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Monsanto's Harvest of Fear
Cognitive Dissident writes "Intellectual property thuggery is not restricted to the IT and entertainment industries. The May 2008 edition of Vanity Fair carries a major feature article on the mafiaa-like tactics of Monsanto in its pursuit of total domination of various facets of agribusiness. First in GM seeds with its 'Roundup Ready' crops designed to sell more of its Roundup herbicide, and more recently in milk production with rBGH designed to squeeze more milk out of individual cows, Monsanto has been resorting to increasingly over-the-top tactics to prevent what it sees as infringement or misrepresentation of its biotechnology. As with other forms of IP tyranny, the point is not really to help the public but to consolidate corporate power. Quotes: 'Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.' and '"I don't know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base," says Joseph Mendelson, of the Center for Food Safety. "It's a very bizarre business strategy." But it's one that Monsanto manages to get away with, because increasingly it's the dominant vendor in town.' Sound familiar?"
Can we at least PRETEND to have a higher level of discourse here on slashdot rather than revert to juvenile tactics of calling people you don't like names?
I so rarely encourage violence, being an intellectual pacifist, but there are times when it is appropriate. As harsh as this may sound, I think somebody needs to physically grab a hold of each and every Monsanto executive and employee and firmly, not figuratively either, wedge their entire foot up these people's asses. If they were assassinated, I might actually smile.
How could I possibly make such "raving mad" statements?
Monsanto truly is among the most evil group of people this planet has ever seen. Truly. There is a lot that goes on this little twirling ball that gives me reason to lose hope and be fearful of the future, but not many more then this company and their actions.
These people are the REAL LIFE Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil. I don't say that to add hyperbole to my post either. They ARE. This company is messing around with the very code of life itself. We're talking genetics here. The field as a whole has promise, great promise for us all, when the individuals in it pursue the knowledge in a responsible way. NOTHING the Monsanto corporation does could be considered responsible from a scientific or social viewpoint.
Remember the Monarch Butterflies? This company pursued research out in the open, without any environmental safeguards, and killed a large portion of the Monarch Butterfly population in recent years.
This same company pursues it's genetic research not in a "pursuit-of-knowledge-at-all-cost","we are benefiting humanity", and a "nothing-could-go-wrong" approach. It is motivated purely by the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else.
For those not aware, Monsanto has been avidly continuing to research ways to ensure that crops will die and not reproduce. As I said before, these people mess with the very code of life, and are deliberately researching ways to END IT . To modify an organism to die and remove it's ability to reproduce is an incredibly serious action. One cannot understate this fact. To even discuss doing so requires an enormous responsibility and dedication towards the preservation of life, all life. There has to be an incredible purpose to doing this. An example might be getting rid of Dengue Fever, or the elimination of Malaria, etc. The discussions surrounding it need to involve the entire scientific community, as the ramifications of such an act, the ethical and moral implications, NEED to be discussed.
To do it for Profit? How is that not evil? How is that different from the medical experiments at Auschwitz or any of the other Nazi Concentration camps?
If these farmers don't like the new genetically modified seeds, they can keep planting the old garden variety ones. Research is not cheap, and any commercial company is in the business of making money.
Is copyrighting and DRMing (GRMing?) seeds ethical? Millions of dollars are needed to design the original transgenic, so unless farmers are willing to buy these once for the full price (say 1000 seeds for $20,000 each) it makes perfect business sense.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Change the game.
I recommend to check out the great short SF story "The calorie man" by Paolo Bacigalupi. It appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine and it is now available in his thought-provoking collection "Pump Six" (Nightshade Books). I believe it got the Sturgeon award.
Anyway, it's about a not so far off future when fossile fuels are depleted and genetically engineered plants are cultivated both for food and energy. And this close future is a true IP hell with gigantic bio-engineering companies always on the wake for unlicensed use of their grains.
Darth Cheney will pwn your country and make you buy.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You must be new here.
You mean like the RIAA/MPAA?
Although I do think modifying crops to prevent offspring is not a nice thing to do, I do think nothing forbids the
farmers from hiring me to "crack the copy protection" (male sterility [in plants] isn't that hard to circumvent these days). Now if they offer me a better job compared to the current situation in research (shouldn't be to hard), I am all in for it.
waiting for your offers,
a biotechnologist.
I suggest checking out the documentary "King Corn."
The problem is mostly farm policy, which--like Social Security--seems to be too complicated a problem for our legislators to do anything about.
I often wondered why it is that a milk manufacturer who doesn't use BST (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_somatotropin) in their product has to put a label that states something to the effect of "there's no scientific difference between cows treated with BST and those who aren't").
