Everyone pays the price as patent holders on seeds stifle innovation
Everyone pays the price as patent holders on seeds stifle innovation
种子专利持有者扼杀创新，代价由全民承担
The United States is one of only a handful of countries that allows companies to hold patents on plant varieties. As a result, a small number of corporations can—and do—suppress competition in the seed industry, stifle innovation, and turn taxpayer subsidies intended for farmers into corporate profits. 美国是少数几个允许公司持有植物品种专利的国家之一。因此，少数几家大公司能够——并且确实在——压制种子行业的竞争，扼杀创新，并将本应给予农民的纳税人补贴转化为企业利润。
The US Department of Agriculture has found that two companies control more than 70 percent of US corn and soybean seed sales, and the top four cottonseed companies control nearly 94 percent of that market. In a May 2026 court filing in a legal dispute between two US seed companies, the Department of Justice said patents on seeds are obstructing competition and research in the agriculture industry. 美国农业部发现，两家公司控制了美国 70% 以上的玉米和大豆种子销售，而排名前四的棉籽公司控制了该市场近 94% 的份额。在 2026 年 5 月两家美国种子公司的法律纠纷法庭文件中，司法部表示，种子专利正在阻碍农业领域的竞争和研究。
As researchers who work on plant breeding and seed policy, we have seen how that plays out. When huge companies assert their patents, smaller businesses and public plant breeders, who often lack the legal resources to fight back, are frequently dissuaded from conducting research and development that might actually not be illegal at all. And a lack of competition allows dominant companies—not always based in the US—to collect large sums of taxpayer money that Congress allocated in hopes it would help farmers, not shareholders’ and executives’ bottom lines. 作为从事植物育种和种子政策研究的研究人员，我们目睹了这种情况的发生。当大公司主张其专利权时，往往缺乏法律资源进行反击的小型企业和公共植物育种者，经常被劝阻而不敢进行那些实际上可能并不违法的研发工作。缺乏竞争使得占据主导地位的公司（并不总是总部位于美国）能够攫取国会本意用于帮助农民、而非充实股东和高管腰包的大量纳税人资金。
A shift in ownership
所有权的转移
For most of human agricultural history, farmers freely saved, exchanged, and planted seeds season after season, creating a diversity of crops suited to the places and people who grew them. While some communities restricted the exchange of seeds for cultural or ceremonial reasons, seeds were broadly understood to be a shared resource. 在人类农业史的大部分时间里，农民们可以自由地留种、交换并在每一季播种，从而创造出适合当地环境和种植者的多样化作物。虽然一些社区出于文化或仪式原因限制种子的交换，但种子在广义上被视为一种共享资源。
Even as recently as the 1970s, most plant breeding was carried out by public researchers at government stations and universities, while private companies focused on producing and selling those varieties at scale. That diverse and decentralized system also served as an invisible insurance policy against disease and disaster: If one variety failed, there were plenty of others distinct enough to fill its place. 即使在 20 世纪 70 年代，大多数植物育种工作仍由政府研究站和大学的公共研究人员进行，而私营公司则专注于这些品种的大规模生产和销售。这种多样化且分散的系统也充当了抵御疾病和灾害的隐形保险：如果一个品种失败了，还有许多其他截然不同的品种可以填补空缺。
Beginning in the 20th century, though, governments began to grant companies patents on living organisms, beginning with a genetically engineered bacterium that broke down crude oil. Suddenly, chemical and pharmaceutical companies saw opportunities to earn money by engineering specific traits, such as herbicide tolerance, into key crop plants, including corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola, and patenting those varieties. 然而，从 20 世纪开始，各国政府开始授予公司对生物体的专利权，始于一种能分解原油的基因工程细菌。突然间，化学和制药公司看到了赚钱的机会：通过将特定的性状（如耐除草剂性）植入玉米、大豆、棉花和油菜等关键作物中，并为这些品种申请专利。
Then they used those patent rights to prohibit other plant breeders, even university researchers, from conducting research and breeding with their seeds and to forbid farmers from saving their own seeds from one season to the next. Those steps eliminated seed companies’ two most obvious sources of competition: other developers building on their work and farmers saving seed. 随后，他们利用这些专利权禁止其他植物育种者（甚至是大学研究人员）利用其种子进行研究和育种，并禁止农民在下一季留种。这些举措消除了种子公司的两个最明显的竞争来源：在他们工作基础上进行开发的开发者，以及留种的农民。
