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Plant Breeders Release 'Open Source Seeds'
mr crypto (229724) writes "A group of scientists and food activists are launching a campaign to change the rules that govern seeds. They're releasing 29 new varieties of crops under a new 'open source pledge' that's intended to safeguard the ability of farmers, gardeners and plant breeders to share those seeds freely."
It's a sorry state of affairs that this has had to be done. I wonder if I can open source my DNA before someone else patents it.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
With seeds?
They should safeguard them from heat-seeking drones flown by Monsanto.
Just a sec, gotta recompile the kernel.
rewriting history since 2109
Even the DNA of your plants and your own body. You are vassals of Lord Rothschild. This Universe belongs to the Chosen. Not you, goyim. Now get out of our Universe.
Monsanto isn't going to like this....
What about heat seeking drones flown by the predator? For that I'd suggest they get to the choppa.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
How can a seed that has been released into nature not be open source? Seeds, by there very nature, seek to profilierate sot it would obviously take unnatural forces to prevent them from doing so. Certainly, at least, no human govenment would make it illegal to not prevent nature from taking it's course.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The license used is:
This is a GPL type license. There is nothing to stop Monsanto from going to a farmer who is using these seeds and saying:
The only way to deal with Monsanto is to beat them at their own game. One way would be to develop a seed with some novel genes (call them NoGe) and copyright these under something like the GPL. Then grow these seeds upwind of a Monsanto development facility; when, later, Monsanto then sue someone for illegal use of their seeds a NoGe 'owner' could testify that the Monsanto seeds must be allowed free to everyone use due to the 'viral nature' of the GPL. That legal punch up would be interesting to watch!
One thing that's sort of buried in the article is this movement is also anti-hybrid, which is not all that surprising. But hybrids offer a definite, measurable benefit to the farmer - not only are they more uniform (important for commercial harvesting), they are invariably more vigorous than open pollinated varieties. Greater vigor per plant means greater profit per plant.
As a gardener I understand and applaud attempts to develop and improve open pollinated varieties of vegetables and fruits. It's fun to save your own seeds, and OPs have more diverse genes - so they are important to the continued existence of plant species. But it's going to be an uphill battle trying to convince farmers to give up hybrids, if that's really the movement's goal. And I don't think it's really what they should be focussing on. But plant purists can be every bit as inflexible as the most ardent GPL zealot, so I expect philosophy will win out over practicality.
#DeleteChrome
Why do you think the Monsanto Protection Act came to be? Because U.S gov understands what a powerful weapon Monsanto can be, when it will be allowed to dictate the production, distribution and consumption of food, not just in the U.S, but in the whole world in the long term.
Same thing.
Not the same thing. "Monsanto" is just a subgroup of the group "malicious criminals".
This. As a malicious criminal, I'd like to say that we're not all like them. People keep making broad generalizations after they've seen a vocal minority.
The hate for Monsanto also comes from the irresponsibility. They planted Roundup-resistant plants all over while saying "the resistance will never spread to other plants" without actually bothering to check whether that was the case, as if they had never heard of plasmids. Roundup-resistant weeds with the Monsanto gene in them were found IN THE NEXT FIELD BELONGING TO A DIFFERENT LANDOWNER four months after the first crops were planted. Since then, Monsanto have lied repeatedly about the spread of resistance, and what the likely consequences might be - and denied having any responsibility for the consequences.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
IT's called Heriloom and all of them are not patent encumbered.
Eliminate any and all patents and copyrights on living things is the only answer, Devices that were common on farms, seed cleaners, are illegal because of Monsanto, they target farmers that have them, they go after ANY farmer that does not buy their product, because their GM garbage will cross pollinate to your field and suddenly your GM free crops are now tainted with Monsanto IP and now the property of Monsanto.
Eliminate the patent possibility and it neuters Monsanto completely and solves every single problem.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
WMD of starvation (1000s of innocent children etc... every day) must be our worst offense against ourselves our spirits & our own creation momkind etc....? so what is the #2 way to end our toil?
