Bioprospecting

[finnteara]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-01-05-bioprospecting-peru_x.htm?csp=27

[johno]

Tarrrrnation!:eek:

[Chickens-on-Mars]

Guess I better get to the pattent office,
stake me claim to LGP before some suit or lab coat do.

Same old frontier and snake oil sales included.

[Lavandula Girl]

Man, I still can't figure out how someone can patent a naturally growing plant. I can see patenting a hybrid you develop yourself, and I can see patenting the formula to a medicine you make using a plant. If we're allowed to have the rights to a plant, where do I sign up to get the rights to Winesap apples? I should be able to prove I have a proprietary interest, since I once lived on a street called Winesap Run. Seems to me, that gives me more of a claim than these maca pirates!

[Sandbar]

Now, are they claiming rights to the plant, an extract of the plant or a product based upon the plant or extract? I got the impression that they were claiming the rights to a product derived from the extract. If it is anything other than a pure extract (meaning they took the natural extract, added some other ingredients and created their patented product), then I'm thinking they would have a right to a patent.

However, if they are just trying to patent the plants extract (i.e. an oil), then that is rediculous. That would be like trying to patent tomato juice.

[Carolina-Family-Farm]

Any idiggers ever grown any MACA with any successful results?

[johnsonjrbm]

Any idiggers ever grown any MACA with any successful results?

No, I just had a dickens of a time just finding a seed vendor. I may try to plant some this fall to overwinter...

[mrtomatoexpres]

only in america if i get any i will try maybe it will grow hair on my head:p

[Carolina-Family-Farm]

I actually picked up 2000 seeds on ebay this week from Peru.

Mrtomatoexpres If it grows hair I'll trade you some seed for a hand full of heirloom tomatoes seeds ......... :)

[bluelacedredhead]

CFF, Hope they aren't very big seeds..Wouldn't that cost a lot for shipping??

[johnsonjrbm]

[QUOTE=Carolina-Family-Farm;26405]I actually picked up 2000 seeds on ebay this week from Peru.

Cool! I could only find about 25 seeds/packet from Underwood Gardens (Grandma's Garden).

I don't need it for its alleged herbal properties (yet); I'm interested because I'm growing a lot of different root veggies, including carrots, beets, radishes, salsify, parsnips, scornezera, root parsley, turnip-rooted chervil, etc. (I've also had trouble finding the root chervil seeds.) I understand that maca root contains up to 16% protein.

If it has other positive side effects, then I'll certainly be saving seed. :D

[TastyofHasty]

Every time I see that word "patent" nowadays, a shiver of ... well ... I guess it would be FEAR ... hits me ...

I remember even when that "race" was on to decode the human genome ... reading that the corporation that got in ahead of the US government was PATENTING many of the DISCOVERIES it had made of the way God put us humans together. It didn't seem right, to patent that.

It reminds me of the days when "white folks" came to the Americas and started BUYING land from the Indians. The Indians were saying to themselves "huh? how can somebody BUY LAND?" Nowadays, we are saying "huh? how can somebody PATENT PLANTS?" Well ... look what happened to the Indians. That is what is behind that shiver when the word "patent" comes up nowadays.

There is an evil force behind all this "intellectual property" horgwarsh ... the hogwash that is taking away our rights to herbs and supplements ... and roots and seeds! You might say the Devil has decided that the patent office is his favorite way of STEALING what God has given us. Does anybody know WHO runs the patent office? and HOW corporations are able to patent plants such as maca that have been in use for hundreds of years ... how can anybody claim that is THEIR "intellectual property?" But ... how can "the people" fight such patenting except by costly lawsuits? That again is one of the big problems with the way the SYSTEM of government works. And corruption, of course, is another. And "the people," like the Indians, are just the innocents that are being disenfranchised by a system we cannot understand.

[Carolina-Family-Farm]

CFF, Hope they aren't very big seeds..Wouldn't that cost a lot for shipping??


Nope there tiny seeds, 2000 would fit under a .32 postage stamp:D

[TastyofHasty]

From Grunge of Giants by R. Buckminster Fuller:

Land "ownership" and its omni-dependent comprehensive thing-ownership involvements and their legal-documents-perpetuations constitute the largest socioeconomic custom error presently being maintained by a large world affairs-affecting segment of humanity.

Now we have plant "ownership." :eek: