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There are a quite a few farmers on HN, myself included. How are we being chained? I am quite familiar with the usual talking points you see in movies, but they
by randomdata 5y ago
There are a quite a few farmers on HN, myself included. How are we being chained? I am quite familiar with the usual talking points you see in movies, but they are intended for a non-farmer audience and don't really mean much to those actually involved in agriculture. More technically, speaking to an actual audience of farmers, what does this mean and how does it play out in practice?
- PYTHONDJANGO 5y agoYou do not own the seeds - owning the crops always was the real wealth for farmers. It is similar to not owning your hardware, but with much worse consequences for humanity as we loose crop diversity, which is very important for producing new resistent crops.
- randomdata 5y agoBin run wheat can arguably compete with what seed producers are putting out, but there is no GMO wheat on the market, so that's moot. When it comes to the other crops I grow, I have little interest in owning the seeds. The commercial seed producers produce seed that will far outperform anything I can produce. I'm going to be buying my seed from them each year regardless of ownership structure because, frankly, they sell a better product. It has been that way for much longer than GMO has been a thing. DIY isn't always better. In the modern world the wealth is in the land. Seeds are worthless if you have nowhere to grow them.