As Kenya’s crops fail, a fight over GMO | Hacker News Reader

As Kenya’s crops fail, a fight over GMO

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49 pointsBrajeshwar67 comments

WRT patent slavery: My understanding is that patents are not globally enforceable. A US patent is enforceable in the USA. If you want to protect that same invention in Mongolia, you'd need to file for a separate patent in Mongolia and have it approved. There are certain timing and procedural limitations, as well. (e.g.: If you're an American citizen, you're obligated to file in the USA first. If your patent has been published, it may be no longer capable of attaining a foreign patent.)

The "patent slavery" claim is therefore only credible if:

(1) - The GMO seeds in question have a local Kenyan patent.

(2) - Local Kenyan courts decide to enforce the rights of the patent holder, and toss arguments that "an act of God," or something similar, compelled farmers to use the GMO seeds.

I think that both steps are a priori unlikely. Virtually no patents -- even very important ones -- are filed in every possible jurisdiction. And I don't think that the courts would side with the patent holders in any case, for, e.g, force-majeure/act-of-god/unequal-agreement reasons.

I don't believe US or EU will sell them the crops without patent enforcement.

It terrifies me to have a patent on the only crop that can grow in a country.

Food is a necessity

What happens if the seller decides to quadruple the price overnight ? (à la OPEC but for crops)

If some country does 'sanctions' ? (like Russia or the USA when they can't just declare a war to a place)

or if the economy collapses and imports are expensive ? (imagine Venezuela, but the country is also not able to buy crops that work)

these crops sellers will own the Kenyans.

I wouldn't buy the crops if patents were enforced.

it feels like some SF novel (or the Washington Consensus, yet again)

Back in the days, China forced foreign companies to work with domestic companies to sell in China. And at least, they are independent on some technologies now.

> It terrifies me to have a patent on the only crop that can grow in a country.

If dreaming up an implausible scenario scares you, maybe that's on you?

I don’t think it is ever a case that someone can patent the only crop you can grow. Parents are not issued for such broad categories. You cannot patent corn or potatoes as a whole. What is patentable is a specific variety of corn that you develop anew. This means that you can always grow the traditional varieties that are not (and cannot be) patented. If a seller of patented variety quadruples seed price, you can just go back to these if patented variety is not worth the extra cost.

Except that your neighbor bought into the patented crop and nature pollinated your crops, cross contaminating your fields and placing you into patent infringement.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-organic-lawsuit/...

Nobody has ever been sued for accidental cross contamination this, and Monsanto explicitly says that it will never sue anyone for this.

> In its ruling Monday, the appellate court said the organic growers must rely on Monsanto assurances on the company’s website that it will not sue them so long as the mix is very slight

That is about as good as "trust us." If it is unclear, that is a really bad position legally.

In theory, maybe, but in practice nobody (in particular, no serious, non-hobby farmers) cares about it other than activists who hate Monsanto. Outside of activist groups and NGOs, this is simply a non-issue.

Big corporation with shady past promises us nicely that they will not sue...thanks, I'll pass!

There is a Hugo Award-winning SciFi book about this called The Wind Up Girl. It imagines a future where petroleum is depleted and “Calorie Companies” wield power by controlling the supply of blight resistant crops.

On the bright side, this would probably happen only if the host country doesn't block these crops and continue enforcing those patents as the situation gets dire.

A sane gov. would pull the brakes pretty fast.

On the dirty side, a gov could be forced in that situation as a condition to receive foreign investment or other critical foreign intervention. We've seen it happen with water infra built under a condition of monopoly, an puting the country's water at the mercy of an international company.

You don't need patent enforcement for hybrid crops, which is pretty much every seed other than soybeans which is an heirloom crop. Corn has major hybrid vigor, so only a totally ignorant farmer would try to replant harvested corn. Corn seeds are made by crossing two heirloom corn varieties at a seed farm, e.g. Southern Dent is crossed with Northern Flint (both are about 5 feet tall and make small ears), to make hybrid corn which grows about 8 feet tall and has massive ears. When you sell seeds, you don't get access to the heirloom plants needed to make the seed. No need for patents.

