The Rural Voice, 1999-09, Page 12FIRE
PROTECTION
with the all stainless steel
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Mon. to Fn. 8 am to 6 pm - Sat. 8 am to 4 pm
Evenings: Mon. Wed. & Fri. 7 to 9 pm
RR 2 Durham ON NOG 1R0
519-369-2144
8 THE RURAL VOICE
Robert Mercer
Seeds that breed true
The whole debate over genetically
modified crops is about seeds and
their reproductive technology. The
question of — is it good or bad —
obscures the fundamental argument
about nature's
prodigious
capacity to
reproduce, and
man's wish to
warp it in the
name of profit.
If farmers
were to own a
seed company,
their outlook
might be more
horizontally
integrated into
the whole farm
management
profit picture than vertically within
the seed sector only. They might
even be prepared to pay for research
and develop seeds that bred true to
their foundation stock. This could
happen as it was attempted when
farmers held back their grain from
harvest to plant again the following
spring. That was before
biotechnology.
The trouble with today's
technology of "hybridization" and
the "Terminator gene" is that they
both reduce yield in the next
generation. So the question arises —
What if a farmer's seed company
went back to the basics and used
today's technology to produce a
genetically modified plant that would
produce a harvest crop that is also a
seed crop for the next crop because it
bred true to the foundation seed? The
yield may be less, but so too is the
seed price, and when grain prices are
low, seed prices do not follow
markets lower.
It has not been in the interest of
seed companies to even• try to
develop seed technology that brings
no profit. But for a farmers' seed
company that might be called
Farmers' World Wide Seed Co-
operative, the motive force behind
the research would be on total
production costs and profit margins,
not just unit seed bag profits.
Just as private enterprise has
produced, and very successfully
produced, a sterile crop, now is the
time for those most at risk — farmers
— to search for and develop a crop
with induced perpetual. fertility.
This is, of course, taking a
dangerous turn -about in scientific,
economic and political thinking. It is
totally against conventional wisdom
and those attempting it will bear the
brunt of misgivings from many with
a closed mind or an alternative
agenda.
We have been taught, and have
accepted, that hybridization is an
advancement. It is. But now that
costs to the farmer for this luxury are
beginning to outweigh the yield
advantage, it is time to rethink the
process. The production risk as
always, lies solely with the farmer
and he/she deserves better.
Corn, wheat or soybeans that
breed, grow and harvest true to the
foundation seed with genetically
modified DNA would be the goal.
Then there would be "free" seed
world wide and an automatic
advantage to farmers who would
turn that into greater production,
especially in third world countries. It
would therefore be a disaster to seed
companies. This goal for perpetual
fertility would be for the benefit of
all without return to the research
effort as it would not be patentable or
controllable.
What a fight this would be! But
what a benefit to mankind! This is
work worthy of the Nobel Peace
Prize. The trick is to think with an
open and inquiring mind and to listen
only to those who have NO links to
agri-industry — be they government,