The fact that a company can force a manufacturer to put a disclaimer on their product for NOT using the drug is really scary.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
A quick report on Center for Food Safety: http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/11 I have little doubt that Monsanto may be up to some business practices that are less than ethical, but groups that like to fear monger about GM crops annoy me.
Irongeek's Hacking Videos / Security Videos and Articles
'Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.'
Microsoft's approach has been far from zealous. If anything it is deliberately lax. The whole "One of your employees has installed unlicensed Microsoft software. Sign a long term contract with yearly fees and we'll forgive you." thing needs people who are used to pirating Windows to keep going.
The RIAA/MPAA and the way they're suing everybody would be a better analog for "hard-line approach [toward pirates]".
Even then it is a very poor and hardly meaningful comparison.
has the same "problem". but you will note that patents on new drugs run out quickly. that is, in a few years, not in a few lifetimes. this is because people needs these drugs to live. likewise, poor countries thumb their noses at things like patents on AIDS drugs, and the world community pretty much supports them
why?
see, in the field of morals and ethics, there is actually something more important than *gasp* profit. so your high holy moral indignation doesn't ring true, that anyone would not consider monsanto's search for profits a god-given right... how dare they!
its not like music. you can live without music. but you can't live without life saving drugs... and you can't live without food
so i agree with you that monsanto deserves some reward for its efforts. but don't you think there is a difference between a modest protection of a few years, versus a greedy ip grab supported by legions of lawyers that extends far beyond a logical concept of financial gain?
however, what is the motivation then to say make rice with vitamin a, or wheat that grows in the desert?
balance: you harness greed in order to serve mankind. you create ip to create incentive to reward companies. but that shit gets out of hand. it metastisizes, corporate greed takes on a life of its own, and then it deserves a smackdown, to remind it that it serves us, we don't serve it
progress in the fields of technology exists to serve mankind. human society created the legal framework so that corporations serve us through progress. but if corporations begin to think that the pursuit of the almighty buck eclipses all else, such as with the idiocy ip law has become, it deserves to be broken. and don't worry about it: legions of lawyers have proven to be ineffective against music hungry teenagers. how effective do you think they will be against literally hungry people?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
morals and ethics is so complicated. all this whining. as if their concerns are valid. pffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
See The World according to Monsanto, an excellent French documentary (in English) for another in-depth look.
Texas has the "Castle Law" stating that a person can defend their home, vehicle, or workplace with deadly force if they feel threatened. I wonder if Texas farmers can shoot lawyers on sight based on this law? ...seriously officer he came right at me with a briefcase...
I Don't Work Here
Maybe I am behind the times... but could someone please explain to me what harm comes to PEOPLE from treating cows with growth hormone? It's not like a pesticide - it doesn't get concentrated up in the food chain. Hormones are species-specific, and their effects are strictly physiological. At least that's the information that I have.
So if anyone could explain to me what the problem is, I would highly appreciate it.
However, what bothers me most about Monsanto, is that they are killing the concept of genetically engineered crops (which is sure to become a necessity as the Earth's population grows), by doing exactly the kind of genetic engineering that is risky, dangerous, and epitomizes the idea of taking the easy way out.
As with other forms of IP tyranny, the point is not really to help the public but to consolidate corporate power.
Ummm, no. It's all about the money. Monsanto has put a lot of money into R&D to make new innovative products which help farmers produce more food at less cost to the farmer. Not surprisingly, farmers are very interested in these products, and Monsanto wants a return on their R&D investment.
No one forces farmers to use Monsanto's products - they can continue to farm the exact same way they have always been farming.
Further, unlike the shrink-wrap click-I-agree eula, Monsanto makes farmers sign a real contract on paper, so the farmers fully know what they are getting in to.
This has been reported in several newspapers over the last few years.
An important financial aspect that is very much overlooked with this Monasanto thug, is the thousands of dollars Monsanto expects famrers to pay when say a neighbouring field contaminates the fields of another farmer. Monsanto demands the contaminated farmer pay for the removal of these GM plants, even though the farmer is not at fault for these invading plants into his own land.
How is this for an equivalent example?: What company forceably installs it's software onto your computer network and then demands you pay to remove it form all areas of that same network or they will sue you. They don't even tell you were all portions of the software is located in your network but if they inspect, without warrant, and find any remaining portions they will sue you.
tried to burn that which they didn't understand out of ignorance. but there is no cure for fear and hysteria, so frankenstein had to go to the arctic. compatibility wasnn't possible
lesson: biotech firms need to make gm crops that grow in antarctica
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There is a French Journalist Marie Monique ROBIN who wrote a book on Monsanto and its GMO Products. There was a TV documentary done by the same person. I watched it.
