Why aren’t US farmers allowed to save seeds for replanting their crops?

[Kelly6]

[Lliam]

They can save seeds if they are heirloom varieties.
But most farmers either buy hybrid or GMO seeds.

Seeds from hybrid plants do not "work well" because they do not "breed true". When you plant seeds saved from a first-generation (F1) hybrid, the next generation (F2) splits apart genetically. Instead of a uniform crop, you get a wild mix of traits from the original grandparent plants, losing the specific size, vigor, and disease resistance you started with.

Four multinational biotechnology corporations control more than 50% of the global seed market, dominating the production of genetically modified (GMO) seeds.

When buying GMO seeds, farmers must sign a Technology Agreement or licensing contract. These legal contracts protect the biotech company's utility patents and control how the seed technology is used.

Key Terms in GMO Seed Contracts
- No Seed Saving: Farmers agree not to save, clean, or store seeds harvested from their crops to replant the following season. They must purchase new seeds from the company every year.
-Technology/Licensing Fees: Contracts outline the specific fees paid for the patented genetic traits, usually bundled per bag of seed.
- Right to Inspect Farms: Agreements often grant the seed company the legal right to enter, inspect, and test a farmer's fields or storage facilities—sometimes for years after the contract ends—to check for unauthorized replanting.
- Pesticide Bundling: Many agreements require or restrict the use of specific chemical herbicides (such as matching glyphosate formulations) designed to work alongside the specific GMO trait.

Those multinational buy up seed banks that store heritage seeds in an effort to prevent their use. They also spread their GMO seeds so that they cross pollinate indigenous and heirloom varieties. Doing so turns the non-GMO plants into GMOs, which means that the corporations can sue farmers for patent infringement. That's what they did to Percy Schmeiser. But they also contaminate maize in Mexico and other crops around the world. Those corporations want total monopoly over crop production.

(Suzanna) Arundhati Roy has written about the sacredness of seeds.
She speaks out against patenting seeds, a practice that forces farmers into modern-day debt bondage.
By creating seeds that cannot naturally reproduce, corporations dismantle thousands of years of communal farming knowledge.
To Roy, preserving indigenous seed varieties is both a literal and metaphorical act of rebellion. Nurturing local seeds allows communities to physically reclaim their food systems, bypass state control, and preserve ecological diversity.

[exitseven]

@Lliam I was pretty impressed by yourt knowledge of the subject. Now I think you just googlrd it. Still, it was very informatve.

[Lliam]

@exitseven. I already knew that stuff. I was the Board President of a great local environmental nonprofit that mostly did educational work, had guest speakers from around the country, showed Bioneers films, etc. from 2005 to 2011. I knew about Arundhati Roy. I have also talked to my cousin, who is a very successful farmer in Wisconsin, about seeds.

In responding to the question, I did go on line to find the information I wanted so that I could get the details right. And yes, I did cut and paste much of it.

[exitseven]

@Lliam I was still impresed.

[lightbulb27]

Americans developed and capitalism (money has value, nothing else does) took over to an extreme. We became stupid. Everything is outsourced, even our parents and children.

You could as well have asked... why do Americans outsource their babies to daycare centers, where people don't give a crap about them?

Because they have to go to work to pay the daycare bill!!!

If you get a dollar bill... stair at it and woship it ike it is a God. Then stair it at longer until you lust for it, dream of many of them piled up in a bank, you are playing golf at a resort sipping drinks, driving a shiny sports car with a young hot woman draped over it... yea, that's the image forced on us. Then, you die of some complicated disease slowly in a hospital all alone... because you've been outsourced, and it is stupid expensive and your kids don't visit... because they are out playing golf and working... to pay for the daycare of their kids.

That's the American dream. Seeds, nobody here thinks about seeds except a very few.

