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High Country News reports:
[...] Scotts got permission from the USDA to plant larger fields for seed production. Farmers sowed 80 acres of bentgrass in Canyon County, Idaho, and 420 acres in Jefferson County, Oregon, north of Bend. The Oregon Department of Agriculture picked the site - an irrigated island in the sagebrush sea - to keep the plant far from the Willamette Valley. There, on the western side of the mountains, farmers grow forage and turf grass for a $1 billion-a-year seed industry.
Then two windstorms swept through the eastern Oregon fields in August of 2013, scattering flea-sized seeds well beyond the designated control area. Roundup-resistant pollen fertilized conventional bentgrass plants as far as 13 miles away.
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GMO Grass is Creeping Across Oregon
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @12:39PM (9 children)
Clearly the copyright owners of this GMO don't care enough about their IP to prevent it's spread in the wild so farmers should be in their rights to just pick it off the wild and replant it in their fields.
Make this a precedent and I guarantee big GMO will be dealing with this in no time.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:44PM (2 children)
Wasn't one of the GMO trait to be a one time crop and it wouldn't grow up again?
If so, then the regenerating crop isn't the same that was sold. No need to pay any "IP license".
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @10:42PM
There is no single GMO trait. Let me say that again to emphasize it. There is no single GMO trait.
Some GMO varieties are, indeed, supposed to kill off the second generation. I do worry that there will be some varieties that kill off the 10th or 20th generation, so I really support non-GMO varieties. But that's not why I'm against GMO varieties. The reason I'm against GMO varieties breaks down into two major sections:
1) Legal liabilities and limitations, and
2) They weren't developed to be safe, but rather to be profitable for their corporate sponsor.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Monday July 02 2018, @11:49PM
You are correct! It was called the Terminator Gene.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology [wikipedia.org]
DRM for seeds!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:45PM (2 children)
Some farmers grow grass as their crop, as mentioned in the article. Some farmers, such as the one interviewed for the article, are trying to grow other crops. To them this GMO grass is a weed--one they can't suppress with glyphosate. That's not good for the farmers, not good for Bayer/Monsanto, and not good for people who eat.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Spamalope on Monday July 02 2018, @02:21PM (1 child)
So we can nail Monstanto by developing roundup resistant weeds? Where do we start?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:31PM
> roundup resistant weeds
Already happening naturally, just like the internet, nature routes around it.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Monday July 02 2018, @03:02PM
Except the farmer
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @05:05PM (1 child)
GMO is not copyrighted. It is patented.
with rounded corners!
There is a big problem with that. It is the same problem that everyone has been concerned about with GMO crops. If farmers could, with impunity, or even with punity, help the spread of GMO plant organisms, then the problem is accelerating! Faster.
The problem is that GMO crops creep because they are better Darwinian competitors than natural plant organisms. Maybe just because of their resistance to insect pests they are more fit to survive. Or they are more immune to certain "illnesses" that spread through plant populations, which would also make them more fit for survival.
Once only the GMO crops are left and the natural variants are extinct, our crops are all alike genetically. Once those "illnesses" or insect pests evolve to be successful at attacking the GMO crops, and they will, then the entire crop, planet wide, could be destroyed much more quickly than the natural variety of plants which had some diversity and thus natural resistance. The natural variety had survived for a very long, long, long time. GMO crops, probably not so much.
Then we'll really be in trouble.
But as long as it is profitable for Monsanto, then it's all alright.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @10:45PM
Actually, GMO plants are mainly spreading because the seed corporation (Monsanto == Bayer) gets more money from them, and they control the sale of plant seeds.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.