Herbicide resistant GM crops used to get slathered with more herbicides than non-GM crops, so you probably were getting less exposure to these herbicides with non-GM conventional crops vs. GM conventional crops (I guess you could argue this falls into business practices, but it is the point of these GM crops). But, Ag schools, at least in the US, have been promoting using herbicides like glyphosate and Reglone to desiccate crops immediately prior to harvest[1] to avoid having to mow the crops to get a low uniform crop moisture content for harvesting equipment. So, conventional non-GM grains, oil seeds and legumes may also have high herbicide residues. Of course, buying organic avoids both sources of herbicides.
[1] https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/m...
BT is sprayed on some food crops, but with GM food crops, it is contained within every cell of the plant, and cannot be washed off. You are consuming BT toxin, if you eat GM BT crops (the US EPA requires BT crops to be registered as pesticides). Putting poison in contact with mucus membranes seems, at the very least, 'possible' to have negative long-term health consequences.
Non GM conventional crops can use systemic pesticides (the irrigation water contains the poison and/or the seed is pre-treated. This also incorporates the pesticide within plant tissues so it cannot be washed off). These systemic pesticides are usually neonicotinoids. Presence of systemic neonicotinoid use in conventional agriculture does not negate concerns about GM BT crops.
My point was that GM, as it exists today, makes conventional agriculture's issues of pesticide exposure and low genetic diversity in our staple food crops worse, not that conventional agriculture doesn't already have issues.
No we didn't, we have been conducting artificial selection for centuries, farmers just pick among the best varieties available to them. By your logic the act of buying GMO seeds is what modifies their genes rather than their production process.
The solution to dependence is to have multiple suppliers. One can always use an older variety of seed. If the complaint is that the benefits are going to the company that made the seeds rather than the farmer, then how is that different from any other patented technology? The farmer is never going to be worse off, since he can always just use older varieties if the cost > his benefit.
Perhaps your actual argument is that this will reduce food prices, driving out producers who don't keep up with the latest advances. But again, how is that different from any other improvement in agricultural technology? Is this just more European objection to the steamroller of US industrial agriculture?
First of all, copyright isn't the applicable IP; patents are.
Second, no farmer has ever been sued for accidental contamination with patented GMOs. There have been cases where farmers deliberately tried to concentrate trace contamination, but the courts properly recognized the deliberate nature of that.
These urban legend arguments are one of the reasons I view the entire anti-GMO movement with a very jaundiced eye.
Yes, deliberate use of the patented gene/interaction. That's still suing small farmers, doing farmer stuff, for IP infringement.
So it's not bullshit.
> Your argument here is like blaming a homeowner for catching a burgler.
Nah, burgling doesn't work like IP rights. The analogy is hopelessly broken.
He definitely violated the patent but it doesn't make it a good thing that the patent works that way, and it doesn't make suing him a good thing.
Your hole is deep enough, it's time to stop digging.
Artificial selection is a normal farming activity. At the very least it's thousands of years old, that part isn't what the patent is about.
Look, let's get back to the original post maybe? "Suing small farmers for copyright infringement isn't very nice." It was a different kind of IP infringement, otherwise nothing is factually wrong about this statement. We have some conflict about how patents should work in a situation like this, but that's not really the point here.
Yes, let's get back to that original nonsense post. You are objecting to a patent holder defending their rights under the patent, taking deliberate and knowing violators of the patent to court. That position is bullshit. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Note that no farmers have even been sued for accidental and involuntary contamination of their crops. Nor will they be, since they'd have an excellent defense there in the absence of any intention on their parts to violate the patent. The courts are not stupid on this sort of thing.
If I think a law is flawed, then proof of violation is not going to change my mind!
> You are objecting to a patent holder defending their rights under the patent, taking deliberate and knowing violators of the patent to court.
For this very specific type of violation.
I personally think certain kinds of copyright related to distribution are garbage and should not exist at all. I think it's bad if a company sues over them, even if the party being sued is very guilty.
> That position is bullshit.
Criticizing a law is not bullshit.
Criticizing a lawsuit over a violation you think isn't worth it, even if the violation is extremely blatant, is not bullshit either.
I'm not even saying the initial comment is on the correct side, just that it's a reasonable position.