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> If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ? I'm not a biologist, but I assume it is possible t
by dexen 14y ago
> If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ?
I'm not a biologist, but I assume it is possible to make 1G grains edible but infertile -- incapable of sprouting a new plant and/or growing 2G grains. That would render 1G grains useless for sewing, and still usable for anything else. Much like cross of horse and donkey is a viable, but infertile mule.
The way I imagine it, Monsanto have to grow two strains of grain, each giving viable grains when pollinated within the strain, but giving only infertile 1G seeds when cross-pollinated.
Of course that would generate extra costs for Monsanto: additional research, maintaining two separate strains and cross-pollinating them.
- veemjeem 14y agoIt's probably possible to do that with fruit (making seedless fruit), but probably not possible with edible seeds like soybean or corn. If we were playing God here, why didn't Monsanto just invent a plant that would produce all different kinds of fruit on one plant so that we didn't have to plant a bunch of different crops? It would be even better if the plant could position the fruit at known intervals on a branch to increase the speed of harvesting machinery. So obviously some things aren't quite possible. Your suggestion is nice, but I don't think it's as easy as doing a few years of research.
- nitrogen 14y agoI believe there is a variety of rice that is an infertile hybrid. I recall seeing it on some PBS show,l or similar, but don't have a reference at the moment.
- veemjeem 14y agoWell, all I'm saying is if it were easy to do, Monsanto probably would have done it already to protect their business model. Unfortunately modifying DNA is not quite as easy as setting compiler flags.
- dchest 14y agoFrom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Technology Because some stakeholders expressed concerns that this technology might lead to dependence for small farmers, Monsanto Company, an agricultural products company and the world's biggest seed supplier, pledged not to commercialize the technology in 1999.[2] Customers who buy patented transgenic seeds from Monsanto must sign a contract not to save or sell the seeds from their harvest,[3] which preempts the need for a "terminator gene".
- jessaustin 14y agoThe concern was that the "terminator" gene would force poor farmers to buy seeds every year, and they alleviated that concern by instead forcing poor farmers to buy seeds every year by contract? Let me guess, the "stakeholders" we have in mind here are trial lawyers? Sometimes the technological solution really is better than the "social" solution. It leads me to wonder just how effective this terminator thing really is.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- xyzzy123 14y agoWell, it's like the ultimate genetic defect. So basically relying on the technological solution alone isn't going to last, because of all the billions of seeds... the ones which can reproduce will be the ones which do.
- jessaustin 14y agoHahaha, that's a handy redefinition of "genetic defect", but I doubt Steven Jay Gould would agree... Actually the vast majority of soybeans are processed into useful products like shoyu, livestock feed, plastics, etc. If the viable soybean were a needle in a haystack, no farmer would bother looking for it.
- 14y ago