I must say that if I am rather favorable to controlled GMO use, the way monsanto designs their product and their method are frightening. Even if the documentary has a strong anti-GMO bias, the objection (on food safety law and on incomplete studies) are more than troubling.
This is much worse than Microsoft. It may be necessary to investagate deeply in Monsanto's practices and sanction the abuse in order to save the very GMO technology. These guys are defnitly bad.
An excellent resource documenting the myriad evils of Monsanto can be found here.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Throw in the old fashioned monopoly building of a megacorp, and you have viral licensing of life.
Step 1. Develop Roundup weed killer.
Step 2. Develop a seed that is resistant to roundup.
Step 3,4,5,6. Buy over 80% of seed companies so customers have almost no choice.
Step 7. Partner with large agri-businesses who buy up farms so they earn record profits while family farms can't stay profitable...
... I could keep going. Anyone who reads up on it, even if they're not at all into conspiracies, realizes this is wrong and leads to tight control of the world's food suply.
Is this the same Monsanto as in this Guardian report?
The wasteland: how years of secret chemical dumping left a toxic legacy
Monsanto helped to create one of the most contaminated sites in Britain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/12/uknews.pollution1
The problem with suing copyright violators is that copyrights last too long. Patents are issued for 3 years. They can be extended over and over for maybe 18 years. Usually they expire much sooner. They hardly prevent the innovation in research the way copyrights prevent innovation in arts. This is knee-jerk. And it's the first time in 10 years that I am considering switching my home page from Slashdot to something else. Maybe some site with news on it.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
> but could someone please explain to me what harm comes to PEOPLE from treating cows with growth
> hormone? It's not like a pesticide - it doesn't get concentrated up in the food chain. Hormones
> are species-specific, and their effects are strictly physiological.
Here in France we are just having a big trial about people who extracted growth hormone from human cadavers (if I understand correctly, this was the "normal" way to do this at that time), and injected them into children with growth problems : children grew, but several died from Creutzfeld-Jakob disease as the result...
If only we could let cows eat grass, chicken wheat, and communist babies !
(just joking)
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
The summary is asinine. There's no moral equivalency whatsoever between MS and Monsanto: the latter is literally controlling the food supply of countless nations and tinkering with the basic building blocks of plant life. Give the histrionic MS paranoia a rest ffs.
Your ignorance on this matter is so profound I simply don't have time to disabuse you of it. Please do just a little research before shooting off your mouth like this. I'd suggest:
http://www.psrast.org/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/03/14/gm-foods-part-one.aspx
http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/GEessays/gedanger.htm
as places to start. If you have any real interest in informing yourself about the situation, that is.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
1. company invests billions in developing a wheat strain that grows in the desert, or orange rice with vitamin a in it, etc.
2. poor people get a hold of the crop, and grow it to feed themselves, but don't repay the company
do you force them to pay, and they starve? or do let your investment fizzle? how do you pour money into a venture which has a moral hazard attached to it?
the answer is simple, and taken straight form medical research: you only invest in research which guarantees a return. what do i mean? you spent trillions on heart attack medication, because most people having heart attacks (and are willing to treat them) are overfed overpaid rich people. meanwhile, you completely ignore malaria, which kills millions every year, because the only people who die from that are poor
so monsanto will invest billions in wheat, because wheat is primarily grown in rich northern climes, and will completely ignore tropical foods, as those crops are grown in poor countries
sorry africa, so gm yams for you
compare the prevalence of various diseases according to socioeconomic status, and you will find a direct correlation to the amount of money that goes into medical research into those diseases
now compare the prevalance of various food crops according to the GDP of the countries they are grown in. you will also find a direct correlation to the amount of $ into the biotech research in those food crops
this is the world we live in. morals and money don't mix. for those of you involved in medical or biotech research, please notice where your progress actually falls in the grand scheme of things. you serve filthy lucre, not the progress of mankind. the poor, the ones who can benefit the most from medical and food crop research, are served last, and can only hope for trickle down progress after many generations
in such a way, we are allowed to look very poorly on ip lawyers. yes, progress is served by the ip they protect, but progress only for the rich who can afford to pay for those expensive fruits (literally) of progress. but frankly, shaming people will not reverse this truth about the world we live in. a sense of high and mighty moral superiority does not pay the bills
however, it does make you immortal in terms the fame one achieves if one could find a way to serve the poor instead of serving the rich. we remember martin luther king, and mahatma gandhi. we don't remember the peers of those great men in the 20th century who served filthy lucre instead. i didn't say the way was easy, or cheap. but whoever can find a way to make it work, and give us wheat that grows in the desert, or rice with vitamin a in it, for free, for the poor, without any ip strings attached, will earn the accolades of the ages, if not a fancy BMW in the driveway
in 100 years, your nice house in the suburbs and your fancy bmw will be rust and rotting floorboards, and you will be a bunch of ash or bones. all that will live on is your name. what will you do with your time, who will you serve?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
synopsis:
me: "there should be rational limitations on the ip legal framework"
you: "how dare you empty the cities and make us all live on farm collectives! communism is evil!!!eleventy"
whu?