With soybeans however, they breed true as heirlooms. The GMO beans were sold with the promise that farmers don't use the crop as seeds. Since everything other than soybeans are hybrids, the issue is largely moot.

you're somewhat right and somewhat wrong.

> patents are not globally enforceable

right

> If your patent has been published, it may be no longer capable of attaining a foreign patent.

Wrong. There is a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which most nations of the world are signatories to, which avoids this problem. You file PCT first, and then your filing date is set for all national-stage patent filings later.

> Virtually no patents -- even very important ones -- are filed in every possible jurisdiction

Right.

The PCT thing isn't automatic, though, and it is quite expensive. (Filing fees in the $3000-5000 range for most US entities.) I believe that the majority of US patent filers don't make use of it.

...And, even if you do file a PCT application, you have to follow it up with patent filings in the foreign offices of your choice -- for that application doesn't grant you a patent, just a priority date in foreign patent offices and an extended deadline to file.

I wonder whether Monsanto et al.'s patents are valid in Kenya. Their patent office's site doesn't contain much information: kipi.go.ke

> The PCT thing isn't automatic, though, and it is quite expensive.

Nonetheless, that's what a multinational company would do.

> you have to follow it up with patent filings in the foreign offices of your choice

that's what I said.

As for Kenyan patents: I don't think it matters. If you can only manufacture the seeds in the US or UK, then patents in those countries would suffice.

This has to be one of the most poorly researched articles on the subject I've seen.

First, they want to introduce BT-maize, which has nothing to do with drought resistance - it's been engineered to produce a biotoxin that some pests have already developed resistance to:

(2021) Resistance to Bt Maize by Western Corn Rootworm:

> "Since the 1990s, an important innovation in the management of agricultural pest insects has been the commercial cultivation of genetically engineered crops that produce insecticidal toxins, which in turn act to protect plants from feeding injury by insects. To date, these transgenic crops, which include cotton, maize and soybean, have produced insecticidal proteins derived from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Benefits associated with planting of Bt crops include reduced feeding injury from pest insects, decreased yield losses from pests and less harm to the environment. However, the evolution of Bt resistance by insect pests can diminish these benefits. One serious insect pest currently managed with Bt maize is the western corn rootworm. The larval stage of this insect feeds on maize roots and can substantially reduce yield. In some parts of the US Corn Belt, western corn rootworm rapidly adapted to Bt maize, and currently, some populations show resistance to all commercially available Bt traits."

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/12/2/136

The next question is, what's the cost of introducing this in terms of patent restrictions on seed production, seed costs to farmers, etc.? Reuters at least addresses the issue:

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/kenyas-gmo-maize-push-s...

Given the inexorable climate trends, maybe Kenya's farmers really need better irrigation systems or help with transition to more drought-resistant crops like cassava?

https://www.devex.com/news/kenyan-farmers-look-to-drought-re...

> "Cassava production in Kenya dropped in the nineties and early 2000s due to diseases, unavailability of clean seeds, poor varieties, and agronomical practices."

With regards to 'seed slavery's, how can farmers be worse of than they are now? They can always go back to the normal seeds if that is cheaper.

Regarding resistance, you could make the same arguments for any pesticide.

Moreover, this is about outlawing a technology. That should only be done if that technology forbid is harmful to the environment or public health. The farmers can then decide whether they should transition to other crops. That should not be imposed from above.

If you introduce proprietary seeds into the marketplace with considerably better yields, you can easily destroy the markets for the free-to-replant crops by lowering prices of the produce.

It's not outlawing a technology really, it's outlawing a middle-man who takes a sizable chunk of the profit.

Yes, if the proprietary seeds are so much better and cheaper that nobody will ever buy legacy seeds, the latter might go out of business. Isn’t it a good thing? It’s not like proprietary seed makers will then be able to rack up prices, as bringing legacy seeds back to market is cheap and doesn’t require large capital investment.

Double yields with more expensive seed, commodity prices halve due to higher yields (you never really gain income long term with increased productivity). But now instead of being able to replant your own seed, you have to buy expensive seed. You can't go back to the old less productive seed because the prices for the yields have gone down significantly.

