Re: Fwd: RAFI News: More Seed Sterilization

Bob MacGregor (rdmacgregor@gov.pe.ca)
Fri, 29 Jan 1999 10:41:17 -0400

>>"If the companies can genetically program suicide seeds to perform only with the application of
>proprietary pesticide or fertilizer, it means they will increase sales of
>their patented agrochemicals and other proprietary inputs," explains >Edward Hammond of RAFI.

This is only true if people get onto this treadmill in the first place, or if there are no other sources of seed in the world except the sterile or chemical-linked ones.

If countries move to ban this technology, wouldn't this imply that sterile hybrids (eg corn) should also be banned?

It was interesting that the RAFI post didn't suggest that escaping genes for chemical linkage would damage wild relatives and weaken neighbouring, un-engineered crops. In the worst case, multiple linkages would arise, through cross-pollination of neighbouring crops, where the resulting crop would require overlapping/duplicate chemical inputs from different chem/seed companies!! However unlikely... what a cruel joke that would be for everyone -- even the chem companies.

BOB

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