History of Seed Industry Development
Matt Dillon, Founder and Director of Advocacy, Organic Seed Alliance (OSA)
We need to understand the dominant seed system we have today; it is a corporate system, with large corporations controlling the future of our food supply. When we buy seed from Joe Smith’s seed company, what many of us don’t realize is this seed is not produced by Joe, but instead has taken a long journey from a research and development firm, to a production company, to a seed farmer, back to a production company which markets the seed to a retail seed company. Corporations like Monsanto are deeply embedded in this process, because they own the patents on many seed varieties. What we need to determine is if this system serves our needs.
Seed companies date back to 1775, although there was a small seed company established as early as 1460 to serve aristocratic clients. The seed business took off in 20th century with the introduction of hybrid varieties. The Plant Variety Protection Act was passed in 1930, and updated in 1970 and 1994 in order to stimulate improvement in breeding and ensure that folks who did this work would be fairly compensated. This act granted the breeder sole rights to sell their seeds for 17 years, although farmers could still produce their own seeds and trade their seeds. But starting in 1994, farmers could no longer sell their seeds to their neighbors.
In the 1980s, patenting of actual sequences of DNA became increasingly common. Seed companies began tying up tens of thousands of gene sequences, so that now breeders are afraid to breed for fear of infringing on someone else’s patents. There were also a slew of mergers in the ‘80s, so that larger companies were effectively able to monopolize certain varieties of seed.
The seed industry hasn’t always been this way; in fact, there was a very strong public breeding system in this country until the 20th century, in which universities and local governments bred and distributed seed. But by 1930, there was reduced public support for seed breeding and basic crop research, as well as a reduction in funding to land grant universities to breed seeds. The seed breeding field became increasingly dominated by private investment in plant breeding. Breeding research has not changed much in the past 50 years—with the primary focus at the genetic level rather than on traditional plant breeding techniques.
Under the existing system, you can’t even do research on genetic material without the permission of the person who holds the patents. Companies apply for patents to tie up germ plasm so other companies can’t research and work on the genetic material. Such a system doesn’t promote open sharing of knowledge and innovation.
Though it seems as if we are feeding more people today, we may be sacrificing our land, our diet, and our communities in the process. We have lost so many seed varieties, our plant breeding infrastructure, our regional food identities, breeding materials, knowledge, food security, and sovereignty—our right to be self-determining in what foods we want to eat.
Yet the majority of seed is still unpatented and in the public domain. There is great potential for Hawai‘i to become a source of high-quality organic seed, similar to Israel.
We need a diversity of crops, a diversity of decision makers, and new partnerships between public, private, nonprofit, and university partners in order to change. We can increase diversity, nutrition, aesthetics, and flavor in our food, and nurture healthy people and a healthy planet.