This is a fully general argument against any progress: let’s not improve any production processes, because if we make stuff cheaper to make, everyone will have to do it the new, efficient way, which would be terrible. Just try to think of similar proposals in the realm of computing: imagine suggesting that hardware companies shouldn’t make CPUs and memory faster, because this will allow software to do more things and do them faster, which will force people to buy this new, more productive hardware, and will put out of business companies trying to develop software for and run it on old, less productive Pentium 4s.

This is extremely silly: with this attitude, we’d never have transformed our economy away from where majority people work in agriculture to where only a small fraction does, and the rest is freed to make other products and services nicer and more affordable.

They don't have to be "so much better" - they just have to be the few % better that represents farmer's thin margins.

Seeds have to be planted continuously to have more seeds. Their shelf-life is notoriously short. No, they cannot just return to their old seeds. They got ground into cornmeal and eaten long ago.

Is maize native to Kenya?

>maybe Kenya's farmers realy need better irrigaiton systems

It's a challenge - I sell solar irrigation to farmers in Kenya (hi from Nairobi), and despite some successes have pivoted to SaaS irrigation monitoring. I'd be ecstatic to talk through the Kenyan irrigation problem offline with HNers & ideate better solutions together. (Contact in handle profile.)

https://www.sunnyirrigation.com

The point in this case isn't drought resistance, it's increased yields for what does grow. If food supplies are low, higher yields from pest resistance become even more important.

And even if resistance has been developed in "parts" of the US corn belt, presumably that would take years to develop in Kenya as well, in "parts"?

Better irrigation and cassava might be great ideas too, I wouldn't know. But it doesn't seem either/or -- why not try GMO maize as well?

"Although GM crops are completely safe to eat"

While I think that's far from settled, it's certainly true that Bt corn encouraged the liberal use of Roundup, which is not completely safe.

It’s not the “GMO” part that’s problematic — it’s what is done with GMO. Humans have been “genetically modifying” crops for millennia.

The case for the rise of modern “gluten sensitivity” actually being “roundup sensitivity” seems pretty strong. Likely wheat just absorbs it more.

Wouldn’t that pretty easy to test by giving those who claim gluten sensitivity some organic wheat?

I think that would have to be a longterm study where the test subjects don't just avoid wheat with it sprayed nearby but also other products affected by it. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the claim is that the residual glyphosate or the like can affect certain gut bacteria (and overgrowth of certain others) which leads to the symptoms as those bacteria might be helpfull in breaking down gluten. So a person affected this who suddenly eats organic wheat would still exhibit the same symptoms.

I don't think there's been proper proof or studies for this but the idea doesn't seem to be too far fetched since it comes from studies on fish and the like where similar things were seen.

Human selection isn't quite the same as human modification.

Comparing classical plant breeding with GMO (or with the techniques used in the green revolution) isn't really that useful. There are too many technical differences between a process that uses selection which operates over hundreds to thousands of years, and a process which instantly changes the phenotype of a plant. And those differences matter a lot!

The only truly risky GMO I've seen was a case where the allergen from brazil nuts was accidentally introduced to experimental soybeans, which seemed to cause the soybeans to trigger brazil nut allergies in people. That was discontinued pretty quickly.

Article talks about corn, but GMO is something with tradeoffs as GMO dwarf wheat may not grow better than regular wheat under drought conditions.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pce.13819

What does GMO do to solve “we didn’t get any rain”?

They’ll get sold into patent slavery they can’t afford to solve the wrong problem.

there are gmo crops that rely on less water to grow - they'll use those. agree with your second point, possibly already there.

The article states they are wanting to use drought resistant strains. I am assuming the drought resistant could be translated as “plants that don’t need a lot of rain”.

Well, there is drought resistant crops. Yes, it is true the crops can't grow without any water at all, but often times drought means less water, and that causes the crops to become more susceptible to disease. So that is one way of making a crop drought resistant, is to make it disease resistant.

Drought resistant not a silver bullet. It can help, but only up to a point (and that point seems lower than the sales guys and sponsored studies under optimal conditions might indicate).

Edited because part of this wasn’t factually correct.

> These are plants that have had genes from another organism inserted into their DNA to give them a new trait, such as disease or drought resistance

there are already crops that grow under less-rain conditions, but sales teams are checking your subscription status right now

The article mentions at least 5 things that are reducing food production. GMO addresses one of them.

