GURT (Genetic Use Restriction Tech) - Terminator gene

[SASKFARMER3]

NorthFarmer, My beef with a terminator gene is not the part of no more volunteers. That would be great. My beef is that we won't be able to reuse any of our own seed anymore in cereals, being forced to pay whatever price tag they put on certified seed.

[northfarmer]

i see the potential benefit to such technolgy, i have not concluded that i would buy it, do not know the price or the implications...you seem to think I am already sold. there is nothing yet to buy...

by the same token, one could argue those that categoratically deny technology advancements for our industry may have been have been brainwashed......

i spend less per unit of production on canola now than i did in mid 90's on canola, the $50 dollar chemical cocktail an acre that gave me high dockage and lower yields...and even then i can still remember having to sell canola at times for $5bu...fact of the matter is we just grew less acres of canola and was a much smaller part of our rotation then than it is now...

...I am sure the 80 percent of acres in Canada that are seeded to transgenic canola and certified seed do so because of the value it offers their farm, if they did not they would seed conventional canola...

Convince me of why you could not continue to seed the varieties you grow now if such technogies were available.....

.I suspect what what we would all like is the vlaue of the technolgy for no cost......will not happen, all investments are motivated by the potential for profit...same idea when you plant your crop...

....on the cereals side, with much fewer acres being seeded to certified the implications would be far less and may not even be commercially viable....this is witnessed by the fact that most new varieties come from public breeding and not private breeding....

[mjohn]

"Control" is a little dramatic. They're usually so busy fighting with each other that I don't think they spend a lot of time conspiring to rule the world. Look at their perspective. They spend millions of dollars to produce a new clearfield or RR variety and then invest in a huge inventory only to have one or two years of sales and then see it dry up because everyone is bin running it. How do you expect them to react? It's not evil, just entirely predictable. Not all seed companies are corporate giants. They have expenses too. So what is the solution guys? One is to ramp the government and university progams back up to where they were in the 70's and 80's.

[SASKFARMER3]

12 years of no vision with agriculture lead us to where we are today.
Terminator gene works in USA or EU where they are paid for the product.
Canada where were given lip service Sorry.
Talk to any farmer that been at this a long time and you will get the truth.

[northfarmer]

good point Mjohn....but i suspect the appetite for more public breeding programs, and investment in biotech for those crops is a tough sell with shrinking total budget for agriculture and lack of political support and vision for our industry, the vision and strategy issue I can agree with Sasfarmer....we have seen substantial reduction in total support for western agriculture during the reign of the Chretien/Martin liberal govts...it will be a hard trend to now reverse with a minority conservative govt....

we will need to continue to see advancement in both canola production characteristsic and economics as well as quality and end use characteristics...else we will fall further behind the crops that get the biotech and breeding attention, specially in the case of canola it would be soybeans....

they already have commercial production in the US of zero transfat soy and this will quickly move to capture oppotunities that may otherwise might be available to canola in food ingredients....

if you had stock in a biotech/seed company where would you want to your investment to go, the 125 million acres of soybeans or the 15 million global acres of canola....

I just read in agriweek that by 2010 eu demand for bio fuel will require that the EU will have to import and equal amount of ****/canola oil as the what it produces to meet predicted demand.....we will need breeding and development of canola and other crops for that matter...to help us meet and compete with what will inevitably be the global competition to capture new demands for plant fuel sources...

i read on one of my newswires that at the Commodity Classic in the US Dupont/Pioneer announced new stacked trait gene shuffling technology, the focus likely being corn and soybeans....will it even make it too canola, who knows?

just because many think and should beleive our govt has failed our industry over the past decades should not preclude people in our industry from defending and planning for its future......

[SASKFARMER3]

North farmer you do make sense on the fact that the Climate of rural Canada was destroyed by the Fed liberals and NDP and I do agree if we were getting a little return on the farm for our investment then yea all the research could go ahead but in todays world No.

[sawfly]

with the existance of the terminator gene. Reasearch on the private side with open pollinated crops would cease.
So any advances with yeild,nitrogen fixing,seed properties would become property of the companys.
assume a change in seed properties is required. Eg. like the change to low glugasinate canola. or a new rust or furssium . the old varieties would become obsolete.
The only ones that could be successfully grown are the new ones, which would give the seed companys a total strangle hold on the farmer.(the ability to charge whatever they wanted.)
with plant breeders rights as they are ,older varieties would be taken off the market and dissapear, (just stop selling them) forceing farmers and consumers to pay whatever the companys want.

we have already seen a shift to big bussines control. the takeing away of canola seed treatments from farmers.
you will notice that a lot of old chemicals just dissapear , triumph hoegrass . or they are fixed at such high prices to discourage their use. Edge, treflan , muster, poast
they dont drop in price to compete with the newer better systems , thus forceing farmers into the 6$/lb. seed and 25$ chemical systems.
the same thing will happen here , choices will be removed , incentives will be created to abandon all old seeds and systems. then they will own our and the consumers ass even more than they do now.
Look at RR canola soybeans , what has happened in 20 years, every gain in production has been scooped up by the chem/seed co. Farmers risk 4 times as much money to get a smaller return . Farmers take all the risk and chem guys get paid up front.

This may be progress but not for the farmer or consumer.

[northfarmer]

research on open polinated crops and devlopment of traits for op's would likley continue if there was demand and a business case to do so.... ...why would any company want to develope the technology if it was not theirs to control, at tleast until the expiry of their patent.......the only other way to advance plant genetics would be with public fuding.....cannot see that happening........ the new technolgies may become those of choice because they will be the ones the farmers get the greatest return from growing else farmer will not adopt them......the current form of PBR allows the unrestricted replanting of farm grown seed on the farm it was grown on...so how would that not allow farmers to continue to propigate their own seed suuply if they so wish........as for the old chemistries many can still can be purchased if they are still registered in Canada either from new vendors of the product or OUI....ie. recent rebranding of what was avadex...fact is most farmers want the new chemistries based on efficacy and rotational needs to prevent resistance............ok, the economincs of crop production are as challenging now as they have ever been, but i think that has more to do with government and trade policy hear and abroad....no one forces farmers to use these technologies...go organic if you think so, no law against it.....in MHO