In short, seed patents have become a tool for privatizing seed from the pool of open and commonly owned plant genetic resources: an insidious enclosure of seed commons.

This scenario is eerily similar to the consolidation of software for personal computers some twenty years ago. Microsoft used its market dominance to incorporate all sorts of software programs into its Windows operating system, a strategy sometimes referred to as “embrace, extend and extinguish.”  As Microsoft exploited its de facto monopoly over common software systems, programs for word-processing, spreadsheets and other functions began to go out of business.

From OpenSourceSeeds website

The Open Source Seed license, recently released by a group called OpenSourceSeeds, is trying to “make seeds a common good again.” The license amounts to a form of “copyleft” for new plant varieties, enabling anyone to use the licensed seeds for free. Like the General Public License for free software, the seed license has one serious requirement: any seeds that are used, modified or sold must be passed along to others without any legal restrictions.

This is the “share-alike” principle, which is also used by Creative Commons licenses.  Its purpose is to prevent the privatization of a common resource by requiring any user to share it freely and forever.

The Open Source Seed license directs any users:

You will in particular refrain from making any claim to plant variety rights, patent rights or any other statutorily possible exclusivity rights of the seeds or their propagation and enhancements.

Simultaneously, the licensing provisions oblige you, in turn, to subject any seeds or enhancements of the seeds obtained from the present seeds to these licensing provisions, and only to pass them on to third parties on these conditions (“copyleft”). Should you infringe the obligations arising from this licence agreement, you will forfeit your rights of use of the seeds or any seeds or enhancements obtained therefrom.

By acquiring or opening the packet of these plant seeds you accept, by way of an agreement, the provisions of a licence agreement where no costs shall be incurred to you. You especially undertake not to limit the use of these seeds and their enhancements, for instance by making a claim to plant variety rights or patent rights on the seeds’ components. You shall pass on the seeds, and propagations obtained therefrom, to third parties only on the terms and conditions of this licence. You will find the exact licensing provisions at www.opensourceseeds.org/licence. If you do not wish to accept these provisions, you need to refrain from acquiring and using these seeds.

The open source seed license was released on April 25 in Berlin by the Association for AgriCulture and Ecology (AGRECOL e.V) and the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development. They also released the first two open-sourced seeds, the tomato “Sunviva” (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) and the spring/summer wheat known as “Convento C.”  (For more on this event, see this story by Intellectual Property Watch.)

OpenSourceSeeds hopes that plant breeders will use its license to protect access to new crop varieties, eventually producing a new sector of open source seed production.  The group’s website invites breeders and seed distributors to register on its database so that buyers can discover where they can purchase open source seeds.

OpenSourceSeeds explains that its agenda is to promote food security through seed diversity; restore crop seeds as a common good; and assure free access to seed (meaning, no legal restrictions on use; seeds can still be sold).

It envisions a more ecological approach to farming rather than the monoculture crops of industrial agriculture. It wants to develop and promote a diversity of crop types, and promote varieties with ecological potential for niche locations and landscapes. All of these goals require a non-private, commonly owned seed sector where private profit is not the primary goal.

If you’d like to explore this topic further, here is an informative background essay, “Liberating Seeds with an Open Source Seed License,” by Johannes Kotschi and Klaus Rapf, of AGRECOL, the Association for AgriCulture and Ecology, in Germany.

Bravo, OpenSourceSeeds, for this ingenious initiative!  May your new license and ethic of seed stewardship produce many bountiful harvests in the future.

Cross-posted from bollier.org

Photo by timlewisnm

The post New Open Source License Fights the Enclosure of Seeds appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Monika Ermert: The Germany-based OpenSourceSeeds initiative this month started to offer open source-licensed seeds in an effort to strengthen a form of “copyleft” for new plant varieties. The goal, according to the organisation established by academics, activists and breeders and establish a non-private seed sector as a second pillar alongside private plant breeding.

At an event Tuesday in Berlin, hosted by OpenSource Seeds organiser, the Association for AgriCulture and Ecology (AGRECOL e.V) and the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development, the first two open-sourced seeds were presented, the tomato Sunviva (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) and the spring/summer wheat “Convento C”.

To make seeds open source was a necessary answer to the increasing market concentration and resulting reduction in genetic diversity in plant varieties. The lack of varieties and spread of uniform cropping systems over large areas present a risk for global food and nutrition security, according to the OpenSourceSeeds initiative.

Another concern is that farmers and society as a whole become more dependent on just a few companies. Earlier this week, 20 German organisations published a study on the lack of interventions of EU competition authorities in recent years against a long list of agro-chemical mega-mergers and warned against the effects for food security and dependencies also in the global South. With the mergers of Dow-DuPont, ChemChina-Syngenta and Bayer-Monsanto these three giants would dominate 70 percent of agrochemical products and 60 percent of the seed market.

To counter the trend, OpenSourceSeeds has created a special licence that will allow plant breeders an opportunity “to protect their new developments against privatisation and maintain them as a commons,” the organisation explains on its website. The new licence grants the right to use the seed and also to multiply it, pass it on and enhance it.

AGRECOL organised a first international workshop on open source seed initiatives last year and was in close contact with the US-based Open Source Seeds Initiative (OSSI), according to Johannes Kotschi from OpenSourceSeeds. OSSI already has a considerable pool of open-sourced crop and plant varieties. But contrary to the German OpenSourceSeeds, US-based OSSI so far decided not to use a licence, but a “pledge” to the OS principles.

Photo by Eugene Kogan

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