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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."
"If you're not exchanging germplasm, you're cutting your own throat."
That's what I always say too! Except for here it might actually make sense.
Twitter.com/TrentonHyatt
My people were farmers. There was a story I was told as a kid.
A farmer went on a long journey. When he came back, he had a new corn seed. He planted it and had yields 50 bushels per acre higher he had last year and it was much higher than all his neighbors. His neighbors wanted to buy seed from the farmer. He refused to sell it to him.
The next year, the farmer's yield was only 35 bushels per acre better than his neighbors. Every year it decreased, until his yield per acre was back at the original amount.
The moral of the story is twofold. First, crops germinate.
Second, a rising tide raises all boats if you let it. Just because your neighbors also have more grain doesn't mean you'll have less. With more grain, you can raise more head of cattle, have more chickens, reduce the amount of grain and begin raising vegetables. Even if the price of grain declines, the amount you can do with that grain should offset the decline.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
(in the near future, in a United Nations court of law)
"Monsanto, you have been accused of crimes against humanity."
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Plant patents were originally only intended to apply to non-sexual reproduction. Courts changed that in 2001, Congress remained silent, and no president seems to have made this a big issue when appointing judges.
Congress and the executive are condoning the creeping extension of the patent system while at the same time shoving billions in the hands of big agribusinesses. Like 1984's "two minutes of hate", the anti-corporate talk by many politicians is just a distraction from the reality that it is they themselves that are supporting all of this.
I don't know about seed sourcing, but I would buy a sausage from that guy. Onna stick.
As an interested lay person, I'm thrilled to hear about this initiative. Not to sound ungrateful, but I would really really wish and hope that
- This initiative will always retain the bazaar mindset, and not get bogged down by bureaucracy
- This initiative will spread into the continents where this is needed the most - Asia and Africa.
- The options for seeds grows beyond vegetables and into grains and other basic nutrition foods. Ref: http://www.opensourceseediniti...
- They use this platform to spread awareness and accessibility to some of the really hardy native crops in various parts of the world that are dying out. Many of these are naturally drought and pest resistant, grow very easily, and in some cases, have much better nutritional value than many of the foods that are today more fashionable.
The moringa plant, for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
To compare (an example):
100 grams of moringa leaves has 9.3 g protein, 434 mg calcium, 738 g vitamin A, and 164 mg vitamin C
100 grams of spinach leaves has 2.9 g protein, 99 mg calcium, 469 g vitamin A, and 28 mg vitamin C
And this tree grows even in a desert. But I don't want to goo offtopic. This was just an example.
My only hope is that a platform like this - can and should - make knowledge and seeds accessible to all. We can literally solve world hunger and world health by doing this.
And what would that accomplish? If the courts recognize those patents, of course companies will get them.
The problem is with the courts and the laws, not with Monsanto. Neither party has done sh*t to address this. One party remains silent, while the other party hides its own corrupt agenda behind fake anti-corporate rhetoric.
Nope, but secure channel issues are already visible.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
GMO has nothing to do with it. It's more about preventing disease, nematodes, and other things getting here because someone was an idiot.
GMO seeds are highly regulated, grown by and certified by seed growers, and usually carry a guarantee to be free of disease, but still, I doubt you'd be able to bring those across too.
https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/600/kw/seeds/sno/1
Patents have a limited span, no? When the patent runs out, it's anybody's game. So, what's the problem?
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
During the depression of the last century many members of the communities were "marks" ( a mark on the fence or tree at the end of a drive where a human could find work, shelter and most importantly a meal without questions or judgements or sermons or any encumbrance) The faith in the inherent goodness of human kind is all that was asked.
Perhaps the seeds of our toils are of greater import than seeds of gold with shackles attached that are currently being horded away by some people and their corporate constructs. Indeed we reap what we sow. But enough about the Mennonite reasoning. On to why hording and narrowing of a any genotype is dangerous and destructive
For Example take fish culture;
Fish culture practices on the West Coast have shown that fish modified to behave like farm animals destroy their own stock and become nonviable over a very short period of time in evolutionary terms. Perhaps in the same way seed culturing will yield the same results if a robust source of unmodified stock is not always freely distributed and maintained by individuals with the foresight to see past the almighty dollar!
