Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
kctomato — obviously a made-up name — takes a philosophical approach to the problem of plant breeding and intellectual property rights:
One man sees bricks and builds walls for borders and prisons, another sees bricks and builds walls for schools and hospitals.
Limiting genes and thus diversity through utility patents in particular may be keeping some from doing more than what another be holding onto.
But does that fix the problem?
Big Picture Agriculture is a great source of stories about, er, the big picture in agriculture. Catching up with Kay I came across this beaut:
GM labeling activist movements are misguided. Fred Kaufman explains that the real problem lies in U.S. plant patent laws which have done more harm than good, overall. Food patent laws stand in the way of good scientific research.
The most direct and efficient way to undermine the food industrialist monopoly of the molecular seed business is to reform these laws (particularly the utility patent law of 1985), and make food property rights less exclusive, less lucrative, and less enduring. … Instead of tilting at the windmill of food labels, food nonprofits should hire a fleet of I.P. lawyers and send them to Washington to demand reform of the Plant Patent Act. When there’s less profit in genetic modification, things will get better for consumers, farmers, and scientists—pretty much everyone except corporate executives.
I really have nothing to add.
Heralding the International Year of Quinoa, here’s an odd video of quinoa in Pakistan.
Don’t freak, as I did, if it looks a little odd if you open it in a browser; that’s just the 3D out to get you. There’s a link to get rid of that annoyance, but not to improve the rest of the production.