> Also, what's the connection to the high yield ones?

The high yield seeds are created by cross pollinating certain varieties. When the high yield seeds are planted, the new seeds should be eaten -not re-planted- since they will give poor yield.

So a counterfeiter can just buy cheaper food-seeds and resell them as expensive high-yield seeds.

Linked article claimed it was undertaken to prevent seed counterfeiting.

Edit: (I personally know basically nothing about the law or how it’s been implemented.)

Instead of doing things like securing their supply chains, the reaction of the seed companies is to... just make anyone else selling seeds illegal.

> So you are saying that these special hybrid seeds that are the first generation of combining two strains are the only ones that can perform well

Absolutely. The first generation of a hybrid seed will produce several times more than either traditional seeds or the second generation. You can't reasonably grow your own hybrid seeds as you need to keep your fields to grow those seeds well separated from any other fields.

Now not all plants can be hybridized, and even of those that can I won't state with confidence that all of them have that property. However Maize (corn in US) which is a major world crop does act like this.

> Such laws are in place to protect the IP of these special seed producers, to make their business model viable

Not exactly. There is some of that for sure, but there is also that if you are a seed producer you want to ensure your customers get your good seed and not counterfeit that looks just like yours (if you cannot examine cell DNA you can't tell the difference between a first generation hybrid and any other seed).

However the law was written is clearly too broad. It should protect the hybrid seeds - nobody wants any seed claimed as hybrid that isn't a first generation hybrid. However it shouldn't affect any traditionally saved seeds (though where hybrid is available nobody wants them except museums)

Hybrid seeds are ~100 years old and are nearly universally adopted across developed agricultural markets. They’re as controversial as “you should probably use source control” is in programming. You may be confusing hybrid seeds with GMOs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_seed

To state once again, I don’t know much about this law or how the government believes it’s preventing counterfeit seed, but bad seed is a huge problem for farmers. I personally want farmers to be able to do whatever they want to with their farms!

> I am skeptical of the fact that even second generation seeds are that bad

Non-farmers really don't understand how human-engineered agriculture has been for the entire history of human civilization. For example, corn (maize) does not really exist in nature, it's a human-developed thing. Hybridized plants still carry the genetic code that allowed them to propagate through the ages before human agriculture, and these survival traits will very quickly express themselves in the offspring (seeds).

You should do at least a bit of research before you basically accuse someone of being a liar and corporate shill for no more reason than it fits your generic worldview.

F1 and F2 are commonly accepted terms for first generation and second generation seeds from hybrid plants. Because these hybrids are created from two stable lines, they are themselves unstable and will produce, at best, seeds of varying quality and at worst entirely sterile plants.

https://www.parkseed.com/blogs/park-seed-blog/understanding-...

https://www.reddit.com/r/botany/comments/wq3heg/question_why...

https://www.google.com/search?q=difference+between+first+and...

If you're going to pay more for a hybrid seed, it should be only for a first generation, otherwise you don't know what you're going to get. For some crops, like tomatos, that's survivable. For others like corn, that could easily be devastating. It's like playing russian roulette the slow and expensive way.

Note that OP didn't say the seed banks themselves should be illegal, but when you can't identify by visual inspection, it's very high risk for fraud if they're selling what they claim are premium products but are really F2 seeds.

What is a reasonable price? Hybrid seeds at 3x the price of traditional seeds could well be a great value because at the end of the year you get that much better of a crop.

Of course you have to pay for the seeds up front and get the reward at the end of the year. Investments are like that, a lot of poor farmers could spend 4x their current annual income on modern technology (seeds, fertilizer, tractors) and at the end of the year have more money left over than they had the previous year - but of course they need to get to harvest to get all the money. Worse there will be bad years where they lose money - it works out on average over 20 years but the individual years can be a killer if you start in the wrong year.

Also, are they not capable of buying seeds from reputable sources in Kenya? I assume there is some sort of farmer seed-shop in most places which has been around for more than a year, known to be reputable. If they buy below-market priced seeds then those are going to be dodgy. That is why they are below market price. These people are poor not stupid. It'd be like my buying a cheap Rolex from a street vendor - I might buy it, I might not but I'm not going to be confused if it turns out to be a fake. It isn't hard to find a reputable seller of something and if you go to the unreputable sellers the reason it is cheap is because it might be bad quality. Don't go to a community seed store that lets in random seeds if the quality matters.

I assumed that there was unwritten context where some seed vendor with genetically enhanced seeds was corrupting the legal process to try and protect their IP.

Ole Jeff Monsanto at it again. Testing chemical sprays next to Hawaiian elementary schools just doesn't hit the same anymore.

Please try reading the whole comment again, I think you are missing most of the comment?

That is a "city slicker" read on the American farmer. The actually farmers themselves learned long ago that savings seeds isn't worth doing even without the contract. The terms of the contract look bad from the outside, but to the farmer they are "I wouldn't do that anyway"

This is not clear. The article is talking about traditional seeds for which that could be true (I don't know what is traditional in Kenya). Other commenters are talking about Maize which is from America and thus not traditional in Africa and thus there are no traditional seeds in Kenya. Maize also benefits greatly from hybridization, but there are other plants that do not, if we are talking about Maize you are wrong new seeds are much better than traditional, but if we are talking about other seeds who knows.

The comments in this thread make it abundantly clear there's nothing new about the right. Seed sharing predates your "TIL" knowledge of it.

Perhaps because you have never had to think about the role agriculture plays in civilization.

Encourage you to look into this issue more.