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?"

Comments

Re:Not as bad as you'd think

[ghoti]

I agree that there is a lot of corporate research now, much more than there used to be. But that is certainly not the end of academia.
Even for corporations, it is still of importance and value to be able to access information without having to do their own research for every little thing. Research is expensive, and it is becoming ever more so. And especially in genetic engineering, biology, etc the costs are tremendous.

But there is also another reason, which I find more important: If at some point in the future all research is done by corporations, that will be a great loss to all of us. If suddenly *all* the new findings are owned by somebody instead of being released to the public, that will make it impossible to do new stuff on your own (like doing Open Source programming, or setting up a small company to do something). And besides, no meaningful research will be possible any more, because any two companies that do similar stuff will continuously infringe on the other's intellectual property.

So imho, the opposite is going to happen: At some point, the corporations will find out that they are hampering their own work, and will start to either support academic work, or stop patenting everything. (yeah, maybe I am being a little optimistic, but that is really my opinion)

Re:Not as bad as you'd think

[Mike Connell]

Anyone who believes that corporate research can or should replace university research deserves to live in a world where this has taken place.

I hope you enjoy your Genetically modified Mc Pokémon toy high cholesterol sweetener enriched CSS encrypted happy meal.

Seed Savers around the world...

[Technodummy]

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

Pop quiz: What is Genetic contamination?

[Savage-Rabbit]

What worries me about these GM crops is Genetic contamination. Today corporations are working on things like tobacco plants and Tomatoes with genes, in some cases even human genes added to produce medicine.

What worries me is:

1. What seems to be a complete lack control over what these corporations do. The US tobacco firms even genetically modified their tobacco to contain twice the normal amount of Nicotine and succeeded in marketing the resulting crop behind the back of the US Govt.
2. What will happen if these plants who in some cases will contain substances harmful to animals and humans begin to interbreed with wild plants and find their way into foodcrops. I see it as a problem if it was discovered that edable tomatoes had inadvertantly been crossed with say, insulin producing tomatoes.

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.