Gavita Sold To Hawthorne Group

8thGenFarmer

8thGenFarmer

Well-Known Member
Sativied said:
I'm all with you there.


You are painting an extreme false dilemma of poor family breeders working with heirlooms vs modern breeders creating varieties that need patenting. There are many decades of conventional breeding between heirlooms and gmo varieties.

There are no good reasons to patent plants. New breeding methods, transgenesis, mixing genes from different species, do not make plant patents any more sensible. Breeder rights already cover and protect breeders and allows them to earn back their investment and much more, as Monsanto and many others have proven already for years. Plant patents are not required to advance breeding and is not better for innovation, on the very contrary. Monsanto is not interested in just making their investement back either, they want it back in 1000-fold.
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I believe that patenting of plants is only currently allowed for Gmo, because they cost so much to produce. Breeders rights work very much like patents do anyway, with a different name and an exemption for national interest and an expiration, but even by saying you only want breeders rights not patents, the result is the same. If you plant someone else's work without compensation they may take you to court. I Believe that principle is important.

Breeders deserve pay much like farmers. I'm not a seed commie but a seed capitalist I guess. Breeders rights currently gives you possession legally of all tissue culture and seeds developed through a breeding process.

All I know is this, people who plant tomatoes tend to love big ag products. They make a lot of tomatoes through the season, and they tailor them to our fields. We have to buy new seed every season, we don't replant our own seed. We still make more money and food then if we used the seeds available before big Ag. We aren't poor farmers with no other choice we make it willingly.

Our farm can't breed like they can, we are pollen checkers in comparison. Appreciate the discussion!
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
You're an idiot if you think someone should be able to sue over pollinating their own flowers and making seeds. It has nothing to do with capitalism. "because you're planting someone else's work". Give me a break... Do you know whose work you're really copying? Who created all these plants in the first place? As if humans just showed up on the planet and made "tomatoes" from scratch.

I suppose you think that if your children have kids that they are the result of your work too and you should have ownership rights over them. That's not how genetics works. The whole idea is just wrong.
 
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8thGenFarmer

8thGenFarmer

Well-Known Member
churchhaze said:
Ownership and control over IP isn't the only way you can make a return by investing in R&D. People said the exact same thing about software development and then GNU came along all on its own...

There's no proof that patents streamline the design process. They're just there to help large corporations totally own industries without fear of competition.
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Patents also help the little guy. Without a patent big guys will make your new product cheaper and quicker than you could. Inventors around the world need patents, especially the little guys.

I think this conversation is more about politics than farming :)
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
8thGenFarmer said:
Patents also help the little guy. Without a patent big guys will make your new product cheaper and quicker than you could. Inventors around the world need patents, especially the little guys.

I think this conversation is more about politics than farming :)
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I can hardly see how snuffing out competition by threats of suing them helps the consumer with prices, but you can believe that if you want. In fact, it hurts the little guy because everything is already patented when he's born, and it ultimately ends up being sold to large corporations just so they can sit on them in case they want to use the design one day or prevent it from ever competing with their product.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
8thGenFarmer said:
Patents also help the little guy. Without a patent big guys will make your new product cheaper and quicker than you could. Inventors around the world need patents, especially the little guys.

I think this conversation is more about politics than farming :)
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I wasn't aware there was any separation between the two subjects.
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
Cue the people who think nobody would produce good music and art without copyright laws. It would just disappear off the face of the planet.

Our incentive for everything we do is to have the ability to sue. (i guess i just don't buy it)
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
8thGenFarmer said:
Patents also help the little guy. Without a patent big guys will make your new product cheaper and quicker than you could. Inventors around the world need patents, especially the little guys.

I think this conversation is more about politics than farming :)
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Folks are scared of the new era coming, where big business moves into previously forbidden territory and makes a better product for less than the tent grow can. I recognize those fears and I feel the best way to allay them is to make sure standards are kept, ethical practices enforced and the playing field is level for everyone.

I plan to be one of the little guys with an idea to sell to a big company, thereby creating the best of both worlds working together for the benefit of all. And what is wrong with that?

Big Ag didn't spring out of the ground overnight, there's good reasons for these companies and plenty of smart ideas and talented people. If things like GMO foods make us wary, there's a way to handle that, instead of demonizing an entire industrial sector while simultaneously literally eating the products it provides. Such a thing would be hypocritical, wouldn't it? And of course no one is a hypocrite, right? o_O
 
Atulip

Atulip

Well-Known Member
I'm scared of the new era where big business can produce everything, and no longer needs my labor.
 
captainmorgan

captainmorgan

Well-Known Member
How about all the wonderful GMO fruit and vegetables in most grocery stores. They look beautiful and don't bruise easily which is good for transport but all the flavor has been bred out of them and they taste like you're eating cardboard.
 
8thGenFarmer

8thGenFarmer

Well-Known Member
churchhaze said:
You're an idiot if you think someone should be able to sue over pollinating their own flowers and making seeds. It has nothing to do with capitalism. "because you're planting someone else's work". Give me a break...

I suppose you think that if your children have kids that they are the result of your work too and you should have ownership rights over them. That's not how genetics works.
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Well children and plants aren't exactly the same. We are talking business not just genetics. And currently yes, you can get sued for planting someone else's plants if you didn't buy it. We sign contracts annually promising not to replant the seed.
That isn't new. The drifting of pollen controversy is new, but not ownership of strains. That actually goes back millennia. The Dutch protected the tulip, the English wouldn't let others grow tea, the Mongols killed people who tried to take silk worms. Monsanto is certainly nicer than the mongols gotta give em that at least.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
captainmorgan said:
How about all the wonderful GMO fruit and vegetables in most grocery stores. They look beautiful and don't bruise easily which is good for transport but all the flavor has been bred out of them and they taste like you're eating cardboard.
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That's not GMO, that's breeding for mass production and transport. GMO us still relatively new and not as all pervasive as the alarmists make out. Some new ideas aren't so great and so an all consuming bias towards new technology is no panacea. That's no reason to fear change.

Breeding for better flavor and texture is great- marrying that with rooftop or container growing tech of the kind we're all familiar with is again the best of both worlds. It's called progress and rather than fear it, I exhort you to embrace it!
 
8thGenFarmer

8thGenFarmer

Well-Known Member
captainmorgan said:
How about all the wonderful GMO fruit and vegetables in most grocery stores. They look beautiful and don't bruise easily which is good for transport but all the flavor has been bred out of them and they taste like you're eating cardboard.
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Not a big fan of that either man! I like heirloom varieties of all kinds of things. I go to farmers markets and support people who make good distinct veggies and food. Much of that is the buyer at the store though. Ever try selling someone a bruised tomato? It's almost impossible!
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
8thGenFarmer said:
Well children and plants aren't exactly the same. We are talking business not just genetics. And currently yes, you can get sued for planting someone else's plants if you didn't buy it. We sign contracts annually promising not to replant the seed.
That isn't new. The drifting of pollen controversy is new, but not ownership of strains. That actually goes back millennia. The Dutch protected the tulip, the English wouldn't let others grow tea, the Mongols killed people who tried to take silk worms. Monsanto is certainly nicer than the mongols gotta give em that at least.
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Maybe if you want someone not to steal your work, it shouldn't be in the form of something that has the ability to make more of itself. Nobody is actually stealing when someone produces their own seeds. Perhaps go into another line of business if you're afraid someone is going to use your seeds to make more seeds. It's not like they're stealing your machinery (capital).

Also, just because something went back for years doesn't mean it's right or wrong. Slavery also went back for years.
 
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