The seed companies then had enough market power to set prices so high that they took nearly all of farmers’ potential profits, while leaving them just enough of a margin to remain customers. According to a report from the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the price for genetically engineered seeds has more than quintupled since 1990, rising by 463 percent. But over that same period of time, the price farmers have received for their crops has increased only by 56 percent. 种子公司的市场支配力足以将价格定得极高，以至于拿走了农民几乎所有的潜在利润，只给他们留下刚好能维持其作为客户的微薄利润空间。根据美国农业部经济研究局的一份报告，自 1990 年以来，基因工程种子的价格上涨了 463%，翻了五倍多。但在同一时期，农民出售作物的价格仅上涨了 56%。
Subsidies get diverted
补贴被挪用
When the prices farmers receive for certain crops fall below a certain threshold, or when farmers suffer losses from bad weather or unexpected trade disputes, the Department of Agriculture has a multitude of programs that offer payments to make up the difference. But that money tends to spend little time in farmers’ pockets. 当农民获得的某些作物价格跌破特定阈值，或者农民因恶劣天气或意外贸易争端遭受损失时，农业部有多种项目提供补偿金以弥补差额。但这些钱往往在农民口袋里待不了多久。
An August 2025 study shows that when farm subsidies increase, seed companies respond by raising their prices, charging based on what farmers can afford to pay rather than their own cost of producing and marketing the seed. Specifically, for every 1 percent increase in farm subsidies, seed companies raise their prices by 0.5 percent. 2025 年 8 月的一项研究表明，当农业补贴增加时，种子公司会通过提高价格来应对，其定价依据是农民的支付能力，而非种子生产和营销的成本。具体而言，农业补贴每增加 1%，种子公司就会提价 0.5%。
And when farmers go to sell their crops to grain processors, those companies benefit from being able to purchase commodity grains, such as corn, soybeans, and canola, at a predictable price, held low because subsidies help farmers produce an abundant supply at margins that would otherwise drive farms out of business. 当农民向粮食加工商出售作物时，这些公司受益于能够以可预测的价格购买玉米、大豆和油菜等商品粮。由于补贴帮助农民以原本会导致农场倒闭的利润率生产出充足的供应，价格得以保持在低位。
Testifying at an October 2025 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on competition issues in the seed and fertilizer industries, Iowa farmer Noah Coppess put it plainly: “The reality in farming today is we’re price takers rather than price makers. That’s especially true when consolidation limits our options. … I have concerns with our input and equipment supply chains and their ability to manipulate our costs.” 在 2025 年 10 月参议院司法委员会关于种子和化肥行业竞争问题的听证会上，爱荷华州农民诺亚·科普斯（Noah Coppess）直言不讳地表示：“当今农业的现实是，我们是价格接受者，而不是价格制定者。当行业整合限制了我们的选择时，情况尤其如此……我担心我们的投入品和设备供应链，以及它们操纵我们成本的能力。”
The result is a system in which public money intended for farmers is redistributed to the seed suppliers and commodity purchasers who profit on either side of them. 其结果是一个公共资金被重新分配的系统：本应给予农民的钱，最终流向了在农民两端获利的种子供应商和商品采购商。
Limiting research
限制研究
Dominant seed companies prevent competitors from developing new breeding programs through a complex web of patents and restrictive licensing contracts that make it nearly impossible to acquire enough genetic material to get started. The patent system is built on the premise that applicants must completely disclose how their inventions were made in order to get protection. This allows the public to understand the scope of the invention, as well as to improve upon it. Genetic analyses on the protected seeds would be required to understand… 占据主导地位的种子公司通过复杂的专利网和限制性许可合同，阻止竞争对手开发新的育种计划，使得竞争对手几乎不可能获得足够的遗传材料来开展工作。专利制度建立的前提是，申请人必须完全披露其发明是如何制造的，才能获得保护。这使得公众能够了解发明的范围，并在此基础上进行改进。对受保护种子进行遗传分析是了解……所必需的。