That's indeed one great question

Specially after this:

Butterfly Effect

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/02/geoengineering-reining-...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/18/us-and-s...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-blocks-u-n-re...

https://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/regions/

Wouldn't this be a modern form of colonization, since these countries cannot produce these seeds? Extinguishing local crops for patented seeds produced by a company abroad

Is maize native to Kenya?

"Colonization" in the sense that Kenya will become dependent on a foreign company for food production.

> Farmers who buy seed protected by some types of patent must sign an agreement not to sell or save seed from these crops – so they are obliged to buy fresh seeds every year.

The dark side of the GMO propaganda, then you have the royalties ;)

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/gm-plants/wh...

More to do with the patent than the actual technology.

Since the 1940s farmers have preferred hybrid seeds that don't breed true. Saving seeds is an extremely stupid thing to do, so no farmer hesitates to sign the agreement.

> Since the 1940s

sales totals as evidence?

> farmers have preferred

Which farmers, in what markets?

> hybrid seeds that don't breed true

does this apply to the Organic markets as defined by the legal definition of Organic ?

> Saving seeds is an extremely stupid thing

extremely stupid statements quickly accuse others of being extremely stupid, in my experience

> so no farmer hesitates

hesitation.. you mean understanding the agreement? then deciding on your own, with your own counsel ?

> sign the agreement

which legal jurisdiction ? what language is the agreement in ? where is the venue for resolution of conflict?

Heterosis.

It's a dick move to demand a citation for everything. Do you do that for all the posts you AGREE with?

hybrid seeds don't breed true. You need to research what hybrid means, I have no idea why you bring up "organic markets" as if the market/growing conditions affect the genetics of a plant??

The British government has 10 pages of rules and procedures for seed saving. Are farmers in Britain also "extremely stupid"?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/farm-saved-seed

I know nothing about this field, but people who do understand the situation in Kenya seem to disagree with you.

https://afsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/kenya-engli...

Your first link explains that when you’re a UK farmer and you save seeds, you must pay the government some kind of tax for the privilege. Oh, and also you cannot give or sell other people the seeds you saved.

Your second link is some kind of NGO the whole agenda of which is to promote seed savings. Hardly an objective source to learn the attitudes to seed saving of Kenyan farmers.

The point is that enough UK farmers do save seeds, that the UK government feels it important to charge them royalty fees. So apparently the seeds work.

The seeds work. They just don't work as well. Sometimes you can sell heritage crops for more and it works out. Not all crops of hybrid variants so there is it makes sense to save seeds.

I have no idea what the UK is trying to accomplish with that paperwork, so I can't comment on it.

>Saving seeds is an extremely stupid thing to do, so no farmer hesitates to sign the agreement.

Hard disagree. I know of a good few farmers seedsaving. They mostly do relatively small scale and/or organic and one I'm particularly close to's business is mostly centered around selling seeds so that's definitely not representative....but I dare say it's still a dumb statement. Especially in the context of Kenyan farmers where the majority of farms are comparatively small as per quick google.

This is an often repeated anti-GMO talking point, but in reality typical farmers don't want to spend time and effort in making their own, inferior, seed.

I agree, in first world countries. I'm not sure this is as true in the developing world.

Yeah, in the developing world they follow a lot of traditional practices, like seed saving or underuse of artificial fertilizers or pesticides, which results in bad yields and leaves them poorer.

Some might call that "more sustainable" and "less subject to foreign imperialist control"

Yes, the people who don’t care much about well being and flourishing of people in poor areas of the world might say that. Sure, they work their asses of hoeing the rows, and get quarter of the yields people in the west get with ten times more labor input, but at least it’s sustainable.

No, sorry, I reject this sort of anti-human approach — people in poor countries deserve to flourish too, and using best farming and industrial practices is crucial to achieve that. I find this sort of keeping impoverished people in a cycle of poverty in the name of “sustainability” (whatever that means) to be rather despicable.

It most definitely is true in India.

How is it a dark side? It's part of the agreement and known before signing

Signing away future rights is a dark side. Similar to credit card debt.

"Foreknowledge of contractual restrictions" is not a sufficient condition of justice.

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