North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Heron Breen <breen@fedcoseeds.com>]

TO those tuning in,
The usual disclaimer that my opinions are my own, not reflective of an 
employer.
As I thought about what you, my fruit comrades, wrote, I felt a seperation or 
deviation, depending on your perspective, needed to be made between 
clonal/vegetatively reproduced plant patents and gene patents thus far 
reserved for 
annual or near-annual plants. 
I view patents as both good and bad. As an amateur breeder, and having worked 
with 
breeders in the seed trade, we who enjoy the fruits of others labors must 
recognize 
the labor first, the fruit second. Why this is not done is due to our 
country's 
great forgetting about our complete reliance upon the natural world. A 
skilled 
farmer, horticulturalist, woodsperson, lumberer, fisherman, naturalist, 
herbalist, 
or just those with the keen green thumbs and eyes had, pre-WWI, social 
recognition 
for starting the thread that led from wilderness/field to rootcellar or 
dinner 
plate. For the last century, as capitalism replaced religion and survival as 
the 
driving force behind farmers, you and I have become the people of the sacred 
here 
and now, the present, the deluded masses racing to be in the moment. 
Farming, hunting, etc has never been about the moment, the here. It has 
always been 
about next year, the next week, getting up to see what the powers that be 
have left 
outside for you to work on. Problem solving in nature is always 3 
dimensional, and 
more like 5 or 6 when hired help is involved. Just to grow a crop of 
anything, 
regardless of profit, with just pure hand-to-mouth relevance in mind, one 
must 
become filthy in the game of What-If and Great!now lets go clean the stalls, 
milk, 
the next thing. But the stress once was more pleasant because the seasons 
were the 
guide, not commodity prices and Cargil's share price. Nature first, Cargil 
second. 
Labor first, fruit second.
Elwyn Meader had a saying about breeding plants: With 15 years and courage of 
your 
convictions, you can do anything. 15 years. In fifteen years, one can plow a 
lot of 
time, resources, love, sweat, just your pure lifeforce into something. You 
draw 
upon family, childhood experiences, friends, God, everything to see a result 
that 
might be there or might not.
Writers write books, poems, plays etc. Some spend years crafting a story, a 
character, a line. At the end, if it is deemed publishable, it is given the 
protection of a copyright. This means no one can take your work and reproduce 
it in 
any form without your say-so and a price. It is even considered bad form and 
sometimes fraudalent to just quote an author without footnoting or 
attributing the 
work. And these are just ideas, not physical formations.
The vegetable seed world and the vegetatively reproduced perennial world have 
parted ways on the purpose of patents. Fruit and ornamental breeders (F&O's), 
private or public, use patents to make a little of that fifteen years of 
effort 
back, sometimes failing that even with a patent. Thus far, what has mostly 
been 
patented are clear new varieties. What is unique about F&O's is that a 
mutation of 
a patented variety is universally recognized as a distinct variety. In other 
words, 
the nearly same genes are just acting differently, as in a branch sport. And 
the 
discoverer of this sport can even patent it! Because fruit breeding is a 
longterm 
investment and the US economy cares squat about fruit growers (the 
fruit/profit 
part only at that, not the labor part), fruit breeding has remained in the 
hands of 
fruit enthusiasts and the like. Because one parent tree is the source of all 
future 
trees, all one can do is control the distribution of material from that one 
tree. 
And plant patents only protect that for almost 20 years. It takes nearly 
twenty 
years to get a released fruit enough commercial recognition to make the money 
back 
on the breeding program (if that)! The delayed gratification, mutliple steps 
of 
labor involved, and the required skill make F&O patents at best good for a 
small 
fortune. Most often, a little extra pocket change and some professional 
recognition. Just the fact that some many popular fruit cultivars have 
resulted 
from chance seedlings on the roadside makes an investment group leery of 
buying 
into a breeding program. And those that have bought, have bought into the 
distribution side ie the retail nursery business where marketing is the key 
to 
success. 
Another way to look at why money corrupts and blesses F&O breeding less is 
because 
fruit and ornamental "pretties" are really economic dessert. Wheat, beef, 
soybeans, 
corn, are what's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In today's culture, ice 
cream 
WAY outsells fruit for dessert. And only a few people really care which 
cultivar of 
Lilac is in the driveway, as long as it is the right color. In ornamentals, 
folks 
just want performance not nuance.
If Paul Friday wants to patent some peaches to make back all the time and 
money he 
and his have invested into good germplasm, crosses etc, God let him. After 
spending 
an arm and a leg on the patent process, and taking the risk of working with 
nurseries to release the variety, I am sure he just wants to get back to 
breeding. 
