Why American Farmers (And Shoppers) Pay Higher Prices

[@marjohnsmusings3222]

I am a boomer. My grandmother raged at the market one day that hybridizing foods like grapes to be seedless, meant poor people could not buy a fruit, eat it and grow offspring from the seeds. Her father was a farmer who benifited from free seed. All farms benifited from county and state fairs because the best seeds and livestock were sold there are reasonable prices. So many supermarket foods are sterile, my grandmother's warning has come true. We plant lawns we have to coddle and mow, instead of nutritious gardens we harvest to eat.

[@sirpieman300]

i'm not sure what lawns have to do with this but alright XD

[@aaronmcmillen8140]

​​@@sirpieman300lawns are not natural; and let's face it buddy, we as a species don't eat Bermuda grass. Growing food in one's yard used to be the norm. Everybody fed themselves. But yeah, sure, you can't understand the point of the post. And yet you still commented. You are an Idio t.

[@victorhopper6774]

i am 72 and if you think changes have not benefited people you are clueless. your grandfather grew 80 bushel corn in a good year, his grandfather grew 60 bushel corn. today 200 bushel corn is common. what do you think the price of eggs would be if we still grew 60 bushel corn??????????????? thank plant developers for keeping food cheap.

[@sudifgish8853]

@@victorhopper6774 Then you are 72 and still a clueless propaganda victim. There are multiple things involved in that development and other countries managed without making sharing seeds illegal and then even sterile. But what can you expect from the country where anything that isn't corruption and dystopian bullshit is seen as communism because propaganda said so.

[@ThePinkerton1776]

@@victorhopper6774wow you are so correct, I mean good lord it must cost a ton of money to grow food for yourself and family and replant with seeds from your own crops that to grow for your own family, really it must cost a whopping $0.00 dollars to harvest he seeds from your own crop that you are going to eat and not depend on selling. Man you are so right defiantly cheaper to be forced to pay $5+ for a few ears of corn

[@Acr6gAttt-mq2hr]

If you have access to a lot of seeds or plants, definitely don't give them away and hand them out for free. Don't make seed bombs or seed packets or take cuttings and distribute them to your friends or family. Also, don't plant trees or other plants where none are growing. We wouldn't want to accidentally make the world a better, healthier place.

[@Bigmouth660]

Sarcasm is your strong suit I bet. You went to smart a$$university and graduated with honors 😅

[@sickcat-nu4ci]

I read your clear sarcasm,but no,SERIOUSLY, DO NOT plant INVASIVE SPECIES locally!!! Do your research before introducing a plant you got shipped in to your local ecosystem all willy-nilly.

[@katiekane5247]

Yeah, that would be terrible 😳

[@TheMurlocKeeper]

**looks up from planting seeds** Ah geez, yeah...that sounds awful.... What a thing to do in this day and age... **switches to making seed bombs** I hear ya loud and clear! :P **thumbs up** :D

[@gardenersgraziers7261]

you should read the "plant breeders Act" a farmer is allowed to keep seed protected by plant breeder right to regrow. the mistake made by farmers is agreeing to sign contracts that they are not obliged to sign. the exception appears to be genetically modified plants. CROPS NOT genetically modified are only protected by "breeder rights" for 20 years. after that they return to public domain. PITY THE POOR URBAN CONSUMERS that buy the end product and so support Genetically Modified Corn and Soy that is fed to mostly pigs and chickens producing toxic meat and fat. SAME POOR URBAN CONSUMERS are statistics - where they form part of the global obesity epidemic (where america leads the world).

[@NobleWolf]

One way to balance the power is to make new laws removing patens from crops and living things entirely. You can own a tree, you cannot own a species

[@josealfonsocontretas5724]

Have you heard of this "apple" that wants to own the rights to everything apple.

[@MageSkeleton]

or just taking the laws that let them operate off the books.

[@MRblazedBEANS]

Even worse is these horrable seed stock escapes and infects, landrace varieties. Great example is wheat that round up resistant, that DNA escaped into other farms not using those GMO varieties. And guess what they tried to sue the farmers for growing their seeds when those farms have used their own seeds for decades

[@NobleWolf]

Hello Steve Jobs@@josealfonsocontretas5724

[@NobleWolf]

@@MageSkeleton We have to scrap alot of laws that protect companies so they can continue to ruin people's lives

[@elisegeum1514]

So many secret food groups need to be bought up, talked about, dismantled and regulated. Food needs to be safe and affordable. Good food, good health, good population.

[@leesvision]

Truth ❤️

[@radiantjoy5607]

We first have to get big money out of politics.

[@lepotdefleur9906]

They do not want a healthy population, they live too long after they stop to work without benefiting the pharm , if they are healthy still.

[@katiekane5247]

No pharma profits in healthy, happy people 😳

[@franceshorton918]

And we need variety in our food.... For example, there are many, many, different kinds of potato, with different colours, flavours, and different results after cooking. We never see any of these varieties in Supermarkets. It's said that industrial food chain fruit and vegetables also lack the vitamins and trace elements that used to be present. We are trapped in a technology cage.

[@douglasquaid2548]

Nothing will change until Lobbying and the "revolving door" between corporations and government is made illegal.

[@foxbuns]

which won't ever happen.

[@lockdown727]

This system that replaced the old is designed with loop holes to continue the revolving door.

[@Handlelesswithme]

@@foxbunsit is not going to happen until we organize ourselves into an actual threat

[@dustinabc]

​@@Handlelesswithmeeven if there was some revolution, as long as some people claim a legal right to rule over others (see: statism) energy the best planned system will devolve into corruption and authoritarianism. #NonAggressionPrinciple

[@frederickorcutt9112]

Term limits would stop it. No seniority, no pull because of your name, no power from long term backroom deals.

[@dakinayantv3245]

It's an outrage that corporate power can have such a hold on the world food supply.

[@CyberSERT]

It's only an outrage if you know and care. This would not have happened if the general population were awake to this and started making more of a stink about it.

[@knucklessg1]

Only when we the people let it. America needs to keep waking up

[@paillettecnc]

@@knucklessg1 But...! Socialism ! Something something communism !

[@nightmaresturningoftendejavue]

Microbe which could eat oil in labotaries, told itself human brains are way more tastier and when Mexican spill happened and microbe was send to fight it(on order of USA president), it told itself:”Nah,brains, where is meat and brains.” That s oon turned into new epidemic of brain and meat eating bacterial infections in USA. It goes few miles norther every year, went from sea water to river/lake water… and yes, another example why humans should not “?@?! with natural order.

[@nightmaresturningoftendejavue]

@@paillettecncactually east of berlin there were never real communism or socialism, it again failed on human stupidity and elitarism (which should have never existed in either true socialism/communism). BTW, today lies in media and big brothers power structure which makes ordinary person strugle and be angry led to fall of all systems - frech revolution, bolsevics, german charcoal bill after WWI, communism, and it will make capitalism fail also. What people needs to understand, nothing will change if they charge on puppets and leave masters chameleon to another system, because in 50 yr at max. problems will resurface. Same DNA people will rule from shadows without ounce of shame…they system consists of masters and slaves. And you will be not master ever, even if you think you are better of for few years.

[@dvdv8197]

Greed is not the desire for more, it's the desire for more at the expense of others.

[@dxublexxsplicitxxsplicit4943]

Exactly, desire is natural and can be beneficial but this is a manipulation of power

[@Kat-jm6ty]

💥 say it with a bullhorn📣!! So true, insane and very sad we live in a world where greed dictates our livelihood to allow the so-called elite to sit back fatter while only exercising their lazy driven diabolical madness. That's why our world is in the shape it is, because these fools think they're bigger than God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob and HE is coming.

[@mtn1793]

Yeah, greed is a desire for “easy money”. They’ll spend fortunes to get it too.

[@dvdv8197]

@Ark-ys2up Glad you like it and say so, because I wasn't sure the latter part was as poignant as was needed. 🙂👍

[@ekki1993]

Desire for more (pejorative)

[@Radhaun]

Fun fact that I think should become common knowledge as our climate shifts further: it only takes seven generations for a plant to acclimatize (within reason of course) to a microclimate. So within seven growing seasons, you can have plants much better suited to growing in your climate and soil than any new seeds or seedlings started somewhere else and shipped to you. So if you can save your seeds for propagation, you should find subsequent plantings grow better!

[@paulbarclay4114]

who says "our climate" is shifting at all its currently in one of the lowest recorded co2 periods in the history of the world (according to ice core samples) youre mistaking propaganda you saw on TV for real science seems like you havent been paying attention the last 3 years

[@i.eduard4098]

They are modified to be sterile. Its kinda like buying drugs, if you look for real seeds.

[@karlrovey]

Unfortunately, you have to find non-patent varieties to do that. It's one thing to get that with wheat (where it is still common to use non-patented seed), but it is difficult to find such varieties for other crops.

