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Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

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Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#21

Post by Aurornis »

efitz wrote: post #9
efitz wrote: post #6

Patents on food crops, even genetically engineered ones, are evil. ALL our staple food crops and most non staples are genetically engineered by millennia of cultivation and selective breeding; CRISPR is just a fancy mechanism for what we’ve always done to food. Regulations that prevent farmers from selling food that is safe, are evil. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned the regulation is. Any government functionar…

Oh, and there is a special place in hell reserved for anyone involved in designing food crops that can’t reproduce.

It is preferable if genetically engineered crops cannot reproduce. The impact of their wild propagation should be studied first, not unleashed upon the local ecosystem.

Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#22

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ars wrote: post #11
efitz wrote: post #6

Patents on food crops, even genetically engineered ones, are evil. ALL our staple food crops and most non staples are genetically engineered by millennia of cultivation and selective breeding; CRISPR is just a fancy mechanism for what we’ve always done to food. Regulations that prevent farmers from selling food that is safe, are evil. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned the regulation is. Any government functionar…

You are perfectly free to keep selling what we've been eating. No one is forcing people to plant the new stuff. If you make patents illegal, no one will breed new stuff. How does that help? All that will do is cause people to grow the old stuff, which they still can, even if the patent exists. Do you get what I mean? Adding a patent does not reduce anything, it only adds a new option.

> If you make patents illegal, no one will breed new stuff. How does that help?

There would still be public, industry-group and philanthropic research. But yes, probably much less.

Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#23

Post by jMyles »

bluerooibos wrote: post #10
jMyles wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and none does. You can grow and sell any peach you want; the tree has no sense of the childish tantrums of the state over its bounty. This is a strong and obvious indications that the laws and statues as presented by the state are not in fact the actual underlying modes under which society operates.

> ..and none does. Monsanto begs to differ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co .

Of course, but my point is: Monsanto is obviously incorrect. It's plain to see. Plants grow without permission. Bytes flow without permission. Ideas propagate without permission.

All this silliness to create a huge complicated regime to pretend that these things are "property" in the same sense as your underwear is just so obviously childish, incoherent, and inconsistent with reality.

It's just a really elaborate gown purported to be worn by the manifestly naked emperor.

Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#24

Post by petcat »

lokar wrote: post #14
petcat wrote: post #7

> In its court filings, Giumarra says all rights to the Monalise variety are owned by Star Fruits Diffusion, a French company that works with plant breeding programs, while Giumarra holds the right to sublicense the variety for testing, production and sale. > French company Enough said. This US admin will nuke that agreement instantly. If it was a fellow American company, let it pass.

But it’s a US company collecting the money from the farmers. If they hold enough trumpcoin they have a pretty good case.

Oh sure, but go up the chain, which is exactly what these guys are doing. As soon as the US prez hears that some French fops in powdered wigs are preventing USA farmers from selling their nectarines in California, he's going to go ballistic (on his phone, during his toilet break).

Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#25

Post by werdnapk »

john_strinlai wrote: post #2

> locked in a legal battle with a company that claims exclusive rights over the variety of white nectarine he grows. > [...] Fruit patents are becoming more common this is unbelievably stupid. no company should have rights or patents over a variety of food.

If you spent decades doing selective breeding to obtain a more desirable product, you'd probably be a bit annoyed if others just stole the product from you and made money off of your hard work.

If the products are being bred from tax funded programs, then yes, anybody should have access to the new breeds, but if it's privately funded, then why should it be available for everyone? Without the protection, there isn't much incentive to invest time into developing better foods.

Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#26

Post by ribosometronome »

efitz wrote: post #6

Patents on food crops, even genetically engineered ones, are evil. ALL our staple food crops and most non staples are genetically engineered by millennia of cultivation and selective breeding; CRISPR is just a fancy mechanism for what we’ve always done to food. Regulations that prevent farmers from selling food that is safe, are evil. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned the regulation is. Any government functionar…

In general, invention of new things is something humanity's been tackling for quite awhile. Why would this apply specifically to food versus, well, everything?

Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#27

Post by cardamomo »

aorth wrote: post #3

Reminds me of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath .

“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountain.

"And the smell of rot fills the country.“ (Chapter 35)

This passage had a profound impact on me when I first read it in high school. Only later did I discover that such atrocities still happen regularly today.

Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#29

Post by IncandescentGas »

ars wrote: post #11
efitz wrote: post #6

Patents on food crops, even genetically engineered ones, are evil. ALL our staple food crops and most non staples are genetically engineered by millennia of cultivation and selective breeding; CRISPR is just a fancy mechanism for what we’ve always done to food. Regulations that prevent farmers from selling food that is safe, are evil. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned the regulation is. Any government functionar…

You are perfectly free to keep selling what we've been eating. No one is forcing people to plant the new stuff. If you make patents illegal, no one will breed new stuff. How does that help? All that will do is cause people to grow the old stuff, which they still can, even if the patent exists. Do you get what I mean? Adding a patent does not reduce anything, it only adds a new option.

> You are perfectly free to keep selling what we've been eating. No one is forcing people to plant the new stuff.

This common sense statement should be true, but is wholly ignorant of the lawsuits farmers deal with from seed suppliers

Re: Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

#30

Post by JumpCrisscross »

efitz wrote: post #9
efitz wrote: post #6

Patents on food crops, even genetically engineered ones, are evil. ALL our staple food crops and most non staples are genetically engineered by millennia of cultivation and selective breeding; CRISPR is just a fancy mechanism for what we’ve always done to food. Regulations that prevent farmers from selling food that is safe, are evil. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned the regulation is. Any government functionar…

Oh, and there is a special place in hell reserved for anyone involved in designing food crops that can’t reproduce.

> anyone involved in designing food crops that can’t reproduce

This is a side effect of many clonal varieties of selective-bred crops. It's why they have to be grafted.

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