[Chazmatazz269]

In most cases, it wouldn’t matter if they did. The companies that control the seeds have made them unproductive. That way they can force farmers to buy their seeds every season, instead of just once. Heirloom seeds are extremely expensive and hard to come by. So they’re fine if you’re just growing your own food. But it’s unsustainable if you’re trying to sell produce and make a profit.
Buyers permitted this scam by finding it too demanding to remove seeds before using fruits and vegetables, or getting too exhausted from spitting them out. “Seedless” fruits and vegetables were the result of agricultural planned obsolescence.
If the seeds actually did produce and a farmer used them, the seed companies would sue them for unpermitted use. It has happened in the past. A local family farm was sued when bees cross-pollinated his crops with a nearby industrial farm’s pollens. No joke. That lawsuit actually led me to the conspiracy theory that it’s those same companies that have reduced the bee populations because those cross-pollinations cost them money.

[OneViewpoint]

Because of the Dumb-fuck-ery of Capitalism once again. Well that plus the industry developed to fuck around with the food supply that has generated Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's). And these genetically engineered crops are allowed to be patented. And the courts have enforced those patents. So if a farmer holds back some of the harvest for seed, he is (by our fucked up laws) violating a patent protection of a mega corporation. We have effectively handed over ownership of the food supply to corporations and made farmers economic slaves to those corporations. Now the farmer becomes a captive of the patent owner every year without fail.

And maybe 1 in 1,000 people in the US understand that. Maybe we should have developed GMO crops with public funds like we fund NASA for space exploration. And the farmers should be free to produce their own seed. Instead we introduced inefficiencies into food production that impoverished farmers and the general population to protect the profits of mega corporations. Because those corporations funded the campaigns of the politicians who make the laws.

[purplepoppy]

GMO seed companies legally prohibit it to make more money.
Hybrid seeds don't come true to form.

It boils down to who feeds you controls you. Remember it's not just the farmer under their control but they have a huge grip on Americas food suppy and with more and more countries taking it up they can switch off any countries food supply at anytime.

So the real question is why do politicians allow it?

[jamesgoldman]

Because they're all part of the same club

[FreyaRed]

Dependency.
It's about to get of cultivating plants which can be used as seed source for next season, what worked over thousands of years.
But now we have share markets and corporations which sell 'quality seeds' and they have to make profits with any means necessary.

[AviatorTom]

It's a stupid law, but the seeds actually are patented and belong to Monsanto, or whatever company created the genetically modified GMO seeds. If Farmers reuse the seeds their plants grow, they are legally violating the company's patent and are faced with huge fines.

Sure, they could plant crops from natural, non GMO, seeds but that can't compete. Farmers would never survive economically if they did that.

[loveslongnails]

A series of laws in the USA beginning in 1970, starting with the Plant Variety Protection Act, began restricting farmer control of free, shared distribution of seeds by the Department of Agriculture. Seeds became intellectual property because of the genetic crossbreeding and subsequent patenting of various varieties. Much litigation has taken place over this, and some of it is still ongoing.

[msc545]

Because the people that supposedly own the rights to the seeds have copyrighted them or protected them legally in some way. They have absolutely no intention of allowing other people to create them and use them by growing plants that produce them even though this is a natural process. Welcome to capitalism.

[convo_king89]

Depends on what seeds. If its non gmo then its allowed but if its gmo its not allowed because you bought the seed one time. You have to buy it every time like a pay to use cuz their technology is licensed and patented.

[Lynx122]

Getting fucked by companies is the number one hobby in the U. S., they love nothing more.

[jahaims]

Google is free. Big companies patent their seeds so it is illegal to use without buying them from them. John deere fucks farmers like seed companies as well

[jshm2]

Because the labs have a monopoly on who can grow what.

[Snakeyes7]

Because the commies need control of the food production in order to "fairly" redistribute it to the masses, but 99% of it will go to the powers that be.

[abc3643]

You misspelled "capitalists".

[Snakeyes7]

@abc3643 If the state is involved in any capacity other than to enforce competition, that's not a free market.

[canamlusciouslad73]

I'd LOVE to give some seed to a buxom blonde farmer's daughter !!!

[_Jenny_]

@Kelly6 They should

[TonyMetal___1986]

I don't know, that's weird 🤔

[dougeats]

I did not know that!

[wkhan_87]

Aren't they? I didn't know

[robocop666]

capitalism. to make them buy more

[Anonymous]

Mosanto.