Breeding should really be called selection, which to purists can be 
simplified into 
gathering, as in hunting and gathering. Not much more glamorous, but just as 
risky 
and exciting. Everyone wants a safe secure lifestyle these days. You have got 
to be 
nuts to be a breeder/gatherer like Zaiger or Friday, in today's world of 
salaries 
and crippled agriculure. The patent is basically a copyright for the story 
they 
have helped unfold for many years. These people are human, too. I'd hate to 
hear 
that Paul Friday got sick and died or a loved one did because he couldn't 
afford 
appropriate health care. I hear that a lot about older farmers and plant 
breeders 
from the last generation who have almost all checked out over the last 20 
years. "So and so selected this cultivar of raspberry. Never saw a dime. Lost 
the 
farm in '84. Where was it? Where the Walmart is now". Most all private 
breeders 
that I know, annuals or otherwise, have a second job.
An act that is immoral among the cadre of F&O breeders is taking a heirloom 
variety 
and patenting it. No previous known/named variety can be patented, 
thankfully. You 
can change the name and trademark the new name, but that crap (pardon the 
expression) is the work of those investment groups that buy up retail 
nurseries, 
not legitmate plant people. 
It is different with vegetable seeds. Let's address where is is dirtiest: 
GMO's and 
gene patents. The issue here is that some wise guys with gene patentlawyers 
have 
not copyrighted a story or a poem, but actual words that make up a sentence. 
Like 
its illegal to use the word "the" anymore without paying some suits money. 
Then 
they tell you if your plant sexually reproduces with their plant, the 
offspring 
have to be destroyed or they'll sue you. This is like Paul Friday telling you 
that 
any peach seedling that has a little bit of Flamin' Fury floating around in 
it is 
his. Or that any peaches harvested from any trees not from a Flamin' Fury 
series in 
a peach orchard planted with his varieties and some others must be destroyed 
or all 
profits from the sale of Fury pollinated said peaches are his.(OK yes most 
peaches 
can produce fruit solo). Then these vegetable GMO wise guys go over to 
another 
country, extract a gene from a heirloom variety, and patent it, telling 
everyone 
that they own anything with that gene in it. This is like someone patenting 
the 
gene sequence for Northern Spy, and any gene sequence that has the Northern 
Spy 
marker sequence in it, even if expressed differently, is gonna pay some 
buckage to 
some suits. Remember what I said about O&S breeders not patenting known 
cultivars? 
This is akin to Bear Creek having patented the Siberian Peach strain. I mean, 
what 
the heck? How can you patent anything that already exists normally in nature? 
This goes for gene sequences as well. Almost no one is creating completely 
original 
gene sequences. People say they are, but they are not. They are splicing 
together 
already existing gene sequences from other lifeforms to create a new pattern. 
This 
is like taking thread and making different types of plaid. Can you patent the 
resulting plaid? Never heard of it myself. Can you patent the threads made 
from all 
the different animals etc you made them out of? Not until recently! The Old 
Way of 
patenting would be patenting the unique process or machine you made to make 
the 
thread or plaid. And in most cases, since patents only last so long, truly 
wise 
creative/industrialist types had what were called "trade secrets". 
But "trade secrets" or secret sauces don't sell well on Wall Street, and 
trade 
secrets generally creates a guild type atmosphere with friendly competition. 
Not 
gross profits for investors to buy big cars with. 
The fact is that this type of GMO patenting and breeding have taken control 
of base 
foods, also called commodities, that people, also called consumers, rely 
upon. 
There are many other issues that involve GMO's, but I'll stop here.
Luckily, cooler heads have so far prevailed in the F&O world.
About violating patents: to me, if we are talking gene patents, violate away. 
The 
more the merrier. In fact, you are probably violating Monsanto's patent right 
now 
with the GMO food/dna in your gut getting broken down. The only legal remedy 
I can 
see is sending the GMO food, once excreted, in a box back to them with a note 
saying "sorry, here's those precious genes back that you are so concerned 
with". 
But plant patents I see differently. If we were spending the amount we are 
spending 
currently on the Department of Offense (since when did invasions get defined 
as 
Defense?) on agriculture, I'd say to hell with plant patents. But in reality, 
plant 
patents are just one more tool farmers are trying to use to stay alive. Yes 
breeders are farmers. Plant patents are like saying "this is my new special 
sauce, 
and if I don't market it, some greedy city type is gonna make a mint while I 
loose 
my teeth livin' offin baloney sandwiches for another 15 years til I strike it 
lucky 
again and learn my lesson and bottle it myself, damn it!" Yes, there are 
vegetable 
varieties that fall into extinction because nobody preserves stock seed due 
to 
plant patents, but there is a little bit of protection for those wanting to 
do 
that: just say you selected/improved the variety, which you did because you 
saved 
seed from it and that is selection, and say it was used in breeding. Then 
when the 
patent expires, just say you had a little bit of seed in the freezer, and lo 
and 
behold it was still good, and now you're offering it. If you don't horn in on 
their 
action while the patent is in working order, they won't care. Just be 
respectful of 
their work to get the germplasm, select it, test it, multiply it, and get you 
to 
say "dang, this patented green bean is worth savin'!" 
