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> Nobody is patenting naturally occurring plants to my knowledge. Plant breeders make specific (usually) sexual crosses and sift through the progeny. Since plan

> Nobody is patenting naturally occurring plants to my knowledge. Plant breeders make specific (usually) sexual crosses and sift through the progeny. Since plants have tremendous variation, many of the progeny are different than the parents. This is the basic form of one invention. I never argued that they were patenting wild plants. But bred plants existed long before they could be patented. Indeed, Monsanto did not start with "wild" strains, but with strains developed over millenia of selective breeding. Plant patents are a form of "enclosure", where a domain that was previously freely available to the public (plant breeding) becomes commercialized and monetized so only a few entities can realistically improve on plant strains without risking a lawsuit. How this benefits innovation in the broad sense is beyond me. But it's certainly good for biotech companies' bottom line.

kickout 4y ago
Go check out crop yields of your favorite crop for the past 20,30,50,100 years. Plant breeding and biotech have done _alot_ to reduce hunger and keep food prices low. Previous generations may have breed crops for pure survival reasons (they needed the best genetics to propagate themselves to ensure a plentiful harvest next year). I enjoy the debate around plant breeding, and there are issues with IP and how that IP is protected/enforced/interpreted. No different than many other industries. It would be difficult to adequately argue that IP in the ag sector has been not been net beneficial for most players (companies, consumers, farmers, etc.).
kickout 4y ago
Private plant breeding corps have only been around for <100 years (many <40). Many research universities and non-profits (CGIGAR, IRRI, CIMMYT, etc.) do plant improvement and had a huge head start. Yet these innovations didn't arise from them. I would argue they've simply been outcompeted. The market has spoken in many cases. You can still buy non-IP seed, easily. But because there is no-IP, its hard to recoup money and reinvest it thus they stagnate.

kickout 4y ago

Go check out crop yields of your favorite crop for the past 20,30,50,100 years. Plant breeding and biotech have done _alot_ to reduce hunger and keep food prices low. Previous generations may have breed crops for pure survival reasons (they needed the best genetics to propagate themselves to ensure a plentiful harvest next year). I enjoy the debate around plant breeding, and there are issues with IP and how that IP is protected/enforced/interpreted. No different than many other industries. It would be difficult to adequately argue that IP in the ag sector has been not been net beneficial for most players (companies, consumers, farmers, etc.).

kickout 4y ago

Private plant breeding corps have only been around for <100 years (many <40). Many research universities and non-profits (CGIGAR, IRRI, CIMMYT, etc.) do plant improvement and had a huge head start. Yet these innovations didn't arise from them. I would argue they've simply been outcompeted. The market has spoken in many cases. You can still buy non-IP seed, easily. But because there is no-IP, its hard to recoup money and reinvest it thus they stagnate.