Also, accq stated (my emphasis):
> their patented plants
Levering patent law to deny farmers the right to manage their own seed corn is akin to privatizing water tables or charging for oxygen. Sure, it's a great business model, but it's also immoral, evil and hard to see as something that brings us as a global collective to a better place.
From the letter:
> Humans have genetically engineered seeds for 11,000 years, primarily through seed breeding, where we “got rid of” the traits we didn’t want and introduced the traits we did.
That doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do so, without a lot of thought towards the common good. We're down a few hundred species of corns that can be used to make flour -- and among the problems resulting for that is that we don't have as many hardy species that can grow in subarctic regions. Another problem of this "natural" monoculture is vulnerability to insects, pests and diseases.
GMO, in and of itself, isn't evil -- it may be dangerous (messing with biotopes is a risky business) -- and leaving it up to a for-profit multinational seems like an extraordinarily bad idea.
> their patented plants
Levering patent law to deny farmers the right to manage their own seed corn is akin to privatizing water tables or charging for oxygen. Sure, it's a great business model, but it's also immoral, evil and hard to see as something that brings us as a global collective to a better place.
From the letter:
> Humans have genetically engineered seeds for 11,000 years, primarily through seed breeding, where we “got rid of” the traits we didn’t want and introduced the traits we did.
That doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do so, without a lot of thought towards the common good. We're down a few hundred species of corns that can be used to make flour -- and among the problems resulting for that is that we don't have as many hardy species that can grow in subarctic regions. Another problem of this "natural" monoculture is vulnerability to insects, pests and diseases.
GMO, in and of itself, isn't evil -- it may be dangerous (messing with biotopes is a risky business) -- and leaving it up to a for-profit multinational seems like an extraordinarily bad idea.