But the difference is that hybrid seeds don't give good seed. It's not that they fail to germinate. They will still segregate into their parent lines. They'll still give you some kind of crop. You will not have absolute devastation.
Patents are also a away to prevent farmers from saving seed.
But with patents you still have to do policing, you still have to mobilize your detectives to ensure that farmers aren't saving seeds. The terminator is an extremely secure technology for corporations like Monsanto because neither do they have to do the policing, nor do they have to worry whether some segregation works, now you just basically terminate. But this is not just a violence against farmers whose basic right, in my view, is seed saving. A farmer's duty, is protecting the earth, maintaining it's fertility, and maintaining the fertility of seed. That is part of being a farmer.