Intellectual Property Laws

[tweety]

Apparently it is. Farmers want the hand holding, the seed reps, the endless company trucks driving around holding your dick while they tell you when to swath, what is new, endless crop tours, trips around the world and variety trials with "free beer".

Ever see an oats sales person? Or barley? Or wheat? Or peas? Or...

Its an animal we all have created. They could probably can 90% of the people out there but we all love the 'marketing' of canola seed and that's at least 20 bucks an acre.

Not all canola is 12$ a pound either. Some good varieties are much less. Also don't forget to remove the tech fee in RR canola and the jumpstart and the seed treatment and all of a sudden its way cheaper then certified faba - easy 50$ and peas - 35 to 50 depending on variety and getting really close to certified wheat and barley seed when you compare SEED cost and process.

You have to compare apples to apples. Vibrance and helix and Lumiderm and tech fee and the sales staff are a big chunk of the price. Liberty, well if you wanna pay that much, you certainly have the choice.

And remember, this is hybrid seed. There is an awful lot of work in making hybrid seed. Its an expensive process!!!! If you start looking at what you are paying for, hybrid canola is actually quite competitively priced.

Stop thinking for a second like a farmer and more like an accountant when you look at canola seed. Consider all that you get in that bag besides just the seed. If they sold it the way Tom4 sells his seed - nothing but bare seed with no tech, no treatment, no free beer, not being a hybrid, a bag of canola seed would be way cheaper.

Compare apples to apples

[GOODRUM]

With all the helix , lubriderm, hybrid , yield benefits in a bag of seed I must be doing something wrong , there costs are all justified and there is no price gouging at all.

So what is the cost of producing a bag of seed?

I would like walmart or Kirkland to have a canola seed department.

[farmaholic]

Yea, and well the accountant in me says every "add on" to that bare canola seed yields a margin for them as well!!!!


Read further up about me saying they need to trim the fat and personnel that contribute nothing but costs...

[tweety]

Goodrum, i have no idea what it costs to produce a pound of hybrid seed. If you include variety development and getting approval in every country and planting male female, crossing, cutting out, harvesting only hybrid, its is very labour intensive.

Its a lot more then just planting OP and cleaning it.

If i were to guess, its gotta be 3 or 4 bucks at least for treatment (which goes to the treatment maker - not the seed company), 3 for TUA (which goes to licensing from and to Mons), 2 bucks for handling and shipping and bagging, treating and the rest is seed cost? Not that much for the actual seed to be laboriously hybrid produced.

Anyone actually know?

[tweety]

given all the canola grown and pretty much all of it with the latest greatest most expensive new hybrids, i'd say the nailed it with what the market will bear.

So, i guess there is no problem after all.

[farmaholic]

That's the conclusion you've come to? Do you realize we are dealing with near monopolistic companies? And the argument of just anyone starting up and competing is senseless... So that justifies your argument? Words like collusion, gouging come to mind. Years of ratcheting up the price, where is resistance? In brown bagging.

[tweety]

So start up a company and give farmers cheap hybrid HT seed. Make a fortune. The reality is no one wants it because they want the latest Invigor seed for 19.95 a pound so they can outgrow their neighbour who bought the 17$ stuff.

Or grow AC Excel, any non HT open pollinated.

Or realize you can't have all the latest high tech genetics and technologies - and not pay for them.

Farmaholic, it should be very obvious, there is nothing worth growing that's almost for free - so you're gonna have to steal it.

And that's a completely feasible and workable option if you're willing to live with the risk.

You should be able to tell by the complete lack of postings by others, its only a problem for you and Goodrum. Everyone else is accepting of the fact you get what you pay for with canola seed.

The seed cost itself is not out of line with most other certified seed costs per acre - especially considering its a hybrid.

[farmaholic]

Lol. No one else probably wants to debate you. I think we've both made our points. ..... thanks.

[GOODRUM]

Not many supporting tweety either...........
Just sayin...

[tweety]

Ya you're probably right. Or at least lost interest 50 posts ago because there is no solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.

Good luck with Westar in the future.

[wmoebis]

Pretty sure there would still be farmers without Intellectual Property Laws but would there be seed companies or need for these laws without farmers?