They used to grow a crop to sell and a crop to seed with the next year. Once the big farm corps got rolling they were not allowed to use their own seed and the crops that are grown from the corp seed will not reseed. So they have to buy from the corporate seed companies and cannot use their own. Have you ever wondered why all crops are the exact same height with the exact same growth at the same time? It did not used to be that way.
Is that what you meant?
From Wikipedia
"In the United States, the farmer's privilege to save seeds to grow subsequent crops was considered protected by the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970. American farmers, it was thought, could sell seed up to the amount saved for replanting their own acreage.[5][6]
That view came to an end in the latter part of the 20th century and early part of the 21st century, with changes in technology and law. First, in 1981 Diamond v. Chakrabarty established that companies may obtain patents for life-forms—originally genetically engineered unicellular bacteria.[7] In 2002 J.E.M. Ag Supply v. Pioneer established that valid utility patents could be issued on sexually reproduced plants, such as seed crops (e.g., corn).[8][9] In 2013 Bowman v. Monsanto Co. established that it was patent infringement for farmers to save crop seeds (soybeans in that case) and grow subsequent crops from them, if the seeds or plants were patented. Seed corporations are able to earn massive profits from this control over commercial seed supplies, and consequently further loss of control has been taken from US farmers over their farm production process. [10]"
= new reply since forum marked as read
