(17 August 2013, 22:37)BFG Central Wrote: The point of this to me is not just heritage seeds but all seeds will need a licence which mean you can say goodbye to the days of cheap seed packets in shops and supermarkets.
All seeds have had to go through bureaucratic type approval for years, which has always forced costs on seed producers. Producers of decent seeds and 'cheap' seeds had to go through the same legal hoops.
(17 August 2013, 22:37)BFG Central Wrote: Let be honest the big supermarkets dont want to sell you seeds to grow your own food, They want to sell you the fruit and veg at stupidly high prices.
So if they can limit what seeds are for sale and how much they cost they will have a massive amount of control.
They could, but the fact is, the law that people were getting their knickers in a twist about was not the final version. It was one that was scrutinised and changed.
The law actually makes things less restrictive than they were - small companies do not have to fully certify seed, companies can gain approval to self certify rather than getting a government body to do it and all perceived restriction about home gardeners and seed preservation banks were removed.
(17 August 2013, 22:37)BFG Central Wrote: Both in the domestic market and for farmers who wont be able to plant seeds they produced the year before,
I know a lot of farmers. Those that grow seed to sell as seed do so as part of a contract and are given seed from an approved source. Those that grow food from seed do not save seed. Growing to produce a crop and growing to produce seed are two very different businesses where crops are treated very differently.
The law as amended has no problems with people saving seeds.
The offspring of those seeds are owned by the licence holder and not the farmer.
(17 August 2013, 22:37)BFG Central Wrote: Farmer have already been taken to court in the USA for having crops planted next to GM crops owned by other farmers, these crops are pollinated by the wind but now have the GM genetics inside those seeds which is classed as theft. Farmers have lost everything over there.
That is a complete mistruth perpetuated by blogs and fringe new sites, special interest groups and crackpots.
What they all fail to mention when telling you this is that every single farmer who have been sued by Monsanto - every single one of them - have been found to be exploiting the GM technology, for example, those that happened to be growing round up ready crops (genetically engineered to be resistant to glyphosate so you can use it to control weeds in your crops) were all spraying with glyphosate (Round Up). This would kill the crop if it was conventional, rather than GM.
What farmer would seek out to kill the crop with a herbicide they did not normally buy in such a volume (all of the convicted farmers were buying lots more round up than in previous years) ? They were not convicted on fact the seed they were using and so the plants they were growing had GM genes; they were convicted as they were actively exploiting those genes.
How did Monsanto find out? Farmers in the areas who had paid full price for the seeds year on year told Monsanto or their representatives as they felt those farmers who were not paying were cheating - and stealing - from them.
(17 August 2013, 22:37)BFG Central Wrote: They were buying up all building land near there shop to stop any competition from other shops. Tesco got banned by the UK government for buying up to much commercial land.
When that happened they started buying up small shops and opened up chains of Tesco Extra and One Stop.
Tesco were not banned from doing anything by the government. If they were, the government would have fallen foul of anti competition laws and Tesco could have sued them.
Tesco were found out for buying land, putting restrictive covenants on it and then selling it on to discourage others from opening supermarkets. Thing is, covenants have to be enforced in the courts. They can also be removed in the courts. Any court, should it be tested, would see right away that such a covenant was malicious and anti competitive and remove the covenant.
I am no fan of tesco or monsanto, but when I see 73rd hand BS posted, I will do my bit to slow the internet rumour mill.
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