[@raeyner]

I think the issue for that is one of liability. IIRC, Monsanto is able to sue people who have any of their genetics in their plants, which can arise from cross-pollination. So, even if one farmer decides not to buy Monsanto Seed, their field may be fertilized by pollinators that visited the field of another farmer nearby growing the (presently) more profitable seed. It's a really messed up system and lawsuits need to come forward.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

NOBODY SHOULD BE ABLE TO PATENT LIFE, PERIOD. This shit has gotten WAY TOO FAR out of control and the gaslighting is DEEP. There was even an episode on a popular legal show from years back where it framed this issue as perfectly legitimate and the "nice" asshole who was suing his friend for "stealing" his "patented" seeds as perfectly normal. Un-fucking-believable. We need to bring back the Commons NOW.

[@afrosymphony8207]

if you invented it, it should be patented, period, u cant make an exception because u think its something "sacred". ppl in africa havent died off because they're planting seeds that werent invented by western corporate assholes. Nature, unmodified is still very viable, u should ask yourself why farmers arent using normal natural seeds like us africans.

[@victorhopper6774]

the common would be a 3 inch ear of corn growing out of the top of the plant. the original wild potato might get as big as 1 inch in diameter and rot from blight half the time.education has failed you.

[@tuvoca825]

Just wait. The moneychangers will be driven out when the time is right... Ponzi scheme or just scam, it will expire. Eventually.

[@CyclicCipher]

Patent law in general was a mistake. Want to guess why insulin is absurdly overpriced in this country and hundreds of times cheaper everywhere else?

[@greinerphil]

I still don't understand how Bayer (Monsanto) wasn't sued for trespassing. If their seed ends up on my property, shouldn't I be permitted to sue them for that? Not them suing me for because the DNA of their seed is now on my property?

[@hastingsgames]

What makes sense commonly or morally or logically is irrelevant when it comes to a legal argument. A legal argument is based upon established law. Law is established with the help of lawmakers, aka legislators, aka politicians. They, in turn, are funded by these corporations, since the supreme court ruled that corporations are people and can use an unlimited amount of money to fund the campaigns of said politicians, it matters far less that we all elect these bozos. Often the laws are even written directly by the corporations, and then just pushed through by the politicians without even making any changes or giving them any thought at all. If you've ever seen the words "Turn Off Your TV", that's a reminder that news media everywhere is also just a handful of corporations dishing out propaganda to keep you unaware of the actual reality of corporate rule. If you think it's bad, don't worry, it's getting worse.

[@iansummers5499]

Ah the selective application of private property law! Always was meant to tread on the common laborer, as evidenced here. These food supply monopolists are really genocidal psychopaths

[@katiekane5247]

They've got enough money to drive you to the poorhouse just getting in front of a judge they probably gave campaign money to.

[@TheMurlocKeeper]

Oh, people (organic farmers) have indeed tried that! The thing is, it costs money to keep things like that going in court, and the way big companies like that work is that they keep dragging their feet over one thing or another and drag out the whole thing as long as possible, so that the smaller company (usually just a small family owned business) cannot keep up the legal costs to keep it active and going in return. And so...this is how bigger companies get away with this sort of shit in courts - they string it out so the other person literally can't keep up the costs - unless they have a team of VERY good lawyers that are willing to do the work all for free just to stiff it to the big companies.

[@danielc6106]

​@@TheMurlocKeeperI wouldn't be surprised if there were bribes involved, or at the least a group of easily-influenced jurors deliberately chosen.

[@denniswhite3487]

When a society worships an economic system and never questions it, abuse is inevitable.

[@austinhernandez2716]

Abuse is natural under capitalism, it's even encouraged.

[@mtn1793]

Satans church of money worship.

[@tuckerbugeater]

there isn't enough land for your subsistence agriculture worship@@mtn1793

[@angelfebus1732]

As an individual who is not anticapitalist I couldn’t agree more. Whenever I critique how capitalism is applied in some area of the economy to friends or acquaintances who are very pro capitalism I am met with some explicit or implicit variation of-You want communism /socialism? This is extremely annoying as all it achieves is the shutting down of any conversation addressing issues that can potentially be improved out of fear of communism/socialism. In this way an economic system is no longer merely a system as much as it is an ideology.

[@SirLovestain]

It's not the economic system that caused or catalysed this, its simply human greed. Not saying you're implying capitalism but just to clarify capitalism is equivalent to free trade AND that is not what America is any longer. And patents are evil, people do not own ideas, none physical objects.

[@kortyEdna825]

More and more people might face a tough time in retirement. Low-paying jobs, inflation, and high rents make it hard to save. Now, middle-class Americans find it tough to own a home too, leaving them without a place to retire.

[@KaurKhangura]

The increasing prices have impacted my plan to retire at 62, work part-time, and save for the future. I'm concerned about whether those who navigated the 2008 financial crisis had an easier time than I am currently experiencing. The combination of stock market volatility and a decrease in income is causing anxiety about whether I'll have sufficient funds for retirement.

[@NicholasHarmon-ow3jl]

This is precisely why I like having a portfolio coach guide my day-to-day market decisions: with their extensive knowledge of going long and short at the same time, using risk for its asymmetrical upside and laying it off as a hedge against the inevitable downward turns, their skillset makes it nearly impossible for them to underperform. I've been utilizing a portfolio coach for more than two years, and I've made over $800,000.

[@PatrickFitzgerald-cx6io]

How can I reach this person?

[@NicholasHarmon-ow3jl]

‘’Aileen Gertrude Tippy’’ is her name. She is regarded as a genius in her area and works for Empower Financial Services. She’s quite known in her field, look-her up.

[@PatrickFitzgerald-cx6io]

I checked Aileen up out of curiosity and i must say i am impressed by her Credentials. i emailed her already, waiting on her response.

[@tim290280]

A point that was missed here is that the private companies don't actually do much in the way of developing new traits and genetics. Most of that work is done with either public funding or by public research organisations. That research is then given to the private companies to develop into "products". (for more on public research being given away to private industry, see Marianna Mazucato's writing).

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Yes ITS FUCKING BULLSHIT

[@mtn1793]

Greed on every layer.

[@alessandroricci7294]

Mariana Mazzucato, teaches at University College London, considered by many one of today's most original thinkers in innovation and technologies.

[@chaparra71]

@tim290280 just like with pharmaceutical companies. Did/do all of those here “believe” the lie that you NEEDED a poke, or you were going to die? I hope not.

[@tim290280]

@@chaparra71 you need to learn the difference between "companies are bad and greedy" and "companies are deliberately evil in every single way and never do anything good ever". Because there's an important distinction there.

[@wayIess]

I heard a story from a college classmate whos family kept bees. Their hive had a genetic mutation which seemed to have occured naturally to make them immune to pesticides. They lost them in court despite the hive being unconnected to Monsanto and the company got ownership of the hive.

[@MeRiaNevaMynd]

Very terrible and sad . Poor bees...😥

[@ThePinkerton1776]

And bill gates laughed as mosatano took them.

[@ElizabethGreene]

If you reach back out to your classmate, I'm pretty sure that was "Beets" and not bees. There have been no legal actions for bees or patents on bee genes.

[@MeRiaNevaMynd]

@@ElizabethGreene Beets don't live in hives...

[@BIGDAMNSpitfire]

@@ElizabethGreene wow that was a very interesting misinformation I hope monsanto pays you well enough to buy a piece of bread they havent poisoned for you already

[@Zer0Blizzard]

Great piece, wanted to add a couple things. During WW2, the federal government did seed stamps, where normal people could get free seeds (at the post office, like you said) and plant them in unused public space, like highway medians, backyards, etc. According to the book "The War at Home" by Stuart A Kallen, American citizens grew 30% more vegetables during the war than before as a result of these programs, and it was promptly stopped entirely in 1946. This caused inflation problems during the Korean war, when the seed stamp program (as well as price controls, rationing, etc.) were not implemented. 12:25 RoundUp has been on the cusp of being banned for decades because it's likely cancerous, after all, it was made by Monsanto during a similar time as Agent Orange. The EU has their tentative agreement to allow RoundUp expiring in Dec 2023. 13:50 *slight correction - ever since the Great Depression, farm insurance has been used to bail out farmers, and now that megacorps own most farmland, it's $56+ billion a year going into farm subsidies. I get that food availability is important, but 30% goes to corn, mostly to beef feed, and the most of the rest is wheat and soybeans. Plus it's used to kick out local farmers in over a hundred smaller countries because America can dump its subsidized crops into markets.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Thank you for these smart addendums. Yes any way you slice it it's quite disgusting and I'm just sick of it and I just pray that's going to change my lifetime. We need to f these corps to hades and back. The fact that they cut all those positive programs off like turning off a light, in 1946, which I was already aware of to an extent, just goes to show you the absence of decency and concern anybody in government at any level but esp federal has here for the general population. They will ONLY do something positive if it helps in a so-called war effort ( and sometimes not even then). Anarchism is better than living under of these fascist destructive indifferent good-for-nothings. The fact that we subsidize billion-dollar corps and literally hand out hundreds of millions if not many billions to Wall Street scum is really quite amazing and yet they claim they don't have the money to alleviate just the most severe forms of poverty much less general insecurity. It's like living under the most corrupt gangster organization you can think of and then I think no actually- it's probably worse.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

FDR died unfortunately extremely untimely. Had he lived many things may have been different.

[@NikkLiberos]

RoundUp is already outright banned inin the EU for exactly that.

