From: "Robert Comer" 

> If you want to be competitive, you do need to buy the modified seed.

Could be true, but that's an old story like other patents, and if we had a
shorter time limit, that'd pretty much fix that problem.

> I don't imagine the seed
> companies are too concerned at this, but the population of many developing
> countries are at risk.

You lose me there.

- Bob Comer


"Don Hills"  wrote in message
news:SDn6+sgaXSbC092yn{at}attglobal.net...
> In article ,
> "Robert Comer"  wrote:
>
> >You gotta take the bad with the good I suppose -- after all, you don't
have
> >to by modified seed...
>
> If you want to be competitive, you do need to buy the modified seed.
> Otherwise your yield wil be lower and/or your costs will be higher (more
> pest control etc) than your competitors. And it is very common for
modified
> strains to contain a "terminator" - seeds from the plants
grown from the
> modified seed are sterile. If you want to grow another crop, you have to
buy
> more seed. Farmers usually buy their seed stock anyway rather than use
> their own, but the risk is that the terminator will be passed into the
> original strains, causing them to die out. In turn, this will
"kill off"
> subsistence and traditional farmers of the crops. I don't imagine the seed
> companies are too concerned at this, but the population of many developing
> countries are at risk.
>
> --
> Don Hills    (dmhills at attglobaldotnet)     Wellington, New Zealand
> "I don't use Linux. I prefer to use an OS supported by a large multi-
> national vendor, with a good office suite, excellent network/internet
> software and decent hardware support."

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