Replies

It used to be that farmers would set ears of corn asside so that they would have seed for the next year (thus they would not need to buy seed).

I’m saying that, according to someone I spoke to recently, I’ve forgotten who, but he said that farmers now have to buy seed each year since the saved seed will not germinate due to the way it has been engineered.

This may not be not be the tinfoil hat topic that many here think.

he said that farmers now have to buy seed each year since the saved seed will not germinate due to the way it has been engineered.

If you try to plant GM seeds that you grew yourself, instead of buying from Monsanto (for example), Monsanto can sue you for violating their patent. And they'll genetically test your plants to prove it.

Post #51 in this thread helps explain the recent phenomenon of patented GM seeds that farmers have to buy new each year, as they won't reproduce on their own. The farmers who buy GM seeds from Monsanto, to get the yield benefits of the GM, have to keep buying them year after year.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1339473/posts?q=1&;page=51

When Petoseed was gobbled up by Monsanto, it ushered in a new era of agro-feudalism. Now there are only 5 commercial seed producers in the world. Incidentally Monsanto devised the "Terminator" technology that produces sterile wheat seed thereby eliminating the millienum-old practice of planting part of the previous years crop. Monsanto threatened legal action against recalcitrant farmers, I didn't know they actually had the huspa to follow through.

For all of the backyard gardeners out there, crop patents expire like any other patent. You can legally save,plant, and exchange non-patented and heirloom seed. And by planting different varieties at crosswind vs upwind/downwind orientations, by monoculture or by isolation, or even with the use of floating row covers, you can minimize unwanted cross-pollination.

Good sources of non-GM seed are seedsavers exchange www.seedsavers.org and in Maine, www.fedcoseeds.com. Fedco is a group of ex-hippies who no doubt all voted for Nader last November, but they are whizzes at offering reliable sources of rare and unique heirloom seed, and their agro-politics are shoulder-to-shoulder with those farmers who stood up to the British at Concord Bridge.