FRESH

Hacker News

Farmer, marketer at odds over sales of white nectarines

115 points by djoldman

by efitz

9 subcomments

Patents on food crops, even genetically engineered ones, are evil. ALL our staple food crops and most non staples are genetically engineered by millennia of cultivation and selective breeding; CRISPR is just a fancy mechanism for what we’ve always done to food.
Regulations that prevent farmers from selling food that is safe, are evil. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned the regulation is.
Any government functionary that tries to prevent a farmer from selling safe food, is doing evil. Any lawyer that tries to prevent a farmer from selling food, is doing evil. Any court that enjoins a farmer from selling safe food, is doing evil. If the farmer is found to have violated some IP claim, then the proper remedy is monetary damages after the fact, not enjoined before the fact.

by jmalicki

1 subcomments

If he donates these to a charity, what are the rules on taking a tax deduction for this unusual situation?
Can it have value for the purposes of a donation if you can't sell it? Would taking a tax deduction trigger a patent liability?

by em-bee

4 subcomments

regardless of how the contract is structured, no contract should allow or force a producer to throw products away. this is similar to a law in the EU that forbids producers or distributors of clothing to destroy products they don't want to sell.
once you plant a tree to grow fruit you should be allowed to keep harvesting that tree until its natural end. if there is an exclusive contract then the contract must not be allowed to be terminated before that end unless the grower is free to sell on the open market after termination.
anything else would allow patent owners to hold growers hostage ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶.̶

by leoc

0 subcomment

I missed the free potatoes in Berlin https://www.the-berliner.com/english-news-berlin/4000-tons-o... , and now I'm missing this? Once again https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46618898 all the action eludes me.

by john_strinlai

6 subcomments

>locked in a legal battle with a company that claims exclusive rights over the variety of white nectarine he grows.
>[...] Fruit patents are becoming more common
this is unbelievably stupid. no company should have rights or patents over a variety of food.

by aorth

2 subcomments

by carrychains

0 subcomment

by rosegroove

0 subcomment

by petcat

1 subcomments

> In its court filings, Giumarra says all rights to the Monalise variety are owned by Star Fruits Diffusion, a French company that works with plant breeding programs, while Giumarra holds the right to sublicense the variety for testing, production and sale.
> French company
Enough said. This US admin will nuke that agreement instantly. If it was a fellow American company, let it pass.

by ExoticPearTree

0 subcomment