Michaela Haas at World Sensorium:
Just like software development has been co-opted by a few global companies like Microsoft and Apple, the international seed development and trade, too, is controlled by a few big giants like Bayer (Monsanto), Corteva (DuPont) and ChemChina (Syngenta). A 2012 Oxfam study found that four companies dominate more than 60 percent of the global trade with grains.
[…]
In 2012, Kloppenburg and half a dozen like-minded agriculture experts founded [the Open Source Seed Initiative] as an alternative to the monopolies. OSSI’s aim is the “free flow and exchange of genetic resources, of plant breeding and variety development,” Kloppenburg says.
[…]
Examples of OSSI varieties include dwarf tomatoes, bred for people with little space by small farmers in North Carolina and Australia who worked together and exchanged information across continents. A new rye, called Baldachin, has been developed with the help of crowdfunding in Germany specifically for the sandy soil in East Germany and is for the first time available in bakeries this fall.
I have long been fascinated by plant breeding and hybridization. One of my favorite finds last year was the Open Source Plant Breeding Forum.
Here is a direct link to the Open Source Seeds site.