Hello,
this quite is said to come from Henry Kissinger.
And Monsanto et. al. follow this rule very strictly.
A recent EU court decision alowed farmers to explicitely use "old seeds" that were NOT tested by the government to apply them on their fields.
This is a blow against seed companies (like Monsanto) trying to monopolize the seeds.
Here is an news article on the matter, coming from the German state-owned "Deutsche Welle" radio station : http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16090272,00.html (It's in English language.)
With these practices, seed companies try to squeeze farmers into using ONLY THEIR seeds - and of course THEIR fertilizers etc. .
But what REALLY astonishes me is the book "The Master Switch".
In this book about I have read n abstract today, the author states that the Internet, like any other form of media in the past (TV, telephone, radio) is going to become slowly, but steadily to be monopolized by a selected few companies.
It's o that companies try to take a grip on things that were once free and publicity available - the author of the book states. And tht this will happen with the internet, too.
I see this drive into monopolization with seeds, too. See Bio-Piracy for exaple. Companies are placing patents in plants that were originally free - and they use simple mutations for tht which they breed further within their companies. Oh no, they'll never claim that ALL plants of this type are patented - they'll go the indirect way : One cannot be ure anymore tht his or her *own* plants wasn't "tainted" by seeds or let's say pollen of patented plants …
I see this as The Big Picture : Somewhere within Human Economy there is a distinct drive into monopolizing everything that can be monopolized. sometimes it won't work, but the drive is always there.
Like with television. Or seeds, as the most recent example.
Edit : An related article, showing the problems of farmers regarding seed companies, too (a rather practical view on it) : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/10/romania-smallhold-farmers?INTCMP=SRCH
Alrik
this quite is said to come from Henry Kissinger.
And Monsanto et. al. follow this rule very strictly.
A recent EU court decision alowed farmers to explicitely use "old seeds" that were NOT tested by the government to apply them on their fields.
This is a blow against seed companies (like Monsanto) trying to monopolize the seeds.
Here is an news article on the matter, coming from the German state-owned "Deutsche Welle" radio station : http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16090272,00.html (It's in English language.)
With these practices, seed companies try to squeeze farmers into using ONLY THEIR seeds - and of course THEIR fertilizers etc. .
But what REALLY astonishes me is the book "The Master Switch".
In this book about I have read n abstract today, the author states that the Internet, like any other form of media in the past (TV, telephone, radio) is going to become slowly, but steadily to be monopolized by a selected few companies.
It's o that companies try to take a grip on things that were once free and publicity available - the author of the book states. And tht this will happen with the internet, too.
I see this drive into monopolization with seeds, too. See Bio-Piracy for exaple. Companies are placing patents in plants that were originally free - and they use simple mutations for tht which they breed further within their companies. Oh no, they'll never claim that ALL plants of this type are patented - they'll go the indirect way : One cannot be ure anymore tht his or her *own* plants wasn't "tainted" by seeds or let's say pollen of patented plants …
I see this as The Big Picture : Somewhere within Human Economy there is a distinct drive into monopolizing everything that can be monopolized. sometimes it won't work, but the drive is always there.
Like with television. Or seeds, as the most recent example.
Edit : An related article, showing the problems of farmers regarding seed companies, too (a rather practical view on it) : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/10/romania-smallhold-farmers?INTCMP=SRCH
Alrik
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