[@zackeryhardy9504]

@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs FDR was actually a major part of the problem. His policies are what started the big government trend and abusive usage of executive order. The precedents set by his administration that we let him get away with because "it was for the greater good" has lead to more harm than any other action by any president.

[@cathjj840]

@@NikkLiberos Except some countries (lookin' at you France) seem to be getting its use extended....

[@rickb3650]

This is also a good start in understanding the importance of "regulatory capture" (a euphemism for bribing legislators). I believe that people didn't listen to all the warnings because they were deliberately made ignorant of how things work. Every monopoly is created by laws that protect them from competition, government subsidies, and law enforcement selectively enforcing laws.

[@hastingsgames]

Thank you

[@yoeyyoey8937]

Exactly. It’s not capitalism. It’s the govt putting in place anticapitalist legislation that allows these corpos to take advantage of people

[@etherealceleste]

Yeah, that blew my mind as a kid when I saw the timeline that there were no monopolies until the government made them with mandates so they could then outlaw them with laws that only made more monopolies.

[@partydean17]

Exactly. A lot of this guys rhetoric seems so focused on hating people seeking to be profitable. Which sort of shirks the fact none of this would be possible without government force. And then his solution then focuses back on the USDA rather than legislatures and judges to undo the laws that came before

[@yoeyyoey8937]

@@etherealceleste funny how that works

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

The developing world is suffering now from the last 50 years of corporate expansion from the so-called corporate-driven Green Revolution. It's incredibly gratifying and inspiring to see how some regions have made the decision to start moving away from all corporate seeds and chemical farming. They're returning to their old ways, their ancient foodstuffs and their ancient wisdom; and by doing so are regenerating the land, bringing money back to their communities and are regaining dignity as food producers. It's really amazing.

[@JeremySnyder-p3d]

Their old ways are why nationalism is making a comeback. In some cases, such as Sri Lanka the return to organic farming has led to a collapse of the food system and political coup.

[@StuffandThings_]

The problem is that without the Green Revolution we literally would not be able to feed everyone right now. Overpopulation is a problem that seriously compounds capitalism and drives up wealth inequality. We need the technology to sustain ourselves, and yet that technology is abused to make the rich richer. Its a vicious cycle.

[@sickcat-nu4ci]

​​@@StuffandThings_ accept my polite correction, however... No, over population is not THE problem. YES, we do have the technology to feed the population and sustain that. That is because of the green revolution, however, because of capitalism causing the commodification of everything including life and nourishment, people go hungry. Also, did you know that food waste is one of the biggest contributing factors to greenhouse gas emissions globally, making it nearly as big a factor as global road transport.

[@w8what575]

U are so brainwashed if u believe that bs u just commented! There is no overpopulation! That bs came from these big corporate think tanks that make this lacking of idea so popular….as Elon musk pointed out….look at the sales of diapers…baby and adult….at the moment in this country, adult diapers sales outnumber the sale of baby diapers by a huge margin…no one is having children. No Americans anyway! The population is growing because of the immigrants being let in by the millions…they’re here to replace us when we all die off soon..,it’s amazing there’s still so many believing this lacking and not enough idea the enemy has pumped into our minds…..

[@w8what575]

Green house gas emissions…do u know what that even consists of? Did u know that they have labeled oxygen and co2 as green house gases and ozone depleting…what happens to a world that is carbon based when the co2 is removed from the atmosphere? It dies! So the science behind the green house effect and this climate change bs doesn’t add up..,just because some narcissistic con has decided to label natural atmospheric gases as ozone depleting and green house whatever…as if a green house effect would be bad for us lol…it would literally turn the world into an abundant green forest like climate all over the place…but I digress! When we place all our faith into man, nothing good will come from it because no man has another man’s best interest at heart….how about we stop doubting the perfection within the creation of our world and stop playing god! It’s all a box…all this science cult bs is as bad as all the religion bs!

[@leesvision]

Agriculture is the foundation for a healthy society. The corruption in government is horrible. Im speaking from experience as someone who owns farm land and have had many attempts made on my life and local government agencies involved in forging and faking documents to take the land, among many other horrible things. I pray everyday for the people of this country as well as others. Much love ❤️ 🙏

[@sickcat-nu4ci]

Hey, I'm 18, live with my folks, I want to own land and homestead one day. Any advice or junk I should be aware of/prepared for?

[@Firesgone]

This comment exists to follow the comment chain. I want to know what to watch out for too.

[@yoeyyoey8937]

What happened to you and your farm and land?

[@thelight3112]

​@@sickcat-nu4ci Avoid debt. Learn how to do any and all kinds of building and repair on your own. If possible, have a spouse and one of you work a day job until your homestead is self sustaining.

[@carynmartin6053]

Watch homesteading YT'er Justin Rhodes, study his books, and join his monthly app subscription. From there you will be connected in person to other like minded ppl and go to their yearly gatherings of homesteaders from all over the country, maybe even the world! Take his courses, and network your ass off!🎉😊 Best of luck with your beautiful dreams!🎉❤😊

[@boogieknee3781]

Recommend a follow up story. Seed control is dangerous because there is a commercial priority to grow larger heavier fruit ....rather than ..... fruit which is .....naturally "nutrient dense". The locals here freak out when my strawberries come into season.....they don't look as pretty as store bought......but they taste so much better.

[@nanszoo3092]

I discovered this for myself a few years ago and don't want to buy strawberries or radishes anymore because the taste of homegrown is so much better. My problem is that the birds usually get the berries before I do since they get up so much earlier. Bet every so often, I get one that is worth the wait.

[@victorhopper6774]

don't see any issue with that-so grow 50 million pints.

[@ElizabethGreene]

Your strawberries aren't picked green, shipped a thousand miles, and force ripened with ethylene. That makes a huge difference.

[@boogieknee3781]

@@nanszoo3092 Birds? Grow strawberries under netting,or preferably under glass. Glass means earlier fruit. O. and a wee trick for you to wind folk up. Save a screw top bottle. Wash it thoroughly. as the strawberry flower forms .....position the berry inside the bottle. use a cotton wool chunk to keep slugs out. When strawberry is ripe,and too big to remove from bottle,nip of the stem...fill remaining bottle with alcohol. Present this as a gift to anybody but dont tell them how it is done.

[@andyheritage]

I conducted this research roughly about 16 years ago and I even have a solution for it. But when I came across the Threat section of my SWOT analysis of my project, high authority intervention in our food supply was the only stopper to proceed on. But I am glad today people are waking up to this fact and hopefully we all can be our own farmers and for our community, just like Germany and many other European countries. In Germany, there are nearly 900,000 kleiner Garten owners and they grow their own fruits and vegetables; along with many urban Garten run by the residents. These are very common for Europe. I am glad that farming either on a big scale or small, it is a way of life here. I just wish many in the US or Cali can convert their expensive non-resourceful backyard into more of a sustainable one for their family and neighbors. ⚜️♥️

[@yoeyyoey8937]

Cali will be last cause they are owned by big ag. Farmers can’t even decide what to grow or where to get their water from

[@ronbridges3933]

Few people have the time and energy to farm their backyards. I tried it in 2020. In my case, my results didn’t justify the effort, and the cost of water, over and above what I normally use, meant that the vegetables I produced cost about the same as grocery store vegetables. I do, however, think that a trained urban farmer, making deals with several homeowners, could make a living producing quality organic fruits and vegetables. I’d like to see a business model like that tried on a wide scale.

[@crazyratlady3438]

@@ronbridges3933 of course it wouldn't be for everyone, not everyone in these other countries farm either. The point is that anyone who can should and all communities should make a community effort to establish some type of local garden system. Just more people moving in the right direction will make a big difference. Also, when it comes to gardening it's usually always less beneficial in the beginning. There's a learning curve and practice that's needed. We really live in a very fragile system. Any number of things could cause a disruption that could make getting food from stores a problem. The more people growing food the better off we'll be.

[@OK-pi6fq]

Growing food is common in Portland Oregon too. Almost every neighbor has at least a small food garden.

[@strengthsleuth]

Idk why this was taken down but I’m glad it’s reuploaded

[@MetaphoricMinds]

I just became an instant fan of this channel. This is all stuff I've wondered about and wished someone would either point out the evil or explain the reasoning behind these structures. Great job @More Perfect Union!

[@ajplays-gamesandmusic4568]

tbh the problem started before seed patents, it started with the idea of the patent itself. "Protects the inventors" yeah, at the cost of collaboration and cooperation.

[@tetricz]

It had the intentions, but terrible execution :C

[@binhosmingos7356]

Biggest problem w/ patients like copyright is the laws, courts where the most money wins, & loopholes which major corporations abuse. I personally knew a family friend who started his tiny board game company w/ his brother & a few friends back in the mid 80s - early 90s I believe. They create a game where the clay sculptor gets a card that tell what they need to sculpt & the other players try guess the sculptor. They bring it to conventions & got really popular w/ some companies offering big deals to buy the rights to help produce &/or distributed the game (he declined them all and one of them he said was because he knew (they told him) they’ll make the game in a country where the workers only make only a dollar a day max w/ kids working on it and will never see the profits from it.) They go ahead and produce it in house & sell it to the market. Hasbro saw that a little guy was making some money in market they control & Hasbro sues his company through a “patient” they had & use loopholes in the law. He read up on patient law & stuff knew it was BS but they were a small guy and Hasbro was giant company that has way more money than his company has & will outspend him just so they control the market & possibly steal the game from him & sell it as their own w/ production from the poor country to maximize their profits. They didn’t want to go through the BS where the mega corp. has a vast amounts of money they can dump into to guarantee a W. He settle w/ Hasbro out of court and shut down his company. Had his brother as a HS teacher & on certain Fridays, we will play that game w/ the whole class plus my family has his game. Dude is very upstanding man & lives his life like an adventure.

