Nordic Maize Breeding, co-owned by Grietje Raaphorst-Travaille, sells a variety of corn in the Netherlands that it spent 20 years breeding to be resistant to colder climates. The seed accounts for about a third of all organic corn sold in the country.
Last year, Raaphorst-Travaille, who runs the two-person operation with her husband, learned that KWS, the world’s sixth-largest seed breeding company, had obtained a patent on the same gene sequence after creating its own identical version using new genomic techniques.
Even had she wanted to, Raaphorst-Travaille could not have patented her brand of corn because she created it through conventional breeding, a process she says cost her and her husband at least half a million euros.
“It’s really a fucked-up situation,” she told POLITICO. “Everybody says patents won’t be allowed, which is nice to say, but they’re already here.”
Raaphorst-Travaille wasn’t convinced by assurances from the big seed companies that they would offer free or affordable licenses on their patents. “It’s not the same, because as a small breeder, you will never be free … You will always have to listen to these bigger companies.”
While Germany-based KWS has taken no steps to restrict her business, she said, discovering that someone else now claims ownership of her product has had a chilling effect. “If they decide to make the claim, we are screwed, we are gone.”