The federal government wants to restrict farmers' ability to save seeds and other reproductive plant materials like tree grafts for some crops – and is asking farmers to comment on the changes during the height of the growing season.

Tell me we don’t live in a plutocracy, ffs.

The federal government wants to restrict farmers’ ability to save seeds and other reproductive plant materials like tree grafts for some crops – and is asking farmers to comment on the changes during the height of the growing season.

Last month, the government announced it is considering amendments to Canada’s seed laws that would force farmers to pay seed companies royalties for decades after their original purchase of seeds from protected varieties of plants. Even if farmers grow that plant variety in later years with seed they produced themselves from earlier crops, instead of buying new seed, they must pay the royalties for over 20 years.

If passed, the changes will apply to horticultural crops like vegetables, fruit trees and ornamental plants. They will also restrict farmers’ ability to save and use hybrid seeds, which combine the desirable traits of several genetically different varieties. Public consultations on the proposed changes opened May 29, 2024 and ends on July 12, 2024.

Critics say the move will further exacerbate a crisis in Canadian seed diversity, supply and resilience to climate change. Over the past 100 years, 75 per cent of agricultural biodiversity has declined globally, and only 10 per cent of remaining crop varieties are commercially available in the country.

  • Pronell@lemmy.world
    96·
    4 months ago

    Completely ludicrous.

    They want to sell the product that, by nature, replicates itself, then charge their customers for their product continuing to do the thing it was meant to do, which is propagate itself.

    These companies can go propagate themselves.

    • streetfestival@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      39·
      4 months ago

      Agreed, but I also thinks this looks 10x worse on the Canadian government than it does the multinational corps they’re jerking off

      • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
        5·
        4 months ago

        100% Government is for the people; not the corporations.

        I will throw my vote behind any politician that aimed to remove a corporations ability to act as a person, and a corporations ability to lobby. With those two checkboxes there stands a chance of the people unravelling this web of nonsense.

        • streetfestival@lemmy.caOPEnglish
          3·
          4 months ago

          I definitely agree that government should be for the people; I wish I felt like it was. With first past the poll (versus proportional representation), the absurd legal protections of corporations, social media, targeted marketing, corporate control of the news, and lobbying - our democracy is on life support. It’s a travesty

    • ProbablyBaysean@lemmy.ca
      9·
      4 months ago

      Different take: seed genome is like a MP3. Piracy (illegal copying) is enforced based on IP. Seeds doing it “naturally on a farm” just means that you have grounds to sue the farmer for not stopping illegal copying.

      • Pronell@lemmy.world
        6·
        4 months ago

        Law doesn’t work that way but I otherwise love the analogy.

        The information takes little to reproduce, and information ‘wants’ to be reproduced.

      • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        4·
        4 months ago

        I think a better analogy would be: it’s like if you bought an MP3 and the company expected you to delete it after you listened to it once, or pay for it again.

        The piracy analogy would apply more for farmers sharing seeds.