[@Gobbldeegoo1]

Doesn’t even ultimately protect the inventors. Their patents and ideas are stolen all of the time by large corporations. A lot of times, an inventor will sell their idea, just to have it shelved by the buyer to protect the buyers business from competition. Thousands of inventions are just sitting in a corporations intellectual property division.

[@CyphDragon]

The idea of the patent was noble - sharing new innovations publicly, to allow even further innovation, hence "to further the sciences." That's why there was a hard limit of 14 years - after that, the innovations were public domain and anyone that had the skill could copy the patent with no need to buy it from the original inventor. There were also massive limitations - it had to be a *novel* invention, and it had to be *useful* being the main two. The problem came in when corporatists bought the politicians in charge of deciding what a "novel, useful" patent actually was, and also gutted the funding for the USPTO so they couldn't hire people versed in the Arts they were adjudicating patents for. Long story short - it was, as most things in our world these days, corrupted by corporations and vast amounts of money. If you want to see something equally sickening, look up how many times Disney has successfully lobbied to extend copyright, and how much they've expanded it to lock up huge swaths of our cultural history...so they can make a few more bucks off Mickey Mouse.

[@murraymadness4674]

Indeed, patents should expire within 3 years if the idea is not made into a commercial product that is sold. People just patent "ideas" that don't actually work so if someone does come up with something similiar and they make it work, they will get sued. There is a whole industry for this, hoarding patents waiting for someone to sue.

[@longbeach225]

I was in the Philippines few years ago and they have small farm communities. No wonder their food so affordable. America is a disgrace. Also in the Philippines the Government has rolled out a free seed program. Amazing how Asia is moving forward while America moves backwards.

[@AngryVet44]

Corporate America sucks as usual. 🤦🏼‍♀️

[@Acr6gAttt-mq2hr]

Capitalism at work

[@mtn1793]

While they think money will save them they’re turning it into a suicide weapon. Weaponized business model.

[@timeenoughforart]

It is international at this point. Corporations can keep America from passing laws supported by the citizenry.

[@SirLovestain]

This is human greed, a capacity all humans share.

[@RedFlagRevival]

@SirLovestain This is more than "human nature/greed" I don't really believe in human nature, only conditioned behavior. Sure, some people may have the desire to want more, but it doesn't have to be at the expense of others. Also, we live under a global system where social hierarchies are made up to benefit those with more capital. If we had a new hierarchy where people at the top are the most generous and philanthropic people, then we would have a better world.

[@shlushe1050]

Whats even worse is many crops you can buy at the store grow and produce for only one season, and the seeds you get from the plant are sterile... on purpose

[@OK-pi6fq]

I don’t know about that. Where I grow food plants all kinds of old food plants pop back up , some tear after year. I appear to have endless squash.

[@ElizabethGreene]

The plants with sterile seeds are surprisingly few. Seedless grapes and watermelons are sterile, for example. The thing about seeds from store produce is most don't breed true. They are hybrids of other species, so when you reproduce them sexually, you get a Roullet wheel spin of genetics. If you want to read more about it, it's the genetics of F1 and F2 hybrids.

[@user0K]

@@ElizabethGreene yeah, kinda what the author failed to mention. for hybrids you need these two trees to keep producing the seeds

[@paperburn]

Terminator seed technology is a real thing Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), also known as terminator technology or suicide seeds, is the name given to proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified crops by activating (or deactivating) some genes only in response to certain stimuli, especially to cause second generation seeds to be infertile.@@ElizabethGreene

[@grimnirnacht]

I'd love to see you cover the Foresting industry. How planting trees and all the advertising behind that, plant a tree day etc just allows them to cut down more trees. Love this channel btw

[@MRblazedBEANS]

And they only plant one type of tree back after they cut down old growth diverse Forest

[@crazyratlady3438]

@@MRblazedBEANS yes, was going to comment the same thing. They "monocrop" forests too which kills or severely impedes the natural ecosystem of that forest. Truly healthy forests are extremely diverse.

[@kxht]

Tell your represtatives to push for anti-trust actions against these companies.

[@edward1937]

Aren’t anti trust laws already a thing? Unfortunately no law applies to these assholes

[@ISureDont]

But they’re the ones that pay the politicians. You ever heard of the revolving door. They can set them up for life. I can send them an email they’ll never read. Where’s the incentive. If they were good people it would be seeing your citizens do better live better feel better. But any politician is inherently immoral because you can’t be a good person and make it in politics. It’s not allowed

[@katiekane5247]

They've quit caring what we think or want years ago. Corporate dollars speak louder than we do.

[@hippychikforever]

Our representatives represent the companies not The People.

[@jessicapearson9479]

No one on either side of the government (representatives included) will do anything. It is one of the few things the whole government agrees on.

[@muqeo]

I can't eat gluten in the US but I could have everything in Peru in 2015 during which time Monsanto was banned from the country and Peru's wheat crop is mostly for domestic use not export so they don't use the same pesticides we do either.... Mexico just went 100% organic agriculture, too

[@CampingforCool41]

What does gluten have to do with pesticides?

[@evilsharkey8954]

Then it’s not the gluten in US crops that’s hurting you. Have you tried a FODMAP elimination diet to determine if some of the carbohydrates may be the real culprits? There are a lot of additives in American food, too, many of them notorious for irritating the gut.

[@muqeo]

@@evilsharkey8954 I agree, it’s not the gluten. it’s what we’re doing to it here in the US. if it was the gluten I would have the same issues no matter what country grew it or how they grew it

[@muqeo]

@@CampingforCool41 all non organic foods are treated with a variety of chemicals during and after the growing process: pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, ripening agents, dyes, etc. there are lots of different types of all of these categories of chemicals, some worse than others. some counties are more concerned with human and environmental heath than others, the US is not surprisingly more concerned with money and I don’t trust all “organic” labels now either. sketchy times for food in the US

[@Magnulus76]

It might also have to do with the fact that in alot of other countries, bread is made from a sourdough, as it was for many centuries. Fast rising yeast dough contains more gluten and oligosaccharides.

[@IceGoddessRukia]

Native Americans understood how plants worked and would always plant things together at a specific time of the year. Beans provided the proper nutrition for the corn and would use the corn stalks to climb, and squash was planted to shade the ground. etc This just makes me weep thinking about how we bastardized our Mother Earth- I stg we don't respect her enough and it all seems so bleak. Honestly- I think people need to go back to their roots and grow their own food at this rate.

[@parkerhahaha]

I’d love to see a video on slaughterhouse workers, especially since many are undocumented and can’t get medical services from the hyper common workplace injuries

[@ElizabethGreene]

Slaughterhouse workers are my #1 reason to oppose illegal immigration. The conditions they work in are deplorable. If they weren't in constant fear of deportation they'd set up a union and be making $30 per hour with great benefits in much safer factories, but they can't because they are illegal.

[@sathancat]

@14:42 So what can we do about this? Practice permaculture and a healthy dose of civil disobedience. Arm yourself. Vote in every election possible. Hold your representatives responsible.

[@ElizabethGreene]

The obvious answer is to develop seed varieties better than what Bayer sells and open-source those seeds so anyone can use them. Someone might say to that "But I don't have the money to invest in doing that work for free." That is a problem. An ideal solution would be a way so you could sell your seeds for some amount of time to get the money back and then after that anyone could use them, right? That's exactly what seed patents do. You get 17 years of exclusive rights to the plant and then, after that, anyone can use them without license or restriction.

[@herelieskittythomas3726]

They will just make sure aminopyralid is in all soil amendments, compost, hay, and even our animal feed. Our manure from our animals will be contaminated if fed any commercial feed and good luck trusting your local hay field. If they don't spray broad leaf herbicide, the county does to maintain the ditches and roads, it gets into the water. We are doomed.

[@judesmith4941]

The National Archive should contain this wealth of that collected knowledge. The Freedom of Information Act should allow release of said knowledge. Handy to know. edit hit the like to promote this

[@nil981]

...based

[@l0gic23]

Mostly agree. FOIA should not be required. Should be as accessible as the "free library".

[@judgement_free_dragon]

Hmmm, so if a corporation can sue a farmer for their genetics found in crops, can a farmer who used unpatented seed sue a corporation for ,say pollen contamination of THEIR crops? A grassroots campaign (no pun intended) to use unpatented seed again?

