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Group Tries To Open Source Seeds
jenwike writes The Open Source Seed Initiative is a passionate group that wants to ensure their seeds are never patented, but making sure seeds are free for use and distribution by anyone isn't as easy as you might think. Part of the equation are plant characteristics, like an extended head on lettuce — is that an invention? Or, would you argue that it is the product of the collective sharing of material that improves the whole crop over time? In this report, one farmer says, "If you're not exchanging germplasm, you're cutting your own throat."
Yea no...
In farming, a rising tide tanks the commodities market and all the boats sink at the same time.
Take a look at the price of corn over the past couple of years. First there was a drought through much of the midwest... so yields were low for corn and hay. This drove the price of feed through the roof. I saw hay going for $7 to $10 a bail... the highest I've ever seen. It was so expensive that it cost more to feed animals through the winter than the animals were worth. Farmers slaughtered their herds en-mass. That drove the price of beef through the floor, making breeders cut back on their investments. Which lead to this year, no one wanted beef cattle because the price was so low... there were already tiny herds due to the price of feed and the mass slaughter last fall... then we got record rainfall this year. As a result there's way way way too much grain this year. The price of corn is at an all time low. So low that most of the corn around here is still in the field. Farmers aren't harvesting it because the diesel to do so costs more than the corns worth.
It's also a way to ensure that GMO seeds can't spread beyond their intended planting and coincidentally would resolve a major issue with GMO approval in Europe.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Hell, Monsanto NEVER sold Terminator seeds. I find that people who rant about them as an example of the evils of Monsanto invariably don't know what the hell they are talking about. It is a nice bellwether.
Is it really an optimal choice to grow a plant from scratch every year? Could a tree or a perennial shrub provide better long term nutritional returns? Isn't a mature tree far hardier and less susceptible to crop loss?
Fruit/nut trees also take a long time to come to maturity, like 5-10 years per tree. All that time, they're not producing a sellable product.
Mature tree crops fall hard to disease all the time. Oranges, for one, spring to mind.
Better to grow a variety of things.
FYI, there is a lot of research being done in trying to make perennial versions of many of the grains and vegetables we currently eat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...