The Rural Voice, 1980-07, Page 17A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
Competition
or collusion?
BY CARL HEMINGWAY
How fast the time flies! Another month has slipped by and
while "seeding" is completed, there is still plenty to do. In fact,
it would seem that it is about time to be thinking about seed for
next year's crop.
At the April 3 meeting of the Huron County Federation of
Agriculture held in Grey Township, a resolution was
approved that Seed Corn Companies be given the right to take
out patents & collect royalties on their new corn seed varieties. A
couple of longtime leaders spoke in favour of the resolution and
there wasn't a dis senting voice in the large attendance.
The argument was that our Departments of Agriculture
Research Stations aren't moving rapidly enough in developing
new seed varieties to increase production. Theoretically the big
seed companies will be very competitive in putting large sums of
money into research and we farmers will be harvesting up to 200
bushels of corn per acre instead of a meagre 80 or 90 bushels.
Possible yes! but what are we going to do with it? We haven't
been able to sell what we are presently producing at anything
like a "parity of income" level.
How then, can we expect to be better off by having to pay a
"royalty " on our seeds?
Will there be competition between the seed companies? How
many seed companies are there?
My con purchased his corn from a "Funks" seed corn agent
but the bags are labelled Ciba-Ceigy. I wonder how many other
brand names are controlled by Ciba-Geigy?
Just recently, I have been told that two other popular seed
companies have been taken over by a third. With the
introduction of patents and royalties are we going to end up with
two or maybe three seed companies producing our seed corn?
Will we have competition or collusion?
A second question that bothers me about this seed corn
business is the value of all these new hybrid seeds that we are
told we must buy each year to be successful.
Some twenty-five years ago, a couple of brothers were
operating a mixed farm. The main source of income was from
beef cattle but they also milked 8 or 10 cows (by hand) and raised
a few pigs, even had 25 hens or so.
Corn became popular. so they planted a little corn which they
used to supplement the summer and fall pasture for the milking
cows. Of course they bought a little hybrid seed corn the first
year. Then they hand picked a few of the best cobs each year,
shelled it by hand for next year's seed. They did this until they
retired and found that they ended up with just as good or better
crops of corn. What did they end up with after fifteen or more
years?
First, and I think most important, was a "bank" account that
permitted early retirement.
Secondly, a hybrid seed? I don't think so. I think they ended
up with a new variety which was very good. After all this is the
way new varieties are developed.
Maybe we farmers are being led down a very familiar "garden
path" for the profit of conglomerates.
I know of at least two local feed and grain dealerships and a
possible third that are controlled by the same holding company.
Supposedly completely separate, competitive, private comp-
anies with their original names are now providing profits to one
company board of directors and their shareholders.
Is there any reason to believe that this will not happen or is not
happening in seed corn business?
I think I could make a very good income "hand" picking corn
at a retail sale price of $50. per bus. "The old order changeth
yielding place to new" --but is it better?
Perhaps we should be doing a good deal of "hand" picking of
the changes that have taken place over the past fifty years. How
many of you have received grants to remove the "fence mese.?
How many of you have specialized and expanded on the advice of
people who were supposed to know?
Now in the May 30 issue of the "Farm Gate", a weekly paper
published by North Waterloo Publishing Ltd., 15 King St.,
Elmira, Ont. there is a column by C.S. Baldwin, Soils Section,
Ridgetown College of Agriculture Technology which states that
wind erosion damage is increasing in many parts of Ontario due
to larger farm units, less fence rows and woodlots and more
intensive cropping.
He recommends all the things that are being done in western
Cnada to prevent wind erosion and ends up with advising us to
plant "wind breaks."
Maybe I am getting so old that I remember years ago when a
"dust" storm was something that happened only in the West,
and crop rotation was the only way to retain a productive farm
and that we shouldn't "put all our eggs in one basket." In other
words, we should "diversif y". It is so much more
"sophisticated."
I<
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THE RURAL VOICE/JULY 1960 PO. 15