Dear Editor,
I have noticed that you have never warned farmers about the danger of saving their own soybean seed because it might get contaminated with patented traits.

Even if your purchased soybean seed is legal to save and plant the following year, your seed may contain some patented traits because of bees working in both your and your neighbors’ fields (or other reasons). A good example of the danger of infringement caused by contamination is the Canadian canola seed producer Percy Schmeiser of Bruno, Saskatchewan.

In addition, you have not warned farmers about purchasing out-bound commodity mixed soybean grain from an elevator to plant after wheat or other risky plantings.

On Sept. 30, 2009, I was found guilty of patent infringement by the District Court for using and saving commodity mixed out-bound grain purchased from a local elevator as seed for double-crop beans.
The verdict is on appeal.

I was told by another elevator that they had a customer who settled out of court because the customer used a fertilizer spreader to sow some out-bound soybean grain even though he never benefitted from the patented trait involved.

I feel that farm magazines should have warned farmers to be extremely careful about saving non-patented grain for seed because of contamination - by bees or other reasons.

They should have also warned about purchasing out-bound grain to plant because it will probably contain some patented traits since elevators do not keep patented and non-patented grain separate in most bins.
These warnings could well have prevented some lawsuits and out-of-court settlements.

I am hopeful that you will inform your readers about the dangers mentioned above.

Vernon H. Bowman
Sandborn, Ind.

Fan of Alan Guebert

This is to say that I appreciated the comments of Alan Guebert in your Jan. 12 edition (Sustainable farm policies are vital, ag experts claim; page 4).
Guebert does say that (Wes) Jackson, (Wendell) Berry and (Fred) Kirschenmann have little in common, while in fact all three agree that ours is a nation with a family agriculture base. Industrial or factory agriculture is not our heritage, and it will not serve us as a nation in the long run. Our problem is to find a variation of the family farm that can be put to work in our future.
Many families are seeking solutions. We just do not have a “one size fits all” system that we can promote.

C.F. Farley
Nokomis, Ill.