Research and development for seed improvement has long been a public domain and government activity for the common good. However, private capital started to flow into seed production and took it over as a sector of the economy, creating an artificial split between the two aspects of the seed’s nature: its role as means of production and its role as product. This process gained pace after the invention of hybrid breeding of maize in the late 1920s. Today most maize seed cultivated are hybrids. The companies that sell them are able to keep the distinct parent lines from farmers, and the grain that they produce is not suited for seed saving and replanting. The combination guarantees that farmers will have to __________________________. In the 1990s the extension of patent laws as the only intellectual property rights tool into the area of seed varieties started to create a growing market for private seed companies. [3점]

* maize: 옥수수