 |
Terminator Seed Ban Proposed In Canada
Terminator seeds, which have already been outlawed by India and Brazil, face similar treatment in Canada. Agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko introduced a private member's bill Thursday to ban field-testing and commercialization of terminator seeds, which allow the seed maker to control future generations of the plant.
These seeds make use of what is generally called "terminator technology," which is one form of Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT). The simplest form of GURT merely ensures that the second generation of seeds cannot be used for planting. An activating gene introduced into the plant triggers a toxin gene during germination. The second generation seed fails to germinate, forcing the farmer to buy new seeds for each season.
A sneakier version allows biotech companies to control whether or not particular traits express in the second generation of plants. The second generation of seeds will sprout - but you won't get those wonderful traits you wanted, like resistance to disease or large yield, unless you pay the biotech company for a special chemical to spray on the plants, activating those genes.
(Terminator Seeds)
You don't need to be a science fiction fan to start thinking about ways that this could go wrong. For example, what if these plants begin to cross-breed with other varieties - and pass on their terminator technology? I don't want to be forced to make a deal with a biotech company to make sure I have plants. (There have been a variety of cases in which hybrid crops have been planted next to fields of normal plants, and then cross-bred - or replaced - the normal plants.)
"Terminator technology" applied to plants is bad enough, but what if you go to your doctor for a cure that involves a useful genetic modification - and are then told that this trait can be passed on to your children for a price?
This sounds to me like DRM (Digital Rights Management) for plants. DRM schemes for music, for instance, are intended to prevent owners from creating a "second generation" (that is, copies) of the original recording.
Update 20-Oct-2013: The notion of sterile seeds is covered perfectly in Paolo Bacigalupi's excellent 2005 short story The Calorie Man; see the entry for sterile seeds. End update.
Jack Vance wrote about an entire planetary culture obsessed with protection of its biological intellectual property rights in his 1954 story The Houses of Iszm. The Iszic used their knowledge of plants to create enormous house trees that grew large pods for living space. The Iszic developed intensive security and surveillance systems to make sure no one stole a female plant, which would break their monopoly.
The sphincter expanded and Farr stepped dubiously into the chamber…the pod was thirty feet long, opening on a balcony with a waist-high balustrade. The walls and domed ceiling were tufted with trefoils of a silky green fibre; the floor was heavy with plum-coloured moss; quaint lamps grew out of the wall. There were four magenta pod-chairs against one wall...
(Read more about the house trees of Iszm)
Take a look at more plant-related stories with a science-fictional twist:
- Sweet Wheat - No Sugar Added
A hybridized variety of wheat with twice the sugar of its ancestor. - TREETENTS And House Trees
Imagine my surprise when I ran across the TREETENTS of Dre Wapenaar. - Tumblin' Tumbleweeds Lend Hand In Depleted Uranium Roundup
Helps humans round up depleted uranium from contaminated soil.
Via CBC.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/5/2007)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Agriculture ")
Mashambas Skyscraper Farm Design Wins
'...a towering eighty-story structure like the office In-and Out baskets stacked up to the sky.' - Poh and Kornbluth, 1952.
Self-Driving Tractors From China Plan Ahead
'Machines that seemingly with full consciousness walked out into the fields to do their daily work.' - Otfrid von Hanstein
John Deere Self-Driving Tractor
'The huge plow... seemed to shake itself - and began to move back southward.' - Otfrid von Hanstein, 1935.
SWEEPER Robot Peter Piper Picking Peppers
'... little machines, that went from plant to plant, apparently on caterpillar tracks, cutting off the ripe fruit.' Otfrid von Hanstein, 1935.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
TytoCare Offers Futuristic Home Care
'Immediately an enormous apparatus fell on to her out of the ceiling...'
Powdered Regolith Propulsion
'... filling their great tanks with the finely divided dust which the ionic rockets would spit out in electrified jets.'
Ford's SafeCap, Opposite Of Niven and Barnes' Napcap
'In the napcap a client became an instant yoga master...'
Would You Get 'Chipped'? Michigan May Ban Employers
'Employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors...'
Tesla Autopilot: What Does An Autonomous Car See When It Looks At The Road?
'Jeremiah is a sports-model to begin with and that kind is awfully hot-tempered.'
DNA Controls Swarms Of Molecular Robots
'They exist in loose swarms...'
Tether Asteroids To Save Us All
'If anything can glue the asteroids back into the planet they once were, magnology will do it.'
Blaux Your Personal Commuter Cooling Unit
A cooling unit had to be strapped to every commuter's back, by law.
3D Printed Damascus Steel Now Possible
'...lined with durite, that strange close-packed laboratory product.'
R9X Hellfire Missile With Long Blades Kills Queda Leader
'He was still roaring when the knife missile flicked past him...'
Would You Swallow An Origami Robot?
'Swallow it in an emergency--it goes down easily and works just as well inside as outside.'
Perhaps You Might Be Interested In Habitable Exoplanet Moon Real Estate
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Blurry Face Photos Made 60 Times Sharper
Perfect tool for blade runners.
SpaceX Will Build Floating Spaceports!
'...a single perfectly level platform, which rose so high above the water that it was not splashed by the waves.'
Fast Radio Bursts And Space Beacons For Interstellar Navigation
'Every beacon has a code signal as part of its radiation...'
Robot Garbage Trucks Visualized
'It was a bulky, shining cylinder over twenty metres long.'