[@w8what575]

This is what I have been saying about the whole hvac industry and the ban on Freon …I’m not able to hire someone to fix my ac so I had to learn how to myself…it is mind blowing how many sell outs there are in the business! R22 is a mixture of methane and butane with a bit of fluorine and chlorine…duponts patent in it has expired and no it’s being banned…so it’s labeled ozone depleting even though there’s no way of even knowing if that’s true or not…do we even have an ozone is my next question..how do we know what they tell us is true and if this stuff is ozone depleting then make it a law that only nonpatrnted natural gases can be used such as propane or methane strictly without the mixed in gases that cause the pressures to run much higher psi…but they expect us to bow down to their bs lies and continue to comply by buying their new and improved guaranteed to fail sooner because they’re designed to do so junk every few years! If the patents are what is making things harder to produce etc then let’s get rid of the patents on things considered a life’s necessity…

[@TheMurlocKeeper]

They CAN and some have tried, but the bigger corporation always wins, because they alone can dick about and waste time in courts and the other little guy literally can't keep paying lawyers long enough to get the case to trial. THAT is how big companies get away with this bullshit. They just wait it out because they can sink thousands into lawyers to dick others about and just make them give up. It's unfair, and a cheap, nasty tactic, but it's legal.

[@yoeyyoey8937]

That would be epic

[@ThePinkerton1776]

Unfortunately in this hellscape we live in now it comes down to the phrase “Wish in one hand sh!t in the other. See which one fills up first”. Sucks but that’s where we are now.

[@trinsit]

Making living things ownable reintroduces slavery laws

[@WWNicole]

Exactly. See HeLa cells.

[@mtn1793]

Very astute point trisit!

[@bloodfaythe13]

​@@gretchenk.2516well let's think about that. You take the animal into your home, without caring about it's permission, keep it alive so that it can perform the job of being your emotional support, pseudo-child, farm hand, or just because you thought it looked pretty so you keep it around. That sounds pretty close to the basics of slavery. it just doesn't look it because most of us don't force physical labor on our pets but emotional labor still counts as work. And if you're a dog breeder that's DEFINITELY got slavery vibes

[@bloodfaythe13]

​@@gretchenk.2516 I didn't say that at all. I love my animal companions and I aim to treat them with nothing but love and respect. But I remain aware that this life wasn't their choice. Also, I just looked up the definition of chattel and yeah, dogs literally fit the definition.

[@bloodfaythe13]

@@gretchenk.2516 I'm just gonna assume you're being genuine and accept the joy of gained knowledge. It was good debating with you 👍🏼for the record, chattel is just any physical property that isn't land or buildings. So I guess toothbrushes, slaves, and pets all qualify.

[@llamamama75]

Good to see a concerted effort to document the abuses of the ownership class.

[@yoeyyoey8937]

You mean the political class?

[@peterpeladon]

Yeah there's a stark, blatant difference between wanting to own things and wanting to own exclusive rights to a type of thing as a monopoly.

[@anhero2377]

Is it the same class that's bombing Gaza?

[@partydean17]

Government?

[@CoconutFella]

So how do we turn the life cartel into an extinct cartel?

[@prunabluepepper]

You have to start shopping differently. But most people can't. Either natural alternatives are not available to them or too expensive. I also recommend guerilla farming and secret flower planting in your neighborhood. That way you keep old species around. Order old seeds online and plant them somewhere that makes sense.

[@lindasimons691]

@@prunabluepepper Definitely.

[@SweetStuffOnMonarchLane]

There's a little monarch butterfly symbol on some foods that says "non gmo." These foods were made WITHOUT genetically modified ingredients. Buy those foods over the gmo grown foods. Support "non gmo" farmers with your dollars and stop giving money to these greedy corporations!!!

[@Spencer-wc6ew]

​@@SweetStuffOnMonarchLane"non GMO" just means "not genetically modified using the CRISPR technique" though. Red delicious apples are non GMO

[@SweetStuffOnMonarchLane]

@@Spencer-wc6ew Actually, I read that CRISPR technique genetically modified crops WILL be considered technically non-gmo because all they are doing is using *nature-derived* DNA from the SAME crop family to improve a certain feature of a plant. For example, Apple A has amazing flavor, but a terrible texture. Apple B has lackluster flavor, but a crispy crunchy texture, so they take the tasty part of Apple A's DNA and replace the lackluster taste DNA they've removed from Apple B with it, creating an amazingly flavored, crispy crunchy apple we all want to eat. From what I understand, the CRISPR technique hasn't been around all that long, so I don't believe red delicious apples were made using that technique because they've been around a very long time. Alternatively, gmo seeds/plants have been genetically changed by introducing *foreign* DNA from a "reproductively incompatible organism" (not even from the same crop family) into a plant's genome... big (scary) difference there.

[@Josh-99]

Whenever someone asks a question about a major problem in America, I always say the answer to the cause of the problem is "money".

[@gordonfreeman7187]

It is obviously more complicated than that.

[@Uriel238]

I am once again disgusted with how the system had been corrupted and captured since before I was born...since before my parents were born. So we're not only at risk of extinction in the next few centuries, we're at risk _due to multiple points of failure._

[@katiekane5247]

A way almost everybody can help is by stopping the chemically dependent monocultures called lawns. Native plants provide for wildlife, help with soil regeneration & save endangered plants. Kill your Lawn, it's a good cable show.

[@tauIrrydah]

So that's why the red delicious is the worst tasting apple in history.

[@trioptimum9027]

It's actually more complicated than that! Old-timey apples didn't taste great, which is why they were commonly used for animal feed and cider rather than eaten. There was a wave of new varieties around the time of the "red delicious" that actually were, *compared to the apples that had existed previously,* very tasty! Those got kind of standardized into a few big-name types that were easy to transport and sell, but still quite a bit tastier than what had gone before. We just think of it as a boring apple because the state of the art has advanced since then.

[@dereksollows9783]

Maybe - but that Honeycrisp has got to be a close second

[@katiekane5247]

​@@dereksollows9783but it doesn't brown when the air hits the flesh.

[@lolaby2]

It’s funny to me that an apple used to be seen as a dessert

[@misterfixie6003]

One of the main reasons is that the red delicious is a sport of Hawkeye(a single branch mutation on a tree having selectable traits the grower might want), and people kept taking sports of sports, selecting for shippable, pretty apples instead of taste. The original tree variety is actually delicious and still around. I am growing some in my orchard. Eventually, the sport of sports became a beautiful red block of styrafoam.

[@coop5329]

This video is years behind the times, but better late than never I suppose. Support the Open Seed Source Initiative!!! Yes it's a real thing doing real good. And watch out for "whitelisting", which is a fact in England and Canada and people have been trying to do it to the US since the 1980s. Under whitelisting, everything that is not specifically listed in the white list is illegal to own, grow, give away, or sell. And to get on the whitelist you have to spend a whole lot of money every year. It makes growing your grandma's heirloom saved tomato seed a felony crime. For our own good of course. Whitelisting destroys the genetic diversity of all the crops we depend on to survive.

[@ChartreuseDan]

Gotta tell you that part about whitelisting in the UK is fiction. Theresa May introduced it for psychoactive pharmaceuticals, but not vegetables. You may be misunderstanding what PBR's (plant breeders' rights, not the beer) are for. It *is* illegal to market an unrecognised variety, basically just because it'd be considered false advertising if the variety hasn't been examined and recognised, but it is not illegal to grow unregistered heirloom produce in the UK

[@newyawkgiants5877]

I don’t know why we would stop this,this is something that would be great and help a lot. More people would be going to farmers markets save money on food. There’s nothing like a tomato grown outside. Maybe we can start at our local town? I have a bunch of saplings growing in my yard God/nature who/whatever you want to say making them grow all over the yard.

[@robertjohannnewton7489]

Good video. Thanks. Like Benjamin Disraeli said, “The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” And this video sheds some like on that conundrum..

[@chloesibilla8199]

Id say all you should have is a certificate of quality or originality. You can't stop others from copying you but you can pull a France and say "this is the original stuff" . That's it.

[@zackeryhardy9504]

The bigger issue is when they notice you haven't purchased a large amount of seeds from them and they check your crops to see if any of their genetic traits. Now this wouldn't be an issue if it was regarding 100% of the genetic makeup, but the issue is they can patent a part of it. This means the pollination by plants in a completely different farmer's fields can result in you getting sued. This is a big problem and there is a lot of lobbying right now by the farmers unions which are also massive organizations to get rid of this aspect from a practicality standpoint. Ideally you should be buying seeds from a company because they are better than what you have and you should need to re-buy them because your fields start changing genetically through exposure to different plants. There are a lot of aspects not covered in this video some of them more horrible than described and some of the things he describes really aren't that unreasonable. I mean there is no reason you should not be able to make a patent on genetic modification or engineering, however that patent should expire at some point, and it should be for the complete genetic makeup. Not a fraction of the genetic makeup. If you make a change to the total genetic makeup you should be able to patent that even if it includes some of the other companies makeup, however you shouldn't be able to go after cross pollination.

[@larry77117]

I've been fortunate and blessed to have owned many different properties over the years mostly from hard work. But at each property, I collect the seeds from the flowers that grow there and I have bags of them that I just keep moving along to different properties usually repropagating indigenous plants that have been torn up or wrecked over the years. my Fav is Giant Daiseys (did i spell that right haha) a good way to spend my time instead of.....

