Category: Policy

Over at Olives and Artichokes, news of dastardly doings on the internet. A large commercial seed company “has bought the rights to the name” of “an organisation pledged to maintaining plant diversity”. The entities are Baumaux seeds and Association Kokopelli, long-time sparring partners. Search for “Kokopelli,” and “the first item to appear is one of the Bamaux [sic] strains of tomato seeds”.

I pointed out that this wasn’t actually misuse or impersonation, but a legitimate use of Google advertising. Underhand, maybe, but if Baumaux is prepared to pay for the privilege of making sure that Google Ads delivers its particular tomatoes as a clearly identified paid-for link, and only on google.fr, so what? Furthermore, on the search I conducted not 10 minutes ago, every single unpaid link does relate to the Association Kokopelli, which is some pretty strong Goo-fu.

The response:

[I]t’s not fair and is typical of what big business does to small ethical organisations. The big seed companies are determined to squash Kokopelli because of its principles and its determination to produce a diverse range of seeds rather than a smaller commercially lucrative one. This is part of that campaign. Whether you agree with it or not depends on whether or not you support ruthless capitalism.

Predictable enough. But rather than whinge “‘snot fair,” like my little sister used to do, why not turn ruthless capitalism in on itself? I don’t have a very clear understanding of how Google Ads work, but I think there are two things of interest, one more so than the other. First, I believe that a company bids for the space. Someone else could outbid Baumaux, and then their ad — which for all I know might be allowed to trash Baumaux — would appear instead. Probably too expensive. Secondly, and this might be more interesting, I think it is the case that the company doing the advertising pays only when someone clicks on the ad, and does so whether the click results in business or not. So if all Association Kokopelli’s supporters were to click on any ad they see for Baumaux, it would cost Baumaux money. How much? No idea. But surely more satisfying than just whinging.

A final point. The ad that appears is actually for Baumaux’s collection of tomato varieties that they package under the name Kokopelli; they have registered the name. Now that really is underhand. I can’t fully understand this lawyer’s post on the subject. Nevertheless, I hope this aspect of the saga will be taken up and fought. Baumaux clearly can’t make a living honourably, their original claim against Kokopelli made that clear. Stealing your enemy’s name and product smacks of desperation.

It may seem like a small spat, but Baumaux’s dastardlyness really does deserve more attention that it has had so far.

Speaking of evil plant breeders:

It is generally thought that continuous selection among crosses of genetically related cultivars has led to a narrowing of the genetic base of the crops on which modern agriculture is based, contributing to the genetic erosion of the crop gene pools on which breeding is based.

But this may be another faulty meta-narrative. At least that’s what a group of researchers from the Dutch genebank say, as a result of a meta-analysis of 44 genetic diversity studies of the varieties of 8 crops released in successive decades. ((Wouw, M., Hintum, T., Kik, C., Treuren, R., & Visser, B. (2010). Genetic diversity trends in twentieth century crop cultivars: a meta analysis Theoretical and Applied Genetics DOI: 10.1007/s00122-009-1252-6)) This is the result:

The meta analysis demonstrated that overall in the long run no substantial reduction in the regional diversity of crop varieties released by plant breeders has taken place.

Of course, that says nothing about the relative frequency at which these varieties have been grown by farmers, also an important aspect of overall diversity, along with how different the varieties are. Anyway, that decrease in the 60’s was only about 6%, and that has been reversed since then. How? Because of genebanks, say the authors.

In the 1960s and 1970s the introduction of the new Green Revolution-type cultivars for the major staple crops led to concerns on the disappearance of the world’s varietal wealth of crop plants. The widely shared concerns ultimately resulted in the establishment of a worldwide network of international genebanks hosted by the CGIAR research centres. The seed samples stored in these genebanks facilitated access of the world’s crop diversity to plant breeders world wide. It seems likely that the easy access to crop diversity provided by the genebanks, improved communication among breeders and easier exchange of seeds were factors contributing to the reversal of the initial trend in diversity reduction as observed in this meta analysis. Also the increased use of crop wild relatives for breeding and in recent years the use of synthetic wheats will have contributed to the observed diversity increase.

Well, it will be interesting to see, in due course, whether the restrictions on access which followed the Convention on Biological Diversity, had an effect, and whether the International Treaty on PGRFA eventually set the world to rights. As it was designed to do.