For the most part with vegetables, you and I don't even have to worry about 
patents, because most of the varieties offered have hybrid written all over 
them. 
This is the breeder's way of saying "trade secret" in neon letters. If you 
try to 
stabilize a hybrid, you select a new variety officially, and you are good to 
go. No 
apologies to Seminis needed. Elwyn Meader thought hybrids were unfinished 
breeding 
projects, so really, you've just finished their labor and they should thank 
you.
For F&O patents, if you want to be a jerk and violate them for profit, fine. 
I'll 
be happy to report you to the patent holder. I wouldn't care if you want a 
few 
trees for back-up, but if you like that breeder's work, you should agree to 
his/her 
terms when you buy the trees. Just buy a coupla extra and know you are 
sending 
someone's kid to college or helping to delay the university's ax on the 
research 
orchard site becoming the new bio-tech lab. Want it on a different rootstock? 
Request from a liscensed propagator or pay your fee directly to the patent 
holder. 
What I find disturbing about the "cast no stones" concept in turning people 
in is 
that no one on this list thinks publishing Steinbeck without permission is 
okay, 
but few want to stand up for each other's rights in plant breeding. We can 
all 
fight Monsanto in our spare time, but what happened to an honest dollar for 
an 
honest day's work? Paul Friday might really need that $200 in royalties that 
someone thinks he won't miss...remember my health care example above? He did 
the 
labor, and now you have the fruit! Give him his 17 year due please! "Casting 
no 
stones" is good, but so is "having your buddy's back" as the street slang 
goes. 
Farmers need to stick up for farmers, at least for 20 or so years.
The illegal economy is also called the Black Market. The Black Market and the 
Stock 
Market both have one thing in common: selfishness. I don't belief the hype of 
"this 
is a nation of laws". Laws are used to keep people in their place most of the 
time. 
I think this is a nation of people. The Bill of Rights, Declaration of 
Independece, 
and the Constitution seemed to think the same. The "Rule of Law" can be 
manipulated 
any which way to help badguys do what is intended by the "Rule of Law" 
phrase: 
RULE. This is what Monsanto is doing. What Paul Friday is doing is making a 
legitimate living. The same legislation is supporting Financial Slavery and 
Freemen. Indeed it is flawed and needs to be fixed. 
I think the only reason to not report someone for plant patent violation is 
if they 
are trying to maintain a vegetable variety until after the patent expires, or 
have 
a few backup trees, or if you are concerned about losing your friends' and 
peers' 
respect. People say: "yeah this nursery person broke the patent law, but he's 
a 
nice guy and has done so much for plants. That person who turned him in is a 
ratfink. I don't like them. They ruined the reputation of a good person." 
This is 
what happens. It is called being a whistleblower. Apparently Omerta is not 
just for 
the Mafia. Justice may be blind, but people are not. This is a nation ruled 
by 
people, and people are judgemental. Me included. So, I will think twice 
always 
before turning is somebody for violating a plant patent for a profit. 
Gene Patents should be restricted to completely original gene sequences made 
up of 
completely original proteins ie nothing that exists in nature currently in 
any 
genetic sequence should be patented. My opinion.
Overall, do plant patents (not addressing gene patents here) restrict the 
flow of 
food and plants? Somewhat. But plant breeders have always had this issue of 
control. A favorite example of mine is a famous variety of heirloom sweet 
corn was 
bred by a farmer, and his neighbor liked it so much he wanted some seed. 
After many 
years of begging and promises that nobody else would get the seed, the 
breeder gave 
in and sold the neighbor a small bag of corn seed for $10 (a lot at the 
time). The 
neighbor proceeded to turn around and sell the same seed for $20,000 to a 
seed 
company. No one is obligated to give away their life's work and live in 
poverty 
just because of some purist sense of plants being sacred. Plants ARE sacred. 
Everything is sacred, including pee, poop, spit and puke. (You learn these 
things 
as a parent.) Its about respect, not whether sacred.
Are plant patents humans trying to "own" the natural world and represent our 
disconnect from our agrarian past? No and Yes. Another topic, another rant.
Maybe if we look at buying patented plants like we buy other products: most 
of us 
want to buy products produced in an ethical manner. So choose your breeder or 
breeding program after doing some research to see where their money comes 
from and 
how they do their work and treat their employees. Then shell out the royalty 
and 
feel good about supporting agriculture.
Or lobby hard and change the system. I'd support a complete refunding of land 
grant 
universities and then we could pay the Floyd Zaigers of the world a govt. 
salary 
with benefits. But only after we secure enough fossil fuels for the next 10 
minutes, oops I mean years. Okay?
Thank you for your patience through the above rant.
Blessings,
Heron Breen
zone 4, Maine
"Offend them all. It the only way to know what a whole room of people is 
thinking!"