The releases should be patented like monsanto with an open license that ensures that if their genetics recombine with anything else it bears the license as well. It should be planted around all monsanto fields, so we slowly chip away at the insanity of proprietary food genetics.
The brazilian government has a R&D branch dedicated to creating new crops and related techniques and chemicals, it is called Embrapa. There are also other R&D centers with government majority (like IAC). All the resulting stuff is properly patented... but free for use (not necessarily free for *comecialization*, but most often it is not only entirely free, they also spend money making sure the stuff actually gets pushed to farmers). Once you have it, you have it, you can distribute seeds, etc. In fact, you're encouraged to do it.
It is utterly insane and absurd that anything that is not military technology and was paid in the majority by the government is not open and free for use, distribution and modification (subject to a few regulation laws so that you don't do deranged crap that ends up killing good crops nation-wide).
uhh, really? You know that they found and extracted that gene from plants they found *gasp* in nature. It's not spreading; it's merely survival of the fittest. Fortunately, roundup resistant plants carry a significant metabolic load for that resistance, so aren't really that competitive more than about 10 yards from a field that's routinely sprayed.
We, being fiscally responsible, wick roundup instead of spraying (way too far north to grow cotton) and, you know what, we checked. Very low level of glyphosphates and metabolites in our soil. We wick over the beans beans every year to get the corn that comes back from last year, and we wick the corn when it's low, and spot treat an area if there's a problem, but roundup isn't free, so we don't spray it just for the fuck of it.
Take your strawman back to reddit.
... which is the idea that a particular person or company can "own" a seed that occurs in nature and has been used in human agriculture since the dawn of civilization.
What really needs to happen is the retroactive application of GPL-like rules to all natural seed. If you start with GPL seed and use it to make your own derivative seed, you must release your new seed under the same license so that anyone can use it.
Except for the EULA printed on their packets this is very similar to what the very well established Seed Savers Exchange has been doing for decades.
For reference the actual operative text of the EULA is:
"By opening this packet, you pledge that you will not restrict others’ use of these seeds and their derivatives by patents, licenses, or any other means. You pledge that if you transfer these seeds or their derivatives you will acknowledge the source of these seeds and accompany your transfer with this pledge."
It is the actual work of the seed savers group - saving, reproducing, distributing seed - that is preserving these varieties for future generations. Imposing this transfer clause seems to make these OSSI varieties less likely to be redistributed, so it may actually have a negative effect on their propagation. I don't see that having someone taking an heirloom variety and developing a patented variety from it is impeding seed saving and exchanging.
Heirloom varieties are under threat - the number of them in circulation is dropping, and strains are being lost since they do need to be periodically "grown out" to preserve the seed stock. But it is not being caused by heirloom varieties being patented - it is because commercially produced seed is being used by most gardeners for very real conveniences they provide.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
According to this recent talk by Joel Salatin, cotton farmers in the south nowadays have to pay $70/acre to have people manually chop down the Roundup-resistant weeds before they harvest. Apparently they grow so big that they tear up the combine, and since Roundup won't kill 'em, they have to be hacked out with a machete.
As Salatin puts it, "This is a crack in the paradigm." The whole system of industrial scale, petro-chemical dependent, mono-species farming is about to fall apart.
If you've always wanted to start a backyard garden (or even if you haven't) now might be a good time to start.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
They should also offer open source shovels and hoes for the farmers. After all, those tractors and harvesters are all patented by evil corporations. The farmers should go back to using hand tools so that we're not permanently addicted to high efficiency farm tools.
Seriously though, the patented seeds are all developed at great expense to have special properties and resistances. If the farmers don't want to deal with the licenses there are plenty of seeds for them that aren't roundup resistant. The picture in the article says all you need to know, They're sending envelopes of seeds that obviously aren't enough for a real farm. This is just a publicity stunt and more feel good pointless crap to make liberals feel like they're saving the world without leaving their own back yard.
Frankly, seeds should be harvested from a region, and kept in a region. Let evolution do the work of keeping them healthy in a particular environment.
Speaking as someone with a quarter acre back yard and no HMO. Where can I get weeds chopped down for $70/acre? I call BS.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'