Friday, November 1, 2019

Prairie farmers shoot down seed royalty proposals

Farmers have voted overwhelmingly against two choices for gathering royalties on seed sales to fund development of new varieties.

Two-thirds of those polled by general farm organizations in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba said they do not like either the up-front or trailing options for collecting royalties.

A quarter said they would like more information.

The really old model when governments funded variety-development research worked well and served the national interest. The new approaches, such as patents and royalties, are not nearly as good.