[@ndktpf]

I was worried some shady things were at play with the food companies when I saw this video taken down yesterday. Glad it's back up 👍🏼

[@hastingsgames]

I don't want to be too hard on you, but some shady things were at play decades ago when Jack-in-the-box was under fire for serving undercooked hamburgers that actually killed people. The corporation is still alive and well, thanks to all three branches of our government being captured to serve only corporate interests in this country. The impact was mild compared to the smallest of Monsanto's infractions against humanity, or against life in general. Honestly, if you're a democrat, you should be pissed, and if you're a republican, you should be pissed. If you watch TV, you'll think the other side is full of crap. In reality, both sides of voters are right but the full of crap corporations have all the power, and control the news, and that's where the term "corporate rule" comes from. Politicians will make up anything to get your vote, but we owe it to our fellow Americans to hold their feet to the fire no matter what.

[@yellowice0]

This reminds me of a story I recall hearing about a couple years ago, there was a small family of farmers who basically made their living by growing their crops, one day somebody came around after a couple generations of growing their crops in their own field, no purchased seeds from others just reuse the seeds and rotate fields, and come to find out that their plants had crossbred from other nearby crops, soybeans I think it was specifically, and the person had inspected them and then filed to have their entire crop seized or destroyed due to it not being their crop genetically anymore, mind you that farmers barely get by to begin with, this absolutely destroyed this family, that last crop was going to get them by until the next harvest fully came around, they had to hang their hat up and seek out labor just to get by after that, the farming industry in this manner is corrupt and broken.

[@newyawkgiants5877]

This must be part of why farmers rather take that quick buck to sell to housing developers.

[@micosstar]

oh my gosh! that reframes my whole idea of suburban sprawl, now i know it's nimbys plus farmers selling out their land for cheap because seed's expensive that propogate it!

[@Gtfobcso2024]

Monsanto gmo seeds and the chemicals forced kill organic crops and good soil.

[@timeenoughforart]

It also factors into why average size farms are growing exponentially. Often farmers don't even grow the fields, they are being planted, managed, and harvested by the buyers or corporations. Yet they still use "Family Farms" for the propaganda. The farmers across from me live three states away. The farmer next to me just leases his property to whomever. The last Farmer oversees tens of thousands of acres. They are all legal corporations.

[@BlazRa]

​@@timeenoughforartthat's why I only eat organic or wild harvested stuff

[@ElizabethGreene]

No. Farmers sell because they can make 50 years of profits in one day and never again spend 12 hours wedged into a hole smaller than an office trash can trying to change a busted hydraulic fitting so they can get hay in before the rain ruins it. I can't blame them for that, and I *like* turning wrenches.

[@jjoohhhnn]

Thank you for covering this subject. Agriculture is one of the most powerful industries for economic and ecological change in the nation.

[@radaro.9682]

I don't understand how farmers can't use seeds from previous crops they didn't buy from these companies. Example; I am a farmer in 1960. I grow as much as I can and when harvest time comes I make sure to extract enough seeds to replace. The next year I plant those and do it again. Why not keep doing that from 1969 to 1970. Like, is it a scale thing? Because it's possible to grow enough food without these corporations if we replace landscape with edible plants though a concerted gorilla gardening effort. It baffles me what is basically a herd animal cant figure out how to act in concert. Thats back ways.

[@jaymedomejka1977]

That was what was happening, seed was saved year over year. That all began to change when, through use of tillage and chemical fertilizers, soil began to degrade and crops losses went up. Most farmers went to chemical company seed to be able to continue farming, not because they really wanted to have to purchase seed every year. There is so much more to the story of the state of our agriculture system than just the seed story, though the seed story is important. Since the stop of the free seed programs we have lost about 97% of varieties that once existed and the diversity of our diets has decreased as well. Before the ASTA managed to take over agriculture 30% of Americans were food producers, now it's around 2%. Additionally, most of the seed these companies provide is from a handful of crops (corn, soy, sugar beet) that none of us would walk into a field and just begin eating, it's just growing a product for a paycheck not actually food.

[@RoseFire6]

Additional if your neighbor uses a Monsanto brand seed that cross pollinate with your plants. Monsanto can now sue you for collecting the seed. They have done it before.

[@SweetStuffOnMonarchLane]

Farmers CAN use seed they've grown from previous crops as long as they weren't gmo seeds, but once they've introduced gmo seeds onto their land, they're screwed because they'll never be able to keep those genes from interacting with their non gmo seeds and the big seed companies can sue them because they own the "rights" to those genes.

[@hastingsgames]

It's a genetics thing. Your crops are going to be infected by the GMO crops because nature. The law will be on the side of Monsanto because we live under corporate rule in this country. If you watch TV, you will hear only corporate propaganda telling you that these old-school farmers had it coming. Science will prove that their crops contain patented DNA, and corporate law will prosecute them to the full extent of the law. Corporate propaganda in the form of FOX or CNN or whatever will tell you that other voters are to blame, not corporate "centrist" "moderate" politicians who actually write the rules we call our Laws. We'll all be pissed at each other instead of fighting the real problem, and then things get even worse. It's back ways, but it's the truth.

[@janetbransdon3742]

In Australia we have free seed clubs in many of our public libraries... also I live in a tourist area known for its sunflowers and each year our council runs a sunflower competition and gives free seeds away to all.

[@BongRipBing]

The book "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi does a fantastic job of illustrating what would happen if a lot of our current idiotic trends brought about by corporations and capitalism. Lemme tell you, *it's pretty damn bleak!!*

[@rayah_v_dc]

That book haunts my dreams- it should be required reading before you graduate from high school

[@yoeyyoey8937]

It’s not capitalism or the corporations it’s the govt. wake up

[@BongRipBing]

@@yoeyyoey8937 Money controls our politics and politicians. Corporations have money along with the rich people that own them. YOU wake up.

[@yoeyyoey8937]

@@BongRipBing that’s not how it works. Wealth and power will always exist. And you can’t have wealth without power. So the people in power (the govt) are responsible for what’s happening. Money itself isn’t real and doesn’t do anything and it can and always will be taken by those in power if and when they want it. Stop exporting the blame. Psychos will always exist, the point of a govt or state is to protect us from these people-not to literally help them out, which is what is happening, what was described in the video and the ultimate problem we’re dealing with.

[@etherealceleste]

@@BongRipBing Every communist and socialist country in history also uses that same money and the corruption in those systems is also always worse too. You WAKE up.

[@epicemmalee2000]

It sounds like we need to roll back the scope of patent protection for seeds and do a little recreational trust-busting. Heirloom seeds should also be made as accessible as possible.

[@er...]

Why the reupload? Did the seed people pounce?

[@andrewrockwell1282]

That's my guess. Everyone rewatch it so it gets signal in the algorithm.

[@BlazinRiver1]

WTF!!!! Not often YT recommends an actual mind bending video. This is grade A info. I am sharing the F%$# out of this. Thank you for the work you did. Subscribed

[@JeffreyGreeb]

Jesus Christ, I never knew we were this far gone in late stage capitalism. Like I knew it, but didn’t realize it was this in the weeds (pun intended)

[@TM-yn4iu]

I've studied this, not as a farmer,after coming across the subject and clear monopolies being exercised by corporate interests. After further research and conversations with farmers, alarming. Just this week the Supreme Court ruled against government expertise on any regulatory concerns, citing the courts are the experts.....Thanks for sharing informative video. VOTE

[@daniellapain1576]

One method is for people with food stands to volunteer free seeds to others since seeds are almost always abundant that majority get tossed out. Almost like an open source movement but for plants. I only recently started questioning the true lack of choice of food diversity in grocery stores. If gardening and foraging are being attacked, people should push back no matter what. I'm one of the people who would never put up with these seed people if they showed up at my door and more people should do the same. It should never be theft to grow your own plants from seed to survive or thrive and provide for others. When it comes down to it in sane moral terms....The people are being robbed and not the thief's playing victim to get away with it.

[@hastingsgames]

You speak truth and I want to agree. Unfortunately, patent enforcement is allowed to infringe on what we consider natural rights. If I have endless amounts of money, I can waste it on patenting ideas that I will never be good enough to ever implement. Then when someone smarter has an idea and actually figures out a way to achieve it, all on their own, I can sue their pants off because I "thought of" it first. This actually happens regularly in the US because we have corruption in literally every branch of our government. On the other hand, even patented plants spread their genes into the wild like any other plants, and lawsuits are based on sampling for genetic material. Opting out of using a commercial variety is irrelevant. The corporate plants spread into everyone's fields and then it is easy to scientifically prove that their fields are in violation of corporate law. You're right that people "should" stand their ground, but the law does not agree, and plenty of farmers have learned the hard way. As long as corporations have human rights and are allowed to invest unlimited funds into our government, we will be oppressed by our government if that's what it takes to defend the profits of those corporations. Most people don't want to hear about politics, it's always the left blaming the right, and the right blaming the left, but we really need to be united against corporate humanhood and seek political solutions to limit corporate power. Privacy, a once cherished right, is already beginning to fade from memory. Freedom of choice is right behind it, and going away fast, not just with seeds but in general.

