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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

#41

Post by armchairhacker »

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…

> how are you proposing incentivizing developing new varietals if nobody can have patents on any breeds at all?

How do academics make scientific discoveries if the results are public?

Government, industry, and private patronage. People want better crops, they’ll fund and make contests for them

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

#42

Post by EA-3167 »

pjmorris wrote: post #36
ribosometronome wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I can go for a month, probably longer, without, say, the internet. I could also go a month without food, maybe, but there are people who can't. Food is different because it is essential to life.

This relates in no way to the availability of food, which in the US at least is high enough that starvation is the preserve of the terminally ill, anorexic/bulimic, addicted and indigent, rather than people who can't find calories to eat. This is almost entirely an economic issue that would be a lot easier to discuss without the incessant and repetitive emotional comments.

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

#43

Post by PunchyHamster »

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…

But you can't just take a seed and make a new plant of same characteristics. Now I'm not sure if that's the case for nectarines but apples mutate massively between seed and plant that made it so basically all plantations are clones or clones + grafts.

You'd have better luck "stealing" it with some wire cutters and cutting some shoots off the trees

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

#45

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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…

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.

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

#47

Post by Aurornis »

sampo wrote: post #34
Aurornis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> their wild propagation In general, crop plants don't propagate well in the wild. The whole point of breeding a crop plant is to remove their chemical defenses (to make them edible) and to make them produce lots of edible parts. This is usually the direct opposite of what plants need to survive in the wild.

The wind carries pollen from the crops long distances, where it cross-pollinates with other crops, some of which are grown from seed.

This is a real thing that happens. There have been major court cases about it, like this one from Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc_v_Schmeise...

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

#48

Post by PunchyHamster »

gruez wrote: post #33
jMyles wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gow…

>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. So you're against any sort of intellectual property?

Current IP rights are overly stringent and ones designed to protect IP actively detract from progress.

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

#49

Post by Aurornis »

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.

> “The sublicense agreement does not expressly state that its validity is dependent on the existence or issuance of a patent for the fruit,” he wrote.

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

#50

Post by cyberax »

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…

> ALL our staple food crops and most non staples are genetically engineered by millennia of cultivation and selective breeding

And during the last 100 years, the yields for many types of plants have grown several _times_ because of modern selective breeding methods. Here's a nice graph for cereals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Index-of-cereal-productio...

So you want to go back hundreds of years and force people to live in hunger with frequent famines?

There are plenty of patent-free crops. So just plant them. And the patents eventually expire.

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