http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/23/corn_domesti...
The difference between teosinte and maize is about 5 genes. We've been genetically modifying corn for nearly 10,000 years, but we've just done so really inefficiently. If you want to eat raw, non-GMO corn, here's what's for dinner:
http://www.silae.it/files/imgs/maiz2.jpg
If you want to eat this, it took a few thousand years of hybridization, selective breeding, and culling:
http://pngimg.com/upload/corn_PNG5273.png
(Patents expire after 17 years, anyway; it's likely that 17 years after the first teosinte plants were cross-bred to make maize, the breeder had a complete monopoly on them anyway.)
We've also been doing it massively distributed which means it can adapt and change independent of a single/couple organizations. Yes, it's inefficient but that's also somewhat of a feature in that we don't have a single point of failure.
It's pretty unlikely that the original development of agriculture was decentralized. In fact, we have pretty good evidence that it was intensely centralized in a few places, and that tribes that had this technology then outcompeted, conquered, and killed all the hunter/gatherer bands that resisted using it.
I'm all for inefficiency when too much efficiency can cause a problem.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/25creature.html...
I'm looking for sources on early 18th and 19th century maize farming and cultivars, haven't turned up any yet.
If you realise that all three major grains on which humans are overwhelmingly dependent, maize, rice, and wheat, did not exist only ~10,000 years ago, the power of simple selective breeding becomes apparent.
Look to dogs, horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry for similar trends in selective breeding over only a few thousand years, though in many cases a few centuries.
As a consumer I want to the right to patronize companies that don't purchase seeds from these companies, however under the current state of things there's no way to distinguish which produce/companies these are.
Likewise I'm pretty chill with nuclear power. From a tech side its a total win.
Nuclear power plants managed by mega corporations, oh not so happy about that idea.
But nuke plants in general, without American style management, sure, they're cool.
That's because many see domesticated crops as a different thing than GMO crops... and of course, use the assumed bad behavior of one company, as a detriment to the science behind crop enhancement.
That doesn't protect against global seed contamination, but we aren't teetering on that precipice.
I also doubt Monsanto and other big GMO organizations are going to give away anything ever unless they're forced to. Their answer to everything is "sue me" because they know they'll bury you.
I'm pretty sanguine about the teetering. Among other things, companies like Monsanto (and thus their competitors) like to do things like maintain big seed banks. So do academics and hobbyists.
Today corn is corn. What if in the future it's more fish than corn? What if you can't grow it without a license from the "manufacturer"? What if it cross-breeds with traditional corn and you can't even grow that because of patent implications?
That's the fuss.