next »

[Wooster]

I'd like to say from the outset here that I haven't formed any informed decision about this, just the standard gut feeling that it could really be a bad move if some corporations get their way. And I'm just wondering if anyone else is aware of the issue and their thoughts on it.

The issue is biodiversity, sounds boring doesn't it? 

But think of this for a moment..

There are hundreds of thousands of species of plants.
Just nine of these plants supply the world with 75% of their (plant derived) food.
Of those nine plants, three (wheat, rice and corn) account for 50% of the total.
Some corporations want to patent the genetic code for these crops.

The question is,
Is it a good idea to hand over the keys to the best part of the world food supplies to a handful of corporations whose primary interest is profit?


(I tell you one thing, the Lords Prayer would be very different..)

[Nivlac]

They can have the patent for those ....right after they give me the patent on water, oxygen and carbon. 

The greedy fuckers need to be put out of business

[AbaddonsFury]

Definately NOT......

I recall buying some tomato seeds, so my kids could grow some...They grew nice....then....when they took a tomato to dry it out, get the seeds out, dry them and regrow them..no luck, nothing...I found out later that they had been modified to grow the batch that you bought, and only that....the seeds where modified not to grow from the second yield, thus forcing you to buy more seeds, a very dangerous game to play IMO, now here's a scenario, somehow someone makes a mistake and all tomatoes are get a touch of seeds that wont generate a second yield....no more tomatoes...a scarey thought...

[Nivlac]

That is a scary thought....those plants could cross pollinate with others and you end up with non fertile plants

[Wooster]

Most of the worlds seed crop is exactly the same as those tomatoes.
It was found years ago that if you pollinate a hardy plant with that of another then you could double your yield and hardiness, and if you did it again then you increased it even further. The problem was that if these super plants were pollinated by normal plants then you got nothing at all and that's where the bastards are trying to get us.

If you want to continue to grow these varieties then you have to buy your seed every year.
That's fair enough on the face of it since they've went to the bother of developing it, but if they held patents on the seeds, anybody selling traditional varieties of the same crop would find themselves being gradually squeezed out of the marketplace and big money would have themselves a monopoly ... which is exactly what they are after.

P.S. I jut found out that there's a term for this..

BioPiracy

[Ctulu]

I only know that bio diversity should remain.  For instance what if a virus destroy's all tomatoes and another form of tomatoes would be resistent to that but stopped being grown ...
Feck them global coorp's.  They think short tearm anual profits only ...

[Wooster]

That has been known to happen with some varieties, they are so inbred that they have no resistance to some diseases but putting all your eggs in one basket isn't a problem they care about.
They'll say that they have done everything they could to prevent it, but that's hardly a guarantee is it?

[keasy]

I've read the first part of this thread and no other, I have to type.


Beyond fecking belief.

[Wooster]

There is another side to the issue.

If they 'own' the rights to plants, then they deny nations the right to grow their own fuel...so the real agenda might be to take control of huge slices of the biofuel market.
Millions of people have probably already been earmarked for starvation by some companies so that we can continue to run our cars and they probably want the poor bastards to pay for the privilege as well.

[AbaddonsFury]

These mother fcukers are going to fuck this place....(more than what they already have)

They dont own the rights to tomatoes (eg)....
They may own the rights to their own doctored version, but not the version that was grown by Mother nature..
Modifying seed so they wont produce a second yeild should be illegal....

[Wooster]

They don't really modify those seeds, it's something that happens in the wild too...it's just that they do it on a huge scale.
The GM stuff is a whole other ballgame..

[AbaddonsFury]

ummmmmmm... yes they do..........and I do know it happens naturally (mules) also, ya big ball sack....

[Wooster]

ya big ball sack....

I could be doing with my hole, truth be told. 

[Centurion]

Maybe the millions arn't earmarked for starvation but slavery after all some one has to grow the fuel for the cars to run on.

[Vasco]

You can't patent something that is in common use, you can only patent specifics.

I tried to patent a logo once but because it contained a symbol that was commonly used by lots of the public I wasn't permitted to patent it.  I had to develop a unique symbol. 

It would be the same with seeds.  They couldn't patent ordinary everyday Tomato seeds but they could patent the seeds for a genetically modified plant that produced black tomatoes with white and red spots on them.

The danger is that the modified and patented product cross polenates the free unpattented product and makes the unpattented product sterile.  Then over a number of years only the pattented variety remains.

You will all have to come to NZ then as we will not allow GE modification etc and we try and keep everything natural. 

We as a planet aren't winning though as the banana has been so interbred to remove the seeds from the fruit that the latest varieties are sterile and it is getting harder and harder to get seeds.  This isn''t a patent problem or a modification problem but is the direct result of constant manipulation of natural reproduction.