Yes, food supply is largely under private control in the sense that I buy food from private companies, but I was making a different point than that. I should have elaborated. Patent protection of GMO products is eliminating competition, and making it illegal to grow similar foods. Furthermore, use of their product over time might eliminate non-GMO varieties. This kind of control can lead to private companies monopolizing the food supply, and being the only legal source of some foods. These companies are actively seeing that future.
Regarding the government, I'm not sure I follow - why should I fear the government, and how is the food supply going to end up under government control? Currently, it's largely private companies that are patenting GMO products, is it not? It is definitely private companies, and not the government, that are developing and selling GMO seeds that produce non-seeding plants. The government is not currently attempting to monopolize markets of GMO products, or food in general.
> So, your concerns would be alleviated entirely by a compulsory licensing scheme?
I doubt it, but this question also sounds like a way for me to trap myself, so I'm going to avoid it. ;)
My primary concern here in this thread was I felt like Soylent's article was misleadingly one-sided, and conspicuously left out possibly the most important issue wrt GMO food, an issue that might directly contradict the stated claims of going after world hunger. Limited production capacity is not the primary reason world hunger exists, so increased production capacity shouldn't be expected to fix it, right?
> are you aware that 100% completely non-GMO plants are subject to an IP regimen called plant breeder's rights...
Maybe I painted the wrong picture. I'm totally in favor of reasonable business protections for investments in research. But, you'd agree the patent system is at least somewhat broken and is currently being at least somewhat abused? I do think private entities are testing and pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable with GMO - and if that were my business, that might be what I'd be doing to. There's a long and wonderful history of private enterprise trying to maximize it's own gains, I've even read that maximizing gains is it's primary function. Which is precisely why I'll hesitate before shooting down any and all critics of GMO techniques. They might benefit me as a consumer, but that's not their primary purpose at the moment.
On the whole, I think it's great if big-agra is developing more robust higher yield crops that everybody benefits from. If it ends up being cheaper for everyone, and they don't start rent-seeking, then two thumbs up. Time will tell. I don't expect modifying seeding plants so they can no longer reproduce to solve world hunger in any way, shape, or form. But as long as they don't hose the future food supply or the population's health, then yeah, it is their prerogative to protect their IP.
> I doubt it, but this question also sounds like a way for me to trap myself, so I'm going to avoid it. ;)
Your professed concerns are over control. A compulsory licensing scheme strips away the ability for a rightsholder to choose who to license to or what price to license at. As a result, it would be impossible for the situation you fear - " private companies monopolizing the food supply" - to come to pass.
It seems like a neat solution to your worries. I'm asking if an actual policy that actually been used for other forms of actual IP would help.
It's a trap in the sense that offering a hammer to someone who needs to drive a nail is a trap.
> Limited production capacity is not the primary reason world hunger exists, so increased production capacity shouldn't be expected to fix it, right?
In total aggregate, production capacity is not the primary reason. Similarly, the world does not lack for water in total aggregate. Does that mean there is no such thing as a drought?
You're of course completely, totally, 100% right. It's not primarily a production problem. It's primarily a logistics problem. It just happens to be a logistics problem that can be addressed by addressing the production problem.
The funny thing about terminator genes is that they've never actually been used. No sane commercial farmer keeps their seeds anyway - it's much more reliable and profitable to just buy more.
1) Improving yields is exactly what you don't want to do if you want to bolster local agriculture. We've learned this lesson multiple times over the past 50 years, from Africa to Asia. If you want to address famines, you're either going to do so by fixing the logistics problem OR you need to inflate prices through trade barriers to induce large-scale, economically viable domestic farming. Improving yields only shifts more agriculture to nations like the U.S., Europe, Brazil, and China, because by reducing labor requirements and shifting to technology and logistics those nations have a comparative advantage over every other country.
2) There are plenty of insane farmers. Just sayin'. And that's not a bad thing, per se. See #1. The core problem is that too much centralization can lead to unstable outcomes; it pays to subsidize some amount of economic diversity.
GMO took off awhile ago and is half way to the heliopause.
I don't know what the regulatory environment is for GMOs, but I'm pretty sure that if you're worried about government regulation of the ag industry then freaking out about GMOs (a label without any substance outside of politics and philosophy) is probably not the way to go.
While most of us (software engineers) can agree that the patent system sucks, I don't see the logic in opposing GMOs because of patents. Does Stallman tell people that all software is bad and should be avoided because not all software is copyleft? No, he doesn't, because on top of being illogical it's just plain counterproductive and pointless.
Food supply is already under private control. If GMO takes off, it will actually be under government control... which is what you should fear.