Re: GMO Foods: Are They Safe
I think that's one of the pitfalls of producing GMO seeds on an industrial level, though. Plants and seeds are very, very different from pills. It's pretty hard to keep GMO seeds from making their way elsewhere...Birds and animals eat them and, uh, excrete them in other places, they get scattered by wind, etc. It's also hard to keep them from cross breeding with other plants. There is more than one case of farmers getting slapped with lawsuits because part of their patches ended up with patented plants that they didn't pay for.
But on top of that, there's a big reason why farmers save their seeds. Buying seeds each year is a huge expense for them, and their margins are already TINY. Like, most are barely struggling to make it at all. I guess this is less of a problem for investor-owned farms than it is for smaller local farms, but it is an issue. It's even more of an issue in developing and emerging countries, where farmers struggle even more than their European and North American counterparts (at least a lot of farms over here are eligible for some sort of subsidy program or another) Most companies that patent their seeds don't let farmers save them for the next year.
Originally posted by thalassa
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But on top of that, there's a big reason why farmers save their seeds. Buying seeds each year is a huge expense for them, and their margins are already TINY. Like, most are barely struggling to make it at all. I guess this is less of a problem for investor-owned farms than it is for smaller local farms, but it is an issue. It's even more of an issue in developing and emerging countries, where farmers struggle even more than their European and North American counterparts (at least a lot of farms over here are eligible for some sort of subsidy program or another) Most companies that patent their seeds don't let farmers save them for the next year.
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