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Grand Rapids, MI | Ron,
I would never consider anyone a low-life or thief for contemplating saving seed. In fact, the reason I really like working with farmers is that I find very few low lives and thieves. I believe if the seed companies could find a mechanism that worked, there could be benefits to them licensing their technology directly to farmers in saved seed.
I do think, however that it is stealing to sign an agreement that allows you to only plant the seed in one year, and not save any seed, then turn around and save seed.
I also am of the opinion that producers are too willing, in general, to sign various agreements. If no farmer was wiling to sign Monsanto's agreement, they would be forced to change it. I do understand the difficulty. An average individual producer has very little market power as compared with their large suppliers and customers. These agreements basically become contracts of adhesion. This probably isn't going to change until we see the levels of consolidation in grain production like we have seen in animal protien production. At that point these large producers (or groups of producers) may begin to have the market power necessary to play in the same ballpark.
Oh and btw...lets talk about in excess of SEVEN figures for big seed/technology company CEO's
Edited by lorenk 10/10/2006 19:13
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How long is Monsanto's patent on RR beans?