Don't be ridiculous. Farmers had been genetically modifying crops and livestock LONG before Monsanto and its ilk existed. Do you think modern crops and farm animals look anything like their ancestors just a few hundred years ago? Selectively breeding crops and animals has been around for thousands of years, and we're all still here.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Yeah, so....
1) Monsanto isn't using the Terminator seeds anymore
2) Monsanto seeds (and other GMO crops, and most seeds) are high intensity farming, if society falls apart these seeds will pretty much not grow without our existing infrastructure for irrigation and fertilizer. The food in the imagined post-apocalyptic world won't be the same as it is now. With how much energy per acre is required for these crops, you're screwed with or without terminator seeds. Sorry to break it to you.
3) Seed banks, germplasm banks have all sorts of varieties, precisely because varieties that don't grow well now might be excellent in a warmer, drought-filled future, or some post-apocalyptic flood plains. What the companies sell are for today, and do not have the genetic diversity to quickly acclimate to your imagined world.
4) I've been hearing about society falling apart, the apocalypse, for the past damn 30+ years, and literature on those subjects go further back. Prep all you want, don't expect me to care.
If you have a seed people are going to want (more than say RoundUpReady or whatever is patented, etc) you're going to have to do some genetic modifications either through breeding or more direct/exotic methods.
But as soon as it starts working or having value the FDA will start asking for records about what you started with, unusual behavior, how much revenue you are making, what your prayers are like, and which political organizations you are affiliated with. Their buddies in the EPA, IRS will soon see you as their punching bag or, worse yet, their pocket book.
The US economy is transitioning from a semi-centralized, semi-free market approach to more of a guild approach where producers are disallowed from reducing prices or finding new improvements.
We might be 2 or 3 wave elections away from seeing any changes here.
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.
IMHO such patents are highly unethical and do nothing for humanity as a whole.
Do you honestly think that everyone is just going to get together, sing Kumbaya, and collectively kick-in to donate the $ billions needed to do R&D to develop these higher-yield/easier-to-maintain crops, with no profit motive? It's a lovely thought. But aside from this proposed seed collective, I don't see a whole lot of other organizations out there stepping up to the plate and offering to replace Monsanto for free.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
This is a good place to discuss the seed banks around the world where the genetic diversity of endangered (and extinct) plants is protected. I'm not expert but perhaps you are.
Also, it seems that the opensourceseedinitiative site hasn't seen any activity for many months. Are they endangered too?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Patents last 20 years. All of todays seeds will eventually be public domain. Problem will solve itself by doing nothing.
Then give the consumers a choice to not buy GMO. Label products as GMO. No one is forced to buy doesn't apply, when that piece of information is not available.
Also they should stop patenting genes, which spread naturally into neighboring farms.
Then give the consumers a choice to not buy GMO. Label products as GMO.
Plenty of products are already labeled as NOT GMO. So people already have a choice.
Then give the consumers a choice to not buy GMO. Label products as GMO. No one is forced to buy doesn't apply, when that piece of information is not available.
Also they should stop patenting genes, which spread naturally into neighboring farms.
Companies are free to label as such.
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.
It used to be government sponsored agricultural universities that did this and it worked fine and still does. Now, however, those universities patent the varieties they develop. If a bunch of farmers want to get together and collectively agree to pitch in some money to support an agricultural university in their state that would do this in collaboration with similar institutions across the country that works perfectly fine and facilitated by our representative government and political process.
Neither party has done sh*t to address this.
Nobody's asking them to... The voters said, *Carry on with what you are doing*. There is no incentive to change anything at all. Don't look to the 'party' for help..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
But in the end, either way it's financed by those who use the seeds.
Yeah, this. If it weren't for genetic modification, the world would have reached its carrying capacity for humans ages ago. This is what I hate about the debate about GMOs: all the damned ignorance and fundamental misunderstanding of the term "genetically modified".
Course, most of that frustration holds true for many other debates as well.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Then give the consumers a choice to not buy GMO. Label products as GMO.
Plenty of products are already labeled as NOT GMO. So people already have a choice.
Not plenty enough. I am in the US west coast in a fairly large city, with a whole foods and a choice of stores. I honestly dont find enough products labelled GMO free.
