Plant breeding in the public interest

[Pierre A Plauzoles]

Paul Cherubini wrote:

> Patrick Foley wrote:
>
> > But it may be disastrous for the long-term public interest to commit much of our land
> > and harvest into a few hands and a few genotypes.
>
>  I wrote:
>
> > Can you give us some specific scenarios or models of potential "disastrous"
> > consequences? Perhaps examples from other industries long controlled by a few
> > hands?
>
> Patrick Foley wrote:
>
> > Surely you are not asking for a lesson in the dangers of concentrating
> > power in a few hands? Nor can you be ignorant of the dangers a genetically
> > depauperate population or cultivar faces. Let us not argue over the obvious.
>
> These "dangers" and "disastrous consequences" are not obvious to me. That's
> why I requested specific scenarios and models or examples from other industries.
>
> The petroleum industry, for example, has been concentrated into a
> few hands for 30 years. What disaster has befallen us due to that situation?

Easiest answer I have had the pleasure of posting in some fourteen years: the lack of
decent public transit (see any of the newsgroups that deal with rail transportation).  With
the general public forced to come to the oil companies' trough or be unable to maintain
their mobility, the public chooses the former, resulting in air pollution, asthma and other
respiratory diseases due to the pollution, and so on (I could also include the fact the
petrochemical industry thinks it can get away with murder by pollution.  Sooner or later,
trying to bully the public around catches up to them, like the tobacco industry has (maybe
slower and in different ways), but the fact is that the problem is there, and, sooner or
later, it will.  Love Canal finally did catch up with Hooker Chemical, did it not?