[@daniellapain1576]

@@hastingsgames How is it "science" if all factors are not connected. Using half ass "Science" shouldn't be able to be used as evidence. If like you say that the plants genetically can spread naturally and you have no way of knowing at a glance that it's their genetic material. Then the court should be in favor of the person who innocently used the plant. Patent or not the company screwed up the genetics and should have designed a self contained species if that is the case. They should also be liable for infringement on environmental laws for not creating a self contained designed species. I know it's not a law yet but it should become one.

[@hastingsgames]

@@daniellapain1576 All of this is true, but money talks. Federal judges are introduced by The Federalist Society, by and large, already bought and paid for by the time a president officially nominates them for the bench. This is just one of many areas where the American people lack proper representation. Yes it flies in the face of reason. The corruption itself SHOULD be illegal. As you point out, the facts of the matter on the ground are obvious, and SHOULD be obvious to everyone involved for sure. I strongly recommend TYT for news coverage of our political systems, because they have daily shows that are biased toward calling out BS that our politicians float through the gaslighting of corporate media. It's on we the people to resist and there are legal ways to change it, but more people have to be unplugged from corporate propaganda or else they end up just going along with Democrats or Republicans whose campaigns are all funded by the same greedy corporations who are pulling this crap.

[@ElizabethGreene]

My local library has a seed bank program that does just this. Seed saving and seed sharing is 100% legal and encouraged, as long as the seeds aren't under patent.

[@jonrosell6971]

It's time to evolve beyond capitalism; before it eats all of us.

[@philipwilliams456]

This is not exclusive to capitalism. Also, this is an example of regulatory capture within capitalism.

[@yoeyyoey8937]

It’s not capitalism that’s the problem. What was described occurring in this video was literally anticapitalist

[@paul756uk2]

So communism never starved anyone? Right.

[@jonrosell6971]

​@yoeyyoey8937 lol bless your heart. This is exactly what unregulated capitalism was designed to do.

[@montecristo1845]

Hey! You’re the “insulin ought to be free” guy! Love your work! Be safe. Stay strong! -One of your subscribers

[@Cat1313sai]

It’s not only problem in America. Actually most of American system and values are becoming world wide or even first are used in other countries. Wef is worldwide too. I was shocked when I found out it’s illegal to give away your seeds in some countries.. and it’s pretty new thing.

[@papwithanhatchet902]

Red Delicious is the warning lesson everyone should heed. It is easily now the worst, mealiest, most flavorless apple on the market.

[@trioptimum9027]

In its day, it and the other varieties developed alongside it were actually a big improvement! People didn't used to eat apples, they were mostly grown for cider and animal feed. We've made much better apples since, but it wasn't a bad apple back then, it's just been surpassed. You might think of it as the Apple II of (actual) apples: not exactly a computer you'd want to be using today, but a computer that made a big difference in its time.

[@XetXetable]

@@trioptimum9027To add to this, the Cosmic Crisp is a recent apple variety that you can find in many grocery stores (at least in the Pacific North West, don't know how far they've spread) and they taste pretty good! There are also Fuji apples that are older and can also be found everywhere these days.

[@billybobfreestyle3]

Thanks for sharing what you know! I love these videos!

[@leponpon6935]

Correction: 12:56 roundup is a herbicide, not a pesticide.

[@soundspark]

Herbicide is under the EPA definition of pesticide.

[@KyleNudo]

Incredibly important investigative reporting! I grew up in rural Illinois. My grandfather was a chemist for Wayne Feeds, and when he retired to the farm he was born on, I spent many summers there with him as a father figure. He taught me about the dangers of these lop-sided service agreements Monsanto forces farmers into, and how farms across the country are in danger of litigation - just if a few stalks of last year’s corn, after being tilled-under at the end of harvest, sprout up on their own as “volunteer” corn. Their litigators hunt farms looking for last year’s corn growing in this year’s soybeans, and they will sue your farm even if one stalk of corn grows on its own. That was 40 years ago - and this still goes on today. Clear example of our government not doing enough to protect us from corporate greed. Keep up the fight! Call your representatives!

[@MewMewYu1]

This is exactly what inspires me to grow my own food. Growing organic is definitely the better way to go in comparison to monoculture, GMO and pesticides. What I learned is that organic seed plants are more inconsistent in output, but get better over generations as they get used to the climate and their given environment. I'm not sure how to introduce permaculture concepts into industrial farming though, especially since the soil and water has been plagued in many places for so long. New sectors of work would need to be created focusing on rehabilitating the land, and it would lower exports. The food economy would need to make a loss in the short term.

[@MewMewYu1]

@@AmoebaInk Hydroponics and vertical farming would definitely ensure higher food quality and lessen the impact on nature in general. I still believe fully organic is best, but permaculture farms take years to develop, and people need good food. I must say I really like the idea of supermarkets and grocery stores having growhouses on top, growing fresh vegetables and fruit. A lot of them have flat roofs anyway.

[@ElizabethGreene]

Growing organic food to the same quality as non-organic has a significantly higher carbon and pollution footprint. :( It's a problem, and we're working on it. Flame-wilting devices or robot weeders to enable no-till farming would be a *huge* step forward in this area. The technology just isn't growing fast enough.

[@Idrinklight44]

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, forgot to mention him.... he's done a lot for the Free seed market

[@dvdv8197]

As long as there's personal gain in the short term, human kind's and Earth's gains in the long term will always play second fiddle. 😢

[@riqpate7122]

So well done, Many GRACIAS! Real journalism delivered with confidence and style. Glad this channel found me.

[@steeltoeboots9591]

I'm shocked they haven't put a price tag on passing gas yet

[@DaveE99]

And the crazy thing I keep learning is that due to regenerative agriculture, you don’t need to go years without pay to covert to a more advanced organic food farms style based on regenerative agriculture stuff. But once you do, you can produce more for less actually. So going organic actually costs less and is better cuz soil biology works better. And yet in the store it’s more expensive because of faulty ideas that you have to go years without pay to convert. Which is false. Look up the soil food web school on KZbin. Learned a lot from them.

[@dianaroach3093]

Thank you for that information

[@bilcoferentine3567]

The corruption in our life's is sickening all of hit including stealing the sunlight.

[@izitmepattavina8651]

Didnt know Bayer bought Monsanto. Id like to thank you. We need to grow our own foodss!! I think if we grow 20% more, thats 20% less for there pockets.

[@alessandroricci7294]

This sort of thing should be taught in schools. It doesn't surprise that for some time those sick people were hiding in secret. The fact they've came out should really worry us all: the life cartel, possibly the worst of all the world's mafias.

[@workhardlivefree3818]

@ 8:56... Your query as to what happened to the oil eating bug... We use those very bugs in our Biox unit at our petrochemical plant here in southwestern Ontario. All of the plants waste infrastructure includes central trenches and drains that lead to the Bio-Oxidization unit and the bugs, along with aeration, eat any oil and oil by-products that come into the system. There's a significant amount of water mixed into the trenches from heat exchangers and process water dumps that make their way along the trenches with the oils. After entering the aeration tanks and going through to the clarifiers, the water that comes out at the river is drinkable and in better shape than when it went in.

[@wohnai]

Reupload? I swear I saw this already.

[@collinscott1369]

12:52 Roundup isn't a pesticide its a herbicide if I'm not mistaken correct me if I'm wrong.

[@Gobesface]

Have they won the battle to put a patent on human life yet so they can claim ownership of an entire group of people or is that something they've already snuck through or are potentially already doing without us knowing?

[@yoeyyoey8937]

I hate to say it but duh

[@SuperMarijus]

yes we are owned by the government , what do you think the birth certificate is ?

[@gordonfreeman7187]

I guess slavery but they weren't patented soooo.

[@JeffLemmon-kh4nm]

Thank you so much for this. We desperately need aggressive and smart direct action leaders. This is appreciated. --another person who’s seen this coming for decades.

[@Khannea]

I INVITE farmers in the US to package a box of these copyrighted seeds and send them to the Netherlands. I am a nobody, Upon receiving this bag of seeds I will go around and film myself on youtube "replanting" them everywhere all over the place. Various corporations might "sue" me, which means absolutely nothing here in the Netherlands. I won't show up in any court proceedings. I will simply ignore this topic as total nonsense.

[@BS-detector]

Please don't plant GMOs for the sake of all things truly organic. I hear what your'e saying, but I'd rather everyone in the world sue Bayer/Monsanto and put them out of business entirely. GMOs are pollution as far as I'm concerned.

[@hastingsgames]

I second what BS-detector said. Some of these GMO crops are already eradicating the natural grasslands in my state. It's not an issue of natural selection that's the issue. It's our legal construct of corporations and their profits being more important than actual human beings or life in general. Their "products" are leeches in our society, and the only real humans defending them have been brainwashed by our media which is literally just corporate propaganda with legal teeth because it has infiltrated our actual legal system. The bad genetics show up in legitimate earth-based farms because corporations are sloppy and their seeds are spreading everywhere in nature already, it's just that our stupid courts will find you guilty of infringement only because nature exists. Believe me, your intentions are noted as being good but please don't.

[@Khannea]

@@BS-detector - facts

[@lauraw.7008]

I would not - repeat - NOT plant GMO seeds.

