[jackbravo]

One common drawback of GM crops is the monopolistic nature of their seeds. They come with a license and a cost to use, you cannot save seeds and use them later. So it seems like a threat to the sovereignty of a Country.

The article briefly mentions that initially some seeds are given with royalty free licenses, but for how long?

[gruez]

1. as others have mentioned in a sibling thread, "saving seeds" isn't really a thing that can be done with modern crops, GMO or not.

2. If you get a productivity boost from GMO, and but then GMO company goes rogue, can't you still go back to planting regular seeds?

[abdullahkhalids]

Re 2: on this software engineering forum, the following example will help.

If you have core dependency goes rogue, and you have to switch to an alternate library with similar features, is that a free switch? Think of how many thousands of hours of work are often needed? How many businesses have gone under because of such issues?

Growing a particular variety requires a lot of knowledge gained by each individual farmer from experience. You can't just go back to an old variety for free. It may take several years for yields to go back to previous levels and by then the farmer may have gone under.

[bluGill]

The patents are expiring. Many of the useful traits are no longer under patent.

even ignoring that things the patents were easy for golden rice to license. https://www.goldenrice.org/Content2-How/how9_IP.php