seed broadcast: Recent Comments

Comment on Organic Vegetable Farmers - WARNING - you may be engaging in contract agreements with Monsanto

2010-03-21T01:02:31Z

The problem is that through these rapacious tactics, Monsanto is severly limiting the diversity of the world's seed stock. This is extremely dangerous, not to mention, greedy.

What if a company comes along and tweaks a molecule of oxygen in the air we breath and then patents air? Far fetched maybe (or not), but the issue is that both air and food (which comes from seeds) are necessary components to life on this planet. The less resilience there is, the greater the chance for catastrophe.

Nature cannot be improved on. We are learning that the hard way.

Comment on Organic Vegetable Farmers - WARNING - you may be engaging in contract agreements with Monsanto

2010-03-21T01:00:22Z

Breeders can still receive royalty for their breeding work with PVP system. I'm not saying a plant breeder or a seed company should work for free, only that Congress created a model for breeders royalties that was working. The only thing patents are working to do is create monopolies. For more on the difference between the two:

http://www.extension.org/article/18449

Comment on Link to Seminis Varieties for professional growers and gardeners

2010-03-21T00:58:24Z

One of the major dangers is that the patents are not variety specific, but apply to genotypic and phenotypic expression. The patents for heat tolerance that you mention is only one of hundreds of such examples. For the F1 varieties I have seen to date, they are patenting disease resistance to particular races - again - something they did not INVENT, but that occurs naturally in the plant. It's a complete misuse of the patent system. No reason we shouldn't go back to PVP system and allow breeders to receive royalty, but allow for continued innovation of plants.

Comment on Organic Vegetable Farmers - WARNING - you may be engaging in contract agreements with Monsanto

2010-03-21T00:55:24Z

KARL -- You are incorrect in your belief that patents are only on biotech traits.
In ex parte Hibbard the PTO expanded patents to any part of the plant - leaves, tissue, seed, etc. As well as to a plants ability to resist disease or other genotypic expressions.

For more on IP: http://www.extension.org/article/18449

The patents on the varieties I have seen this language on from Seminis so far are likely these:

CMS in cukes: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=15&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=Cucumber&s2=Seminis&OS=Cucumber+AND+Seminis&RS=Cucumber+AND+Seminis

Tomato leaf curl in tomatoes: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7615689.PN.&OS=PN/7615689&RS=PN/7615689

Tissue culture in inbred parent lines for peppers:http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0255011.html

Comment on Link to Seminis Varieties for professional growers and gardeners

2010-03-19T22:11:29Z

I guess I'm not terribly worried about patents on F1 hybrids, as long as the company that patents them is the company that actually developed the F1 hybrid. Seminis hasn't put this label on any open pollinated varieties, have they? What happens if one of their hybrids contaminates my open-pollinated seed? Do I become the vegetable version of Percy Schmeiser? And, what's that business about not taking material for "genetic analysis"? Does that mean the farmer can't test the seed for GMO contamination? I'd like to see somebody challenge the patenting of "heat tolerance" in broccoli. Patent law shouldn't grant that, and if it granted, it shouldn't stand up to a legal test.

Comment on Organic Vegetable Farmers - WARNING - you may be engaging in contract agreements with Monsanto

2010-03-19T21:24:12Z

I would like to organize a "Day Without Groceries" to protest the fact that we do not even have a right to know if our food is GMO, Irradiated, Hormone or Antibiotic Fed. This standard is practice in the USA and it makes everyone of us an unwitting Guinea Pig!

Comment on Organic Vegetable Farmers - WARNING - you may be engaging in contract agreements with Monsanto

2010-03-19T18:17:16Z

I'm afraid I do not understand one aspect of this article. Utility patents, as I understand them, apply to GE crops, and not non-GE crops. You can also patent a molecular marker for detecting the presence of a naturally-occurring gene but not the gene itself. To to talk about utility patents in the context of non-GE tomatoes seems to be misleading. At first glance, this 'agreements' on the back of bags looks like a way to limit the use of the genetics they developed in breeding WITHOUT using patents. It doesn't sound like a strong legal means, and I'm not sure it would hold up in court either - because plant variety protections have exemptions that this 'agreement' is trying to prevent. I would certainly like to know more about it, but I think it needs to be put in its proper context.

Comment on Link to Seminis Varieties for professional growers and gardeners

2010-03-18T18:13:58Z

Thank you very much for this information. The more we can educate our market customers about this issue, the more support we will have for dropping these varieties from production. I did not realize so many (which is not that many) of Johnny's varieties were Seminis seed. Rather disturbing. We are a new farm, and save mostly herb and flower seeds for beneficial hedgerows, but I hope to do vegetable seed saving and breeding work in the future. I will look over my packets, and if I find something send it to you. We did like 'Fairytale' 'Hansel' & 'Gretel' eggplant quite a bit. I often dream of being a farmer in 1951, or 1870 times were simpler & there was more common sense.

Thank you for your valuable blog!

Mary Ellen D. Chadd
Cape Elizabeth, Maine

Comment on Organic Vegetable Farmers - WARNING - you may be engaging in contract agreements with Monsanto

2010-03-17T19:09:20Z

Folks, if you want a list of Seminis Varieties, here are two links.

1) The Seminis Professional Growers Product page: http://us.seminis.com/products/products.asp

2) The Seminis Home Gardener Product Page: http://us.seminis.com/products/hg_products.asp

Comment on Organic Vegetable Farmers - WARNING - you may be engaging in contract agreements with Monsanto

2010-03-17T17:40:03Z

I have searched and not discovered any place where a thorough and regularly updated list of vegetable varieties owned by Seminis and other monsanto companies. Could such a list be compiles?

I do purchase from Fedco to avoid Monsanto, but I keep discovering other varieties that I use and purchase from other sources are Monsanto owned. I don't want to have anything to do with them. I suspect that I'm still growing Monsanto varieties unknowingly.

Please, if you know of a list of all varieties connected to Monsanto, I'd like to have access to it!