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Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

You failed to explain why seeds that might fail to make the "best crop possible" would be banned, while leading with a promise to do so. Instead, you explained the concept of "hybrid vigor."

Then you talked about the counterfeiting of seeds by imitating a coating, a concept completely unrelated to a law banning sharing seeds, and unlikely to be hindered by it at all.

Unless I am missing something.

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Also, are they not capable of buying seeds from reputable sources in Kenya? I assume there is some sort of farmer seed-shop in most places which has been around for more than a year, known to be reputable. If they buy below-market priced seeds then those are going to be dodgy. That is why they are below market price. These people are poor not stupid. It'd be like my buying a cheap Rolex from a street vendor - I might buy it, I might not but I'm not going to be confused if it turns out to be a fake. It isn't hard to find a reputable seller of something and if you go to the unreputable sellers the reason it is cheap is because it might be bad quality. Don't go to a community seed store that lets in random seeds if the quality matters.

I assumed that there was unwritten context where some seed vendor with genetically enhanced seeds was corrupting the legal process to try and protect their IP.

I am kenyan,let me put it into context since its a bit nuanced. We have a very corrupt parliament, they were bought off way back in 2012 when the law was introduced. Mainly by big corpos like Monsanto & the Apollo guy above. They basically wanted full dependence on these companies for seeds, without giving farmers a choice. Maize is the staple of the country and big bank for anyone who captures the supply chain at whatever level. There has always been contention on GMOs since contrary to what you may have read in your media, kenyan farmers are perfectly capable of feeding their families & the nation at large. Now farmers fought back the law was suspended in court since 2012 but during that period a lot of big seed companies found a way to capture the market. Its a victory since the fines and jail time were really extreme & seed sharing is an age old tradition here, so picture a bunch of foregin companies lobbying your government to criminalize your traditions because its a direct threat to their business model

That is why this is a big deal and for more context on why interfering with agricultural sytems at this scale is a doomed excercise; The gates foundation tried this shit in Zambia, and it worked they produced more till covid hit, supply chains were cut and they are still dealing with a famine

Thank you so much for this first-hand insight! It takes the conversation out of theoretical law intentions, and into real-world actions.

In fact its basically a monopoly play to sideline the longstanding seedbanks that have existed, both government ones and co-op based seed banks. Hence the law that proposed: Fines could reach up to 1 million Kenyan shillings (approximately $7,700) and Offenders risked imprisonment for up to two years.

Think about that for a second in a economy where approximately 40-50% is subsistence agriculture.

Basically a ploy to force the small farmers off the land and leave it to plantation and multicorps.

Its really sad but KE is in the grip of one of the worst neoliberal experiments since post Soviet in the early 90s. See recent news where all the country's healthdata has been auctioned off to the US big pharma for 25years for 1B.

Please see linked Harvard study for partial explanation of difficulties and challenges in local supply chain.

> “…are they not capable of buying seeds from reputable sources…”

I don’t know the answer, but the op’s answer does point to corruption. This reminds me of early 20th century reforms in the meat industry in the United States a hundred years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Meat_Inspection_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era

Ole Jeff Monsanto at it again. Testing chemical sprays next to Hawaiian elementary schools just doesn't hit the same anymore.

Smarter to do it where you can buy off an entire national government.

Please try reading the whole comment again, I think you are missing most of the comment?

I read the comment and for context I am also a farmer, and stripping farmers of a choice with excessively high fines and jail time will never be correct no matter how you frame it or whatever goodwill you pupport to have, you are in it for the money not to help out “poor” farmers

“I don't necessarily think community seed banks should be banned, but I think it's important context to know. There are people for whom they really need any seed, crops which are not served commercially well, and a whole bunch of other use cases I immediately understand for a community seed bank. But seed counterfitting is a real problem that is hurting some of the world's poorest people. (I'll also just say I'm not up to date on this law, the court case, or how it's been applied in the country.)”

That still doesn't give any context that would support the action.

If seed counterfeiting is "a big problem", then banning seed sharing is "an even bigger, worse problem". What context justifies causing a bigger, worse problem to address a smaller problem?

Occam's razor suggests that the primary motivation was protecting corporate profits anyways, not addressing seed counterfeiting.

> That still doesn't give any context that would support the action.

That's because if the true context in support was given, it would be: "because seed sharing reduces our rate of sales, and our resulting profits".

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