From: rjsalvad@iastate.edu (Ricardo J Salvador)
Subject: Re: plant phys use in breeding
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 23:05:49 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.160616.8067@u.washington.edu> toby@milton.u.washington.edu (Toby Bradshaw) writes:

>>Again it's
>>the numbers: what does it cost to do the gels, what are the start up
>>costs, and picking probes (or primers, in the case of RAPDs) is a
>>problem in maize (maybe it's easy in alfalpha or whatever).
>
>Similar complaints were made about hybrid seed corn.  

And those complaints were appropriate.  In exchange for hybrid vigor
maize farmers have become dependent on a previously non-existant
industry to obtain the basic ingredient necessary to begin each
season, and this ingredient (the seed) is not an inconsiderable
fraction of the expense incurred to produce the crop (in Iowa, excluding
costs for land, cost of production per acre is in the neighborhood of
$55; of that, hybrid seed may account for $25 to $50).  To make such
systems viable and "cost-efficient" economies of scale must be created
(or invoked ;), and this has directly resulted in the elimination of
many small and middle-scale farm operations that previously were
perfectly tenable (cf. "Changes in Iowa Agriculture: 1978-1987," CRD 291,
Iowa State Univ. Extension).  Over the span of time from the 1930s (when
hybrid seed began to be adopted commercially) to the present, the 
proportion of value-added profit due to farmers has decreased from
21 to 5 percent, and that due to the input industry (seeds, pesticides)
has increased from 13 to 30% (the remainder is due to the marketing
sector, and this has remained stable over the same period of time; cf.
Smith, S. 1992.  Farming- It's declining in the U.S.  Choices 7:8-10;
Smith is senior economist at the joint economic committee of Congress).
If the argument discounting the immiseration of thousands of displaced
farmers is that there was net benefit to society from  the increased
"efficiency" of farming, then it must be pointed out that the ecological
cost of large scale specialized farming is mostly unaccounted yet
estimates indicate that it is formidable (cf. Repetto, R. 1992. Accounting
for environmental assets. Sci. Amer. 266:94-100).  If the argument in
favor is that increased productivity was better for those farmers who
remained in business then some basic economic review is in order.  Maximum
profit is not inelastically linked to maxiumum output, but rather to
the differential between cost of production and sale price of the
commodity manufactured; i.e., keeping costs low is as effective a method
to maximize profit margins as is increasing volume of sale, more so I
would argue when there is a surplus of agricultural commodities, notoriously
inelastic commodities, that further contribute to price depression (cf.
Hall, C. 1990.  Sanctioning resource depletion: Economic development and
neo-classical economics.  Ecologist 20:99-104.)  If the argument in
favor is, in spite of the previous observation, that hybrids with
greater yield potentials than OP populations are inherently more
secure investments two rebuttals are appropriate: 1) yield stability of
heterogenous populations of any species is greater than that of any
individual genotype, 2) there is evidence orthodox selection techniques
in populations would have resulted in similar _rates_ of progress as
have been observed for hybrids had the same time and resources been
devoted to that effect, viz., indirect selection has resulted in
_inbreds_ that yield in the neighborhood of 90 bu./A, 3X the avg. yield
level of commercial populations at the time that hybrids were introduced-
e.g., today's _inbreds_ would beat the pants off the best materials of
three generations ago, cf. Lewontin & Berlan.  1990. The political
economy of agricultural research: The case of hybrid corn. IN Carroll et al.,
Agroecology. McGraw Hill.  Though it must be pointed out, as Don Duvick
noted once when I was discussing this very same issue with him, that
within any population a hybrid can be generated that yields at a higher
level than the average performance of the population.  In light of
previous arguments and examples, however, it seems that a good argument
can be made that the hybrid seed corn industry was created and exists
largely for the benefit of the seed corn industry, and NOT because it
has been better for farmers OR for society at large.

>OP corn used to be traditional, too, and costs less than controlled
>crosses.  It's the return on investment that counts, not just the
>up-front costs.

Q.E.D. above.  The major benefactors have been other than farmers and
consumers.

From Iowa, where we think a lot about corn, AND we want our own newsgroup ;).

-Ricardo