Hi all,
although it is not directly related to Free Software, it is very close and I thought the gardeners among you might be interested in a project some friends and me are running: The world wide seed market is heavily dominated by three chemical companies who control the market via artificial property rights and patents. Most of them are hybrid-varieties that are possible to reproduce further. This, to artificially limit the availability of seeds and put farmers around the globe in dependencies to said companies.
Since some years now there is an "Open Source Seeds" movement growing up, whose breeders put their seeds under a copyleft license that protect their seeds and any future breeding from these seeds from being traded under artificial property rights and patents.
To spread the word about it some friends and me created the "Open Source Gardens" to bring homegardeners in contact with concepts of Open Source Seeds and Free Software. Now we are running a campaign in that we send out seeds of different varieties. If you are a gardener, get a kit, join us or help spread the word:
https://opensourcegardens.info/order-seeds.en.html#springflowers
Best regards, Erik
Hi Reinhard, all,
On 14.03.21 16:29, Reinhard Müller wrote:
Am 14.03.21 um 16:20 schrieb Erik Albers:
patents. Most of them are hybrid-varieties that are possible to reproduce
you meant *not* possible to reproduce further, right?
oh yes, exactly. They are sterile and you can eat their fruits but their seeds will not grow new plants. Also their usage is timely limited, often they can only germinate some months and not the next year. This way they can sell new seeds again and again each year and farmers are in dependencies on price and availability ...
thank you for your attention and clarifying this.
Best, Erik
On 3/14/21 4:20 PM, Erik Albers wrote:
Hi all,
although it is not directly related to Free Software, it is very close and I thought the gardeners among you might be interested in a project some friends and me are running: The world wide seed market is heavily dominated by three chemical companies who control the market via artificial property rights and patents. Most of them are hybrid-varieties that are possible to reproduce further. This, to artificially limit the availability of seeds and put farmers around the globe in dependencies to said companies.
Since some years now there is an "Open Source Seeds" movement growing up, whose breeders put their seeds under a copyleft license that protect their seeds and any future breeding from these seeds from being traded under artificial property rights and patents.
I think that's a great initiative! There are horrendous problems with proprietary seeds, including being patented, barren and creating an artificial dependency on the huge suppliers like "the entity formerly known as Monsanto".
Seed exchanges and seed banks are also a huge part of the community organization I've participated in in Brazil, a movement where Free Software also has had an important historical impact.
In the long run, though, I suspect (and this is indeed not Free Software-related) that the correct stance in this area would be to oppose any kind of patent or copyright protection on living organisms.
There's also strict rules in place in some parts of the world (including the EU) that makes private seed swapping problematic because it is only legal to use seeds on a relatively limited list of "approved" strains. That's another area of concern.
Anyway, thanks for taking the initiative and telling us about it. :-)
Carsten