For farmers, the patented technology will undoubtedly mean greater dependence on the commercial seed market, and a fundamental loss of control over germplasm. If widely utilized, farmers will lose the age-old right to save seed from their harvest. Monsanto, for example, now requires that farmers sign a licensing agreement that strictly forbids farmers from saving or re-using the company's patented seed. According to a recent article in Progressive Farmer magazine, Monsanto is aggressively enforcing its patents on transgenic soybean seeds, and has recently taken legal action against more than 100 soybean growers who have violated the licensing agreement. If Delta and Pineland's new technology successfully prevents farmers from germinating a second generation of seed, then seed companies will gain biological control over seeds that they have heretofore lacked in non-hybrid crops.
Nobody knows exactly how many farmers save seed from their harvest each year.
Precise statistics are not available, but many North American wheat farmers rely primarily on farm-saved seeds and return to the commercial market once every four or five years. Impact in the South A genetic technology designed to prevent farmers from saving seed would have a far greater impact in the South - and that is precisely the market being targeted. A technology that threatens to extinguish farmer expertise in selecting seed and developing locally-adapted strains is a threat to food security and agricultural biodiversity, especially for the poor. Our mission is to protect US agriculture, and to make us competitive in the face of foreign competition. In RAFI's view, the fact that this technology was developed by USDA researchers, with taxpayer funds, should be a real kick in the teeth to US farmers.