed at the average consumer.
Comox Valley Growers & Seed Savers (CVGSS), based in British Columbia, Canada. Their mission is "Conserve and preserve our plant heritage and diversity by encouraging participation in growing heritage and non-hybrid food crops and other plants". They have mail-order membership.
The Native Seed Savers Network (NSSN) is a Greening Australia project, based in New South Wales, Australia. Started in 1996, "the need for more detail on the appropriate use and management of dwindling areas of locally-native seed resources in the Sydney Basin prompted the development of this community-based native seed trading network"
Primal Seeds aims to:
- Inform and inspire people to take the protection of biodiversity and the creation of food security into their own hands.
- Support grassroots movements around the world who challenge agribusiness and promote food production based on diversity and community.
- Act as an information network.
- Promote seed saving, seed swaping, heritage, open-pollinated, rare, local and illegal seeds.
- Oppose the encroaching model of agriculture based on commodification, which leads to biotechnology, biopiracy, mass mechanisation, heavy chemical inputs and threatens the livelihood of the worlds farmers
Some other resources are:
Seeds of Texas' Vegetable Seed-Savers Handbook
Seed Savers Around The World
I'd bet that encoding something in DNA constitutes an "encryption device" under the DMCA.
There needs to be a very dramatic sea change in opinion in this country to take on the monied interests behind this one.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
The critical point here was that the research, in this case, was being funded by commercial strawberry growers. The patents that are already in place would prevent them from deriving profit from their research investment so they said, 'Why Bother?'.
I think the issue is much bigger than that though. Since this kind of research is built on top of previous (possibly patented) research in the field, there comes a point where all future research might cease, because enything they would achieve would be a derivitive of patented rearlier research results. This is a slippery slope. There needs to be much more stringent requirements implemented in the USPTO to prevent the issuance of patents for inappropriately broad (results of) areas of this type of research
--CTH
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--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Your assuming that Monsanto (or any other GMO) comapany is safe to eat in the first place. What makes you think the integrity, quality, and authenticity is better from using one of them?
I hate to break it to you but all gmo food is bad because we are unsure. Eat real food (tm)
The Lottery:
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
One more case how strict patent hurts US. Americans cannot benefit from the result of the research to improve food production, while third world countries where US patent law doesn't apply could take advantage of it.
Richard Stallment think he can live with 3 or 5-year patent. Shorter patent period might really help solving the problems.
You go girl... protect that fucking karma...
It's sooo important to me. I got discount in Walmart; cops will not charge me for speeding; it increases the odds of getting chicks in party; and it looks really good in my CV.
How can one live with low karma?....Oops, sorry I didn't mean to offend you....
j/k...anyway, only morons would get offended by jokes.
Is to get inovations out in the public so that they can be studied... But since the whole patent system has been so twisted and corrupted over the years from what is written into the Constitution, I'm becoming of the opinion that they are no longer of any benefit to society.
"But corporations will no longer have any reason to fun research" opponents will say.
Bullshit. Research must ALWAYS be done if you want your company to have an edge over the competition.
And if patents don't actually make the invention any more available to the public (such as the patented "golden rice" that could feed the starving third world countries), what the hell good is their research anyway?
Maybe if that corporation made it possible for more people not to starve by releasing that IP, perhaps those people will later be able to BUY more of their other products...
Since we are subsidizing by force of government, corporate monopolies by granting patents, with little or no discernable benefits, then, I argue, patents should be abolished.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
...and that is to immediately and globally engage in mass copying, uploading, downloading and distributing of all copyrighted and patented materials. This is the only way we are going to prevent the powers that be from enacting increasingly Big Brother-type measures to ensure that their so-called intellectual property is not stolen. We must not allow this to happen. We must weaken them where it hurts the most, their pocket book. Otherwise our freedom is history.
The powers that be got their power and wealth from our money and our work. We allowed them to be what they are. Resist all Orwellian systems that take away your liberty a little bit at a time, one little law at a time. We can take it back. The internet is our weapon. Refuse to pay for any copyrighted music, software, patents, ideas, etc...
Copy it all and distribute it all! Reclaim your liberty!
What worries me is:
The effect of genemodifying crops goes way beyond health issues for humans and copy and patent rights. It also has implications in the area of Genetic Contamination of wild plants and animals and nobody seems to care . The Killer Bee issue has allready shown what can happen when an artificially created species escapes into the enviroment. These bees have more of less exterminated large highly specialized bee species in the Rainforests of south and central America. This is a partickularly serious concern since the loss of these native bees may cause the extinction of numerous species of trees an other plants that rely exclusively on their specialized bees for pollenation. Shure the effectss will not be apparent for a few decades so using G.W. Bush logic we will not have to worry about them. Long term thinking BAD!!! Short term thinking and greed GOOOOOD!!! But "Hear no evil see no evil" will not make these issues go away. These genetic problems will still emerge and later Generations, stuck with genetically contaminated foodcrops and wild geene-pools, will curse us for ignoring them.
Large scale genetic modification of Plants and animals is dangerous and we have no way of knowing what problems an uncontrolled genetic goldrush will cause in nature. Genetic modifications of any kind should be striclty controlled by the state and not by corporoations. Genetic contamination and the escape of genetically modified plants and animals into wild populations is impossible to reverse.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
If George Washington Carver were alive today, he'd be litigated into anonymity. Perhaps we should start giving away Nobel prizes for greed, now that science for the good of mankind has been effectively abolished.
There /is/ a major difference between government subsidised research, in universities or public institutions, and corporate research.
A private company usually won't engage in long term research (there are some exception, like Bell Labs, but they are few), because the stockholders, wanting their money back as fast as possible, aren't interested in the long-term performance of the company they hold. Which also means that some subjects will never be researched (such as the malaria, which only kills a few tens of millions each year...)
Also, the hierachised model of private companies tend not to be adapted to the needs of research : they'd rather focus on narrow, but close to be sellable, fields, rather that search for everything until they stumble on something good. An example of this kind of narrow vision by executives would be Xerox, and its PARC laboratories.
And, lastly, the freedom needed to be doing good research is hard to find in private companies : a researcher has its work overlooked every three months, whereas in France for a CNRS researches, it is only every other year...
Actually there was an article on /. about this some time ago : http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/30/146227.shtml
seems like that answers your question.
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Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.