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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

#81

Post by sampo »

dbcurtis wrote: post #60
efitz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, as an Iowa farm boy (and farm land owner) I have a more nuanced view. There have been hybrid maizes for many decades. It is possible to create unstable hybrids of normal field corns, which serves as a form of intellectual property protection for seed companies. As a farmer, you certainly can go out and plant heirloom varieties that can self-reproduce if you so choose. At which point, the choice of buying hybrid…

Monsanto ceased to exist 8 years ago. It was acquired and absorbed by a bigger company.

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

#82

Post by triceratops »

werdnapk wrote: post #25
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 m…

If someone grows a new tree from seeds after buying your fruit, their trees will take several years to bear fruit right? Works almost like a patent anyway.

(I don't know fruit growing well so maybe that's not true)

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

#83

Post by cyberax »

jolmg wrote: post #79
cyberax wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to destroy all the people who create hybrid plants? Isn't that a bit cruel? Edit: also, Monsanto has never actually used their non-replicating seeds. This is a common trope in the greenie hippie community that "Monsanto wants to own your food forever".

Strawman if I ever saw one.

Really? How? Has Monsanto used its termination patents?

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

#84

Post by gruez »

mschuster91 wrote: post #65
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a general thought on your comment style. Summarily declaring something "evil" means that you're not really interested in hearing any other comments on the topic, and that additional data or analysis of the issue will have no effect on your opinion. Which, in and of itself, may be fine for you, but I find it to be the absolute least useful comments on HN.

> Summarily declaring something "evil" means that you're not really interested in hearing any other comments on the topic, and that additional data or analysis of the issue will have no effect on your opinion. I'd say it is in the end an ethics issue. Sure, the tone may be offputting, but... I think there is value in having people around who actually hold beliefs and aren't as quickly willing to put their beliefs asi…

>I think there is value in having people around who actually hold beliefs and aren't as quickly willing to put their beliefs aside.

I don't know about you, but people who hyperbolically label stuff "evil" without providing justification seems like exactly the type of person who would flip-flop depending on whether it's politically expedient for them or not (eg. preaching fiscal responsibility when the opposition is in power, but then being fiscally profligate when they're in power).

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

#85

Post by dylan604 »

bpodgursky wrote: post #12
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.

This is so simplistic. They made a new varietal. Nobody is saying he can't plant any of the standard heirloom Nectarines. The patent will expire in a while, and then anyone can do it. Honestly, how are you proposing incentivizing developing new varietals if nobody can have patents on any breeds at all? This is how it has worked for half a century and mild gripes aside, the quality of the produce in stores is WAY WAY…

> The patent will expire in a while, and then anyone can do it.

I've read this a couple of times in these comments. However, this "in a while" is meaningless. A quick search suggests plant patents are 20 years from filing of patent. That's not as bad as I was thinking after hearing about the copyright nonsense of 95 years of publication or 120 years from creation depending. That'd be multiple generations of farmers rather than just one.

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

#86

Post by throwup238 »

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.

Like seedless grapes?

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

#87

Post by sampo »

Aurornis wrote: post #71
sampo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we understand "in the wild" to mean outside of farmers' fields, then rapeseed pollen flying from one rapeseed field to another nearby rapeseed field is not "in the wild".

If you redefine the words to win an argument you can win the argument. By "wild propagation" I meant outside of the original controlled planting. Propagating to another farm leaves the controlled area and now it's spreading in the wild.

This is what you wrote:

"The impact of their wild propagation should be studied first, not unleashed upon the local ecosystem."

So by "wild propagation" you meant farm-to-farm propagation? And by "local ecosystem" you meant "farmers' fields"? And you accuse others of redefining words.

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

#89

Post by jwsteigerwalt »

Aurornis wrote: post #49
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…

Despite what everyone is assuming, this case doesn't depend on patents. The farmer entered into an agreement with another company and they're locked in a legal battle about that agreement. > Fresno County Superior Court Judge Jon Skiles in May ruled that Giumarra’s breach of contract claim can go forward, saying that the agreement between Giumarra and Mora is valid whether there is a patent for the fruit or not. > “T…

Correct, many people get worked up over the idea of the patents that could be in play here; plenty of good reason when that is a consideration. The court has already decided that the existence of a patent or licensing agreement is not relevant; It’s a contract dispute.

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

#90

Post by basilikum »

ribosometronome wrote: post #75
basilikum wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are inanimate objects that are manually made out of raw materials by humans. It can make sense to grant the inventor of such a thing a time limited monopoly on its production by banning anyone else from manufacturing it for sale and distribution. Living beings are not inanimate objects that are manually made out of raw materials. They are not human-made. They reproduce and humans only create the environment for…

Patents function only to limit the actions of what living beings can and cannot do. Plus, it's seems false to paint this orchard as just an environment humans created where they reproduced. It's a place where the farmer very specifically reproduced them, not just the conditions.

> Patents function only to limit the actions of what living beings can and cannot do.

Like all other laws. I don't see how this is relevant.

> It's a place where the farmer very specifically reproduced them, not just the conditions.

Sorry to be so blunt, but the farmer is neither fucking peaches nor giving birth to them. Living beings self reproduce. Humans sometimes put a lot of work into creating the perfect conditions for that to happen, but that is irrelevant to the point. When I smash rocks together to create a tool I and only I created that. When I plant seeds for them to grow into fruits which contain many more seeds I did not create the new seeds on my own. That does not make my work any less valuable but it does change the nature of the action. The first scenario should be allowed to be restricted to the inventor for a limited time. The second scenario should not be restricted. The act of reproduction of life should never be seen as anyone's property.

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