[wam]

This is what's interesting to me about one argument in favor of GM. On the one hand, the author seems to argue (here and in her books) that GM is merely an extension of what farmers have been doing for ages, and that the type tools and techniques of the work done to change organisms are irrelevant.

On the other hand, GM crops are patentable, whereas hybridized crops are not (is this correct?). This is the heart of the economic argument: Farmers can buy the seed or not. But they can't produce it themselves. So the tools and techniques aren't irrelevant.

It's certainly _possible_ to have it both ways (as we do now), but this way of parsing the issue seems to me neither economically nor technologically (in the sense of patentability) advantageous to agriculture in the long term. I'd prefer not to get into a situation where the only economically sensible way to produce food is to buy seed from one source. And that's the rational choice for a company like Monsanto: increase shareholder value by becoming the only economical source of seed.

[hga]

Search engines are your friends, the first link I chose from corn plant patent ... reminded? me that plants have been patentable since 1930: Plant Patent Act of 1930, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930, in the law as 35 U.S.C. § 161, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/161

"Whoever invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state, may obtain a patent therefor..."

See lots more e.g. here: http://cookingupastory.com/patent-law-how-patents-grew-over-...

[wam]

Very interesting background in the last link, thank you. Informative comments in a discussion, in response to a question, are also often my friends.