Free Markets, Farmers, and GM Crops
By: Lance Winslow
Many are condemning the latest GM Terminator seeds. Yet there is not need to cause a raucous because the free market will decide which seeds farmers buy? When a Corporate farmer plows under the crop for next season sometimes he uses the old seeds for new life next season. In which case he might have a problem with the newest Genetically Modified Terminator Seeds. Well then if this will be the case he should use a different seed, which will spring up next season and grow, non-terminator seeds? It’s all about choice? Do not like Monsanto and their new GM Seeds? Then buy the seeds elsewhere. There are benefits to terminator seeds for instance a farmer who farms two or three seasons and is paid as part of his yield for purity, he does not want the old crop of something else mixed in with the new crop he is taking to market. When a small farmer of let’s say Mustard Seed holds some of his acres for harvest for the seeds of the next season, he can use those seeds again and maybe some left over for others too. Meaning he can sell those extra seeds and offset some costs for his over head.
Said farmer could buy another seed from a different company to grow his own and not patronize Monsanto. And if in fact other farmers were interested, he could be in the seed business himself thus if Monsanto went too hog wild on this idea, they in fact might alienate the agricultural community and corporate farmers and thus have problems. Some fear that Monsanto is trying to corner the market on seeds and force them into buying their seeds. Yet the farmer is under no obligation to buy seeds from anyone they do not wish too. The GM Crop seed issue and the new terminator seeds debate seems to be ongoing, but in the end it will not be lawyers or politicians who decide. In the end it will be the free market. Think about it.
Lance Winslow