Why Farmers Can’t Legally Replant Their Own Seeds

Video written by Ben Doyle

[TheWhiteDragon]

Yup, it's why during disaster relief in Haiti when Monsanto made a "charitable" donation of seeds, the farmers knew that they were being led into a system of reliance on Monsanto, so they piled up all the seeds they received and burned them.

[AkashYadavOriginal]

In India farmers can plant seeds from the crop they have sown. Monsanto and Bayer tried to stop them, but Supreme Court ruled in favour of farmers that seeds can't be patented and you can't deny farmers planting seeds from their produce. Some have even crossbreed these patented seeds with generic ones and sell them cheaper.

[learntostrafe]

Took a botany class and my professor used to work for Lays potato chips. She said that their security was so intense while she had to go into the lab that they would have to do a full examination to make sure you weren't stealing any modified seeds to sell to competitors

[ninjadamian]

its so insane that people can patent a raw food and get away with it

[skullnickx]

Lay's tried to sue some farmers in India for growing patented potatoes and took the case to court.The court ruled in favour of the farmers and now no company can hold crop patents now.

[dannymac]

Two comments: This episode should be called "Half as Depressing." Also, I loved how freaky the talking Pepsi logo was.

[Aidengaming]

The seed control is one of the scariest things ive ever realized.

[QMagi]

It's called the MONSONTO protection act. It's a law that was quickly pushed (with considerable lobbying) to prevent farmers from using the seeds again.

[cykablyat]

I’m a farmer and confirm that this is true, but there’s not point to waste expensive land planting seeds that aren’t meant to be seeds (I know it makes no sense.) Basically crops such as soybeans are bred to make more oil, so the seeds are less potent as seeds

[Heligoland]

Hey, it's like Ancient Egypt. The farmers were lent seeds by the government, and were required to send them back after the harvest (obviously using the new seeds grown).

[jlr]

2016 I moved to Kansas to keep an eye on a friend’s 900 ac., I quickly learned how it works… the property owner contacted with a local farmer/land owner with equipment, that farmer purchased GMO seed from Beyer, which he planted, then he purchased fertilizer from Beyer, then purchased weed killer from Beyer which wouldn’t kill the GMO corn or soybeans, at harvest time farmer harvested and sold crop to Beyer. Sometimes he would store the crop and sell when prices went up. Profit to the land owner was small.
Interesting note the corn you see as you drive across the Midwest is not for human consumption, it goes to corn syrup, fuel, animal feed, alcohol.

[marvinschmitz]

I don't know about other crops, but throughout my whole life growing wheat in Kansas we kept a few hundred bushels from our best producing field for that autumns sowing. I will say there was one year Dad sowed our whole acreage with totally new seed and the next year was one of our best crops we ever harvested, although the weather conditions where nearly perfect that year also. If he sold any veriety it was only a small amount to some smaller farmer.

[austynbrannan]

The logic that 200 seeds equals 200 tomatoes genuinely hurt. 200 seeds=200 plants which probably have 20-40 tomatoes(large) and possibly hundreds (cherrys) so 200 seeds is more 1000+ tomatoes lol

[josephcalabrese]

This feels like something you’d see in The Outer Worlds video game. One company owning the universal right to grow food on one whole planet of surviving colonists. What could possibly go wrong?

[soggyscarecrow]

The very idea of criminalizing growing crops is one of the most repugnant things I’ve ever heard of.

[jerrywcook]

I plant seeds from my plants in city parks and government property to spite the government. City hall probably thinks they got a wild pinto bean problem. 😂

[sunkruhmhalaci]

Fun fact: it's not just plants that can be patented. Natural animal genome sequences can be too. For instance, some spider silk genes of naturally occurring spiders are patented presently. Human genetic information was banned from being patented in the US unless synthetic (such as genetic treatments), but I'm not entirely familiar about just how much can be patented from other animals and the like. Youtuber scientist Thought Emporium actually ended up using semi-randomized, then hand-tweaked genetic protein coding for making his own spider silk that can bond with graphene and other materials while being produced from yeast; he had to do this in part due to genetic patents in the first place, but admittedly he also thought he could make spider silk with interesting artificial properties. Thankfully in his case, he made it open source, since he's against this kind of stuff being patented. Still, it's very interesting.

[erikziak]

I strongly oppose the ability to file a patent for genetic information, especially in a case, when you cannot prove that a specific mutation could not occur naturally. Even worse, if pollen from your patented plants is being transmitted by insects and contaminates nearby fields, it is ridiculous that the one who contaminated can sue the victim of such contamination. This is wrong, both morally as well as logically. The company must accept the risk of cross-pollinating other fields as part of their business plan. If they do not like it, then they should not do it. Period. The US is setting a very bad example for the rest of the world. The so called land of the free is creating modern-day slaves, when they strip farmers of their own seeds, which they had the right to keep and use for the next planting and harvest since humanity began with agriculture. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Disgusting!

[cheesedoesgaming]

The case in Canada it wasn’t 95% of the seeds were Monsanto it was that the Monsanto seeds pollinated with his seed and cross bred and this the specific gene they patented technically infected his seeds forcing him to plant “Monsanto” seeds. A large part was he had to destroy it for other farmers mistakes especially since once said they spilled hundreds of pounds of seed by accident on his field edge next to the public road

[bazoo]

There was a case in Canada (not the one you mention) where a farmer successfully sued (actually, counter-sued) Monsanto for "contaminating" his crops with pollen from their engineered plants.

In the case you mention the farmer used Roundup against the generation after generation of mixed seeds until practically only Monsanto's engineered strain survived.

BTW, many hybrid strains of, say, corn here in Europe are not patented, but indeed the subsequent generations lose what is popularly called "hybrid vigor". That is not explicitly engineered into the plants (although the manufacturers don't mind it), but is a natural side-effect of hybridization. So, planing a part of your crop is not illegal, but is still impractical.