[@lauraw.7008]

not because they are "patented", but because of the impact on the soil and gut microbes.

[@shanehalpin8286]

Roundup ready crops has been a great invention

[@xpkareem]

What we need is open source seeds and breeds. A non profit that funds research and files those patents and then open sources them. A viral license that makes any derivatives also open source.

[@ElizabethGreene]

All seeds are open source after 17 years when the patent expires.

[@dsiepiela6449]

Nice work! Everyone needs to know and understand how greed is creating hunger, and the use of toxins.

[@spir5102]

We need to elect congress members who work for the people, not for themselves and corporations.

[@justinw1765]

And who exactly is that? It seems that most of them, on both sides of the aisle, have souls that are willing to be bought at a high enough price. I used to be a fan of B. Sanders, but have since realized that he's either given in or was never quite the person of integrity that I hoped that he was.

[@mikeburkhart8336]

No matter who you vote for, corporations and lobbies will have their hooks in them before or after they take office.

[@TheOG-GG]

Yes but that can only happen if WE are the ones running for congress. WE NEED TO RUN! Not some corporate bought off politician. Run For Something will support and fund your campaign so that average people like us can run and WIN our elections against the CDS (corporate dick suckers)

[@nailboy7370]

EXCELLENT CLIP!!!!!!! Can't wait for the rest of the series.

[@RamenNoodle1985]

Repost? Did y'all get a copyright strike?

[@martinbecklen6486]

Amazing and so important a message. Thank you for your research. A story well told.

[@MsPoliteRants]

There will be many people who will still claim it’s the government’s fault after watching this, and will insist that the free market is the solution: Unregulated capitalism

[@Twist3rOffical]

It is the governments fault for allowing lobbying to exist. Companies being able to pay off politicians to vote for laws that favor them, is not done for the benefit of the people

[@farrahupson]

@@Twist3rOffical Unfortunately, lots of people in the U.S. seem to have shortened "money influencing government is bad" to just "government bad".

[@janedough6575]

It’s actually fascism, government and industry run the show.

[@sickcat-nu4ci]

​@@farrahupson a government that takes bribes is a bad government.

[@sickcat-nu4ci]

Its pretty foolish to think our economic system is so far removed from our governing system.

[@zbolt8966]

It would be cool if we could get resources on where to get some of the remaining open source seeds

[@victoriabaker4400]

Try the Open Source Seed Initiative. Also, organic seeds are by definition not GMOs. And, all organic seed suppliers sell seeds that are open-pollinated (not hybids), that will breed true so that the seed can be saved for the next year. Note that hybrids are NOT GMOs, they are crosses done by traditional breeding methods. Here's a tip, which is that it's best to buy seeds that are grown nearer your own climate. For instance, the seed for the same variety of a veg that is grown in Maine will grow better for growers in the more northerly parts of the US than more southerly, and vice versa. I have found this teaching to be true, at least for some things. It has to do with length of growing season among other variables.

[@nicomyth]

Open pollinated and heirloom seeds are available from Bakers Creek seeds. The real trouble is finding wheat, soybean and corn seeds. These big 3 are the heavily patented varieties and the lack of genetic diversity is a real problem. You can't legally purchase GMO/patent seed without signing contracts. Also cutting propagation of patent varieties is really only a problem if you plan to sell your cloned plants. You can look up plant patents on Google to see when they expire. Once a patent expires you can propagate it and sell it legally without royalty fees.

[@Stajh]

You should do a video on the dairy industry and how small farms have been shut out.... USDA turns a blind eye to large "organic" dairies that break the rules....

[@angelfebus1732]

Great video covering the topic. I’ve known of this horrific situation for some years now. Question, what is the situation in other western industrialized countries? Are there any western industrialized countries that have explicitly banned this type of corrupt manipulation?

[@katharinabecker752]

As a German I can only say yes/no. We got Montsanto forced on us, now known (as part of) Bayer. Bayer is a pharmaceutical company with WW2 liability. The German/European farmers want to keep Roundup as the only pesticide ' that works.' There are farmer protests every year to keep it legal. However farmers have been quitting also because of climate change related issues. On the other hand, the food is still nutritious. The reason I think so is that when I am in Germany I start out eat the same quantity of food as in the US BUT I lose weight, girth and feel much more energetic. And end up eating less. When back in the US, I eat healthy but I always feel hungry and end up gaining the weight back. Also, German culture is still very conversational, and the state-of-the -world issues are discussed alot. Many Germans are very embarrassed by Bayer having bought Monsanto and do not have much sympathy for either company.

[@angelfebus1732]

@@katharinabecker752 Thank you for the response. Are seeds controlled and life patented in Germany as in the US?

[@katharinabecker752]

Are the seeds controlled? They have tried when they were Montsanto. A relative of mine nearly got in trouble when some Montsanto corn was found in his cornfield. Apparently that happened to other farmers too, the local authorities acted fast and Montsanto rescinded. In France there were farmer protests. The EU ruled to outlaw these seeds. Many Europeans are very aware of this since agriculture is still nearly everywhere and discuss it alot. However these bought seeds are being used especially in Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Romania and some in Central/Western Europe. So far, if you have been cultivating your own seeds, traditional seeds, you are still free to use them. However we do not trust Bayer, and they know it. Then too, there is Syngenta in Switzerland.

[@w8what575]

Yet the United States is controlled by the EU

[@justinw1765]

@@katharinabecker752 When you are in the US, do you primarily buy/eat local and/or organic, or from regular, major grocery store chains? Most towns and cities in the US, have pretty robust farmer markets and the like. Seems to be a growing trend. I just wish it was more affordable to the average person. It kind of sucks having to spend a quarter to a third of one's check to buy healthier food. If our property wasn't so shaded, we would grow a lot more food, but it would cost thousands upon thousands to cut down enough of these large trees to do this.

[@guru47pi]

You can get free, or very cheap seeds from many places, like extension offices and yourself BUT you won't have access to the extremely high yield hybrids from seed companies, so you'll lose money. The biggest reason people buy hybrid seeds is bc the yields are high enough to justify the cost. As a result, yields are more than double what they were only decades ago. What You're saying about lobbying is true, but it's missing the value prop and tech improvement from the patent/trademark system

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

I'm pretty sure EVERY public regulatory agency at every level is thoroughly corp controlled currently and has been for a long time.

[@crazyratlady3438]

Absolutely

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@crazyratlady3438 I love rats! 😍😄 (As a giant rodent I love all my tiny cousins )

[@crazyratlady3438]

@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs I'm very fond of capybaras myself and rodents in general 😊

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

@@crazyratlady3438 well we are pretty sweet if I do say so 😄

[@RustyOrange71]

Don't confuse 'legal' and'lawful', the two terms are often conflated and do not of necessity mean the same thing.

[@brentspotswood]

Could you clarify why the reupload on the video description? Has something changed?

[@Mr.H333]

Iirc when i was watching on deleted video, there are Nazi scenes when mentioning bayer

[@gabrielsatter]

2 reasons. The first is that videos just generate more views when you change the title. Veratassium (sp?) has a vid on that. The second reason may be that they wanted to erase all the comments that pointed out the flaws and disingenuous points the video tries to make.

[@brendataylor1467]

That's why us is using 3 times the amount of synthetic fertilizer within the last 5 years with less yield

[@dvdv8197]

I'm so confused... repost? 😊

[@evlkenevl2721]

It's amazing how some people think "pursuit of happiness" only applies to them.

[@RedFlagRevival]

"Capitalism invogorates innovation thats a good thing!" Uhhh sure, sure. And when those innovations are fueled by profit motive everything goes hunkie dorie.

[@SirLovestain]

This isn't an example of capitalism as capitalism is free trade. This is simply put as human greed if you wanted to put a name on it it'd probably be oligarchy.

[@RedFlagRevival]

@SirLovestain So how would a free market be any better than an oligarchy? Unregulated resource extraction? Unregulated price gouging? It's still an economic system of growth that encourages growth that is limited by the remaining resources. It just sounds like a nightmare to me.

[@SirLovestain]

@@RedFlagRevival it would be free allow for competition unlike this current situation that was mentioned in the video. An all powerful governing body has now been enforced in order to maintain this "patent" with a slew of fees. If these fees are not paid, kidnap (prison). And if one fights going to prison, death. Get rid of these patents that have come to exist through a small group of people, in competition will come to lower these prices and make everything cheaper. That was the implication with the seeds The people were able to share them amongst each other for free or for very cheap prices until the seat association stepped in in conjunction with the US government. Ideally no government is the way to go but there is enough evil in the world to justify some form of governing body but we must control and recognize the urge that we all have to overpower others for our self gain.

[@bloodfaythe13]

@@SirLovestain capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. Free market =\= capitalism. They are separate concepts. When people talk of anticapitalism they don't mean commerce bad. Obviously buying and selling things freely between people is not a bad thing. What's bad is that there's one dude at the top of these corporations raking in ALL of the money when their job is only a small part of what made all those profits in the first place. Or we're talking about the culture of prioritizing profits over everything else, like here with the seed patents. Make sense?

[@SirLovestain]

@@bloodfaythe13 look up true capitalism, aka capitalism. Nice try though.