Warning!

[grassfarmer]

This topic maybe belongs on the "Rural Issues" page but I think it is important enough that agricultural producers everywhere need to read it.
It seems the US operation "Iraqi Freedom" is less about freeing the world of global terrorism than enslaving the world to a handful of US corporations. Vis:

"The (now former) American Administrator of the Iraqi CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) government, Paul Bremer,updated Iraq's intellectual property law to 'meet current internationally-recognized standards of protection.'
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/ regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf
The updated law makes saving seeds for next year's harvest, practiced by 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002, the standard farming practice for thousands of years across human civilizations, now illegal.
Instead, farmers will have to obtain a yearly license for genetically-modified seeds from American corporations. These GM seeds have typically been modified from IP developed over thousands of generations by indigenous farmers like the Iraqis, shared freely like agricultural 'open source.' Other IP provisions for technology in the law further integrate Iraq into the American IP economy."
As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations -- including seeds the Iraqis themselves developed over hundreds of years. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve"

[tower]

I wonder how many of us are aware of the changes to the plant breeders rights legislation being proposed here in Canada. Changes being put forward by the Canadian Seed Trade Association. Extending patent time lengths, restricting the farmers rights here to save their own seed, etc.

Check out the National Farmers Union website, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

[jensend]

the implications concern me too. i'd like to hear from some of the pedigreed seedgrowers here what their perspective is on this proposed act.

[tower]

So woud I, and some of the common seed growers as well.

[jensend]

the silence is deafening.

[grassfarmer]

What is the saying "For evil to succeed takes only good men to stand back?"

[TOM4CWB]

I was reading the CSGA Seed Scoop, and PBR was an issue. I believe there is an actual ISO standard to retain Seed saved by farmers for there own use.

This is an important standard to implement...

For those who simply want bootleg brownbag free seed... Sorry... if the new technology is to be developed... someone must pay for it.

Otherwise each of us should just breed our own seeds... and find out just how much work it is... and how disappointing it is when a theif steals a lifetime of work... in the name of just what? Isn't it called GREED? Lack of respect for our neighbours'(the plant breeders) hard work; blood sweat and tears?

[wd9]

A good use of this thread may be, what do farmers want the farmers privilege to be?

[tower]

The farmers priviledge should be a right in the same sense that a plant breeder has a right. The work and blood sweat and tears that farmers put into growing a seed crop must be at least as onerous as the breeders.

The people working on developing new seed for us were educated in our public system, were subsidized through University, and now want to make what amounts to windfall returns for essentially a working lifetime, 25 years, for developing a variety of seed that may or may not be better than the next variety, may not have even been tested to determine if it has any benefit beyond what we already have, and may not even be in the best interests of society as a whole.

Greed? how much a tonne do you pay for the new Canola seed? Figure all the charges into it.

[wd9]

With 85 or 90% of the canola producers buying certified seed, it would seem farmers are not concerned at all with farmers privilege, at least in canola. What we say we want and what we do by signing agreements seem to be two very different scenarios. What am I missing?

[grassfarmer]

And that is a good reason why we should keep the status quo. If the plant breeders can breed a good enough plant that the market wants it good luck to them but they have no need to insist that farmers must buy seed every year and be unable to use their own. That is all about greed and world domination.

[jensend]

all the seed companies want to have the monsanto tax privilege. how long until the grass seed companies want to tax our grazing lands because we're grazing their proprietary technology?

[gwynplaine]

I'm not really sure what World Domination has to do with Plant Breeding. It's obvious that a lot of producers are not aware of what goes into developing a new seed variety. It's unfortunate, really. I think all we really need to look at, though, is the advances in Canola breeding since PBR came into effect. Compare that to wheat. Or barley. Now look at who is doing the work and why. Private industry has taken on Canola in a big way, because they have the ability to re-coup their expenses.

I've said it before, I'll say it again (and, most likely, again, and again, and again). If you Don't like the terms, don't grow the varieties. There still are other options and public varieties... somewhere. Obviously there's money to be made growing Protected Varieties, or else we'd all still be growing Defender and Legacy.

I agree with the Greed analogy... "I want to keep my seed. I want to benefit from other peoples work... for free." (maybe that's not Greed, maybe it's just "Canadian")

[Ajax]

I don't get it. If you want to grow shareware in your field or sell it to your neighbour go ahead, but if you want to grow something from Microsoft or Adobe, you better be willing to pay the developer of the product.

Is there a difference with this or PBR? There are plenty of varieties that don't have any PBR's attached to them.

The idea that because someone went through the public school system should mean that they give away their years of development is ridiculous. I would think that this is no different than a doctor or lawyer or even a farmer that went to school. Even Universities have the right to recoup the costs of items that they develop.

[jensend]

i guess maybe some of the frustration from grain farmers might be that the seed companies and seed growers run to the government to get what the market won't give them. in europe or the usa subsidies make it possible for famers to be able to afford these laws. then it becomes a tax on everybody for the use of intellectual property. here we aren't sheltered to as great a degree and seed, grain, fertilizer, chemical companies know that if i don't farm the land next year someone else will and they will have a market. i guess the attitude i have to take is that the seed companies don't deserve any more protection than i get and if a seed grower or company disappears someone else will take their place. to me the problem is that the seed companies want legislated protection when i am forced to compete in the market.