Then grow your own
No shit. There's a reason why plant materials are quarantined, and it isn't some big GMO conspiracy. That's the problem with you anti-GMO people; you're so certain of your position, but you never even heard of quarantines for agricultural pests and diseases. Was your friend certain that there was no spores or pest eggs hidden on those seeds, and how were the regulators to know? I hope you've got a good answer.
humanity would be already extinct if we hadn't been genetically modifying food for thousands of years already. Almost every farm animal or crop has been genetically breed/xbreed over thousands of years to be a viable food source. Just compare native varieties of the various products to the farm versions. this planet could not support a fraction of the population it has without genetically modified foods.
http://www.seedsavers.org/ "Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds. Since 1975, our members have been passing on our garden heritage by collecting and distributing thousands of samples of rare garden seeds to other gardeners. "
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
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.
True. They've just patented Terminator seeds. But they've promised never to use the patent. So nothing to worry about there then.
What is a "source seed"? And how do you open them? (I guess they didn't know, that's why they "tried" to open them.)
No, they happened to buy the company (which just happened to be the largest provider of cotton seed around, Delta Pine and Land) which had patented the technology. A patent which expries mid-2015, so, probably not the main reason they bought DP&L.
Ah yes. Genes that ruin reproductive success really are a serious problem when they escape into the wild populations. Can you just take five minutes from conspiracy land and think about how that would work in the context of natural selection?
I think people may be confusing hybrid seeds with terminator seeds.
Most modern seeds are a cross between two parent lines. They are not stable and the next generation of seeds will not have the same carefully selected properties. This is not done on purpose to prevent them from being reused - it's just a property of the most effective method of generating seeds with targeted properties.
High quality open source seeds will most likely be hybrids, too. You will not be able to reuse their seeds. But the parent lines will not be kept as a guarded secret and multiple seed producers will be able to make generic versions at reasonable prices.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
In my state organic certification doesnt require it to be GMO free. Plus organic certification only covers fresh produce, I eat a lot of stuff that is not fresh produce.
"OMG, the seeds that can't reproduce might reproduce and keep other plants from reproducing!!"
This is what you sound like.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
No one makes or has ever sold sterile seeds. A gene is not "for" an organism. A gene is a sequence of DNA code that does something. There's nothing inherently "spider" about a gene. And here's the most hilarious part.
The simple economic argument is that it would probably be against a company's best interest to produce and release a foodstuff that was toxic or poisonous (which is why these things are tested for, sequenced out for verification, and chemically analyzed to check for this kind of thing). Not many companies make a good living on killing their customers. But even more basic than that, how do you know that your conventional or organic plant doesn't have a random mutation that makes the plant create cyanide? You don't. Why don't you distrust any of that? Because you don't know anything about biology or genetics beyond what you read at Natural News or Mercola. And these are the very sites that were screaming about this being genetically modified grass as their shining example when that was exactly not the case at all. Such credible. Wow.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Nice try Mike Adams, we know it's you.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
To my knowledge, organic certification is overseen by the USDA, and the certification process is handled by the local state agency but still under the USDA rules. Federal USDA organic certification requires products to not be genetically modified. Please correct me if I'm wrong, thanks.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Monsanto doesn't sell products to the general consumer population; they sell seeds to farmers. Their products are very clearly labeled as GMOs. If you want to slap labels on grocery store products, you need to come up with a valid reason to do so such as a difference in nutritional content or something else that actually matters. "I really, really want it!" is not a valid reason.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
You've never heard of terminator seeds, have you?
The seeds will grow normally but the seeds from the grown plants will die upon germination.
That would be a good safety measure except that there's nothing to prevent the pollen from giving a neighboring crop the terminator trait.
Of course I've heard of them. Anyone who has the slightest interest in the topic of GMOS will hear about them within 3 minutes of reading the topic because the anti-GMOS nutters love to toss the factoid out like its some big gotcha. There has never been a commercially available plant with GURT technology. So throwing that little "fact" out is outright disingenuous and willfully misleading. I wish the biotech companies would introduce it so we could stop all the bitching from the organic shills about "accidental contamination" and the thousands of lawsuits that have never happened because of it.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.