kind of like:
me: "perhaps gays should be allowed to marry"
you: "why are you for bestial necrophilic pedophilia!"
como?!
its called hysteria, fear. you have it. please read what i actually said: ip law is not some ayn rand natural right. it was created by society, an artificial legal construct that allows ip holders to extract financial gain for their research or creativity. it makes sense for sicety to have LIMITS on this artificial construct it created
and then you blather on about slavery in response. what a spastic twit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Specifically, the contention of some broadcasters that they can control every use of the #$%#$6ing electromagnetic waves that are *shooting *into *your *house. You want to keep control of X and all its externalities? Keep it and all of its externalities off my property!
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Hello.
Leave a wolf among sheeps. Please do not be surprised, after a day no to see the wolf having a nice singing party with the sheeps. What's that story to do with our business here ? Well...
Leave ultra-liberalism drive business for a while. Please, do not be surprised after some time to see it maximising financial profit regardless of any other consideration. Please all, let's not condemn Mosanto for doing what the system precisely expect it to do.
I hope people will keep me free of the usual bullshit like : so what you want is comunisme?. I trust we could talk about issues without being immediately pushed into extremist positions.
The thing which causes me trouble a lot, is to have realised years ago, that no one actually need GM agriculture. It's now proven that on the long run plants adapts as well as fauna, which ruins pro-GM arguments. We already have enough productivity per surface. The issue with food worldwide, is not technical but instead political. The talks served by Mosanto n Co. are only valid within absolutlism : making more money.
Don't get me wrong, we are using controlled-closed environment GM technologies for years. That's fantastically beneficial, safe and needed. What is non needed, dangerous, non efficient and a mascaraed is agricultural GM applications.
Bye. Z.
i had misgivings the moment after i wrote those words. a world without culture isn't really worth living. however, i was simply trying to contrast the urgency between something that is biologically necessary and that which isn't. psychologically necessary, yes, but given the choice between a crate of bananas and a walkman for a 100 day stay on a desert island, the biggest culture vulture would pick the bananas too ;-P
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This issue was discussed in the documentary "The Corporation". A short synopsis is (as I recall): Monsanto resorted to deceptive testing and reporting practices to secure approval from the FDA. They engaged in heavy and deceptive advertising for the product. They made it difficult or impossible for 3rd party investigators to verify the accuracy of their testing. They denied the results of more recent studies linking both rBGH to cancers and the presence in the milk of cows treated with it. They bought complicity and editorial cooperation from Fox News Corp. They sue companies who advertise milk free of their chmeicals... and then my memory sort of runs out.
Anyway the film is worth watching and if I recall correctly they didn't mind people sharing it.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
i would be screaming about ip law too ;-P
you can't eat me, you will be violating my drm! do you know what a pain in the ass those ip lawyers are? you think an eternity of hunger is painful? think about that courtroom! and put away the fork!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Also recent trials have shown that GM seeds remain viable for up to ten years after the initial sowing... so even if you've stopped using their seed on your fields, the damned things can still germinate several years later and leave you liable, or your successor (if you've cashed up and sold on) liable to IP violation charges...
The point missed is what happens when the farmer uses clean seed from his heritage and his crop is cross polinated from the GM field next door? Now his seed crop is a half breed of GM stock. As the years go by, the cross contamination from the field next door continues until his crop isn't much diffrent than the field next door. This is done without stealing a single seed.
He still gets hit with the same lawsuit for theft of IP when the genetic crop is found in his field.
The truth shall set you free!
Develop a Round-Up resistant strain of weeds and release it under the GPL.
Sorry, I should've specified - I'd like a scientific explanation... one devoid of the word "corporation".
The idea of rBGH-treated cows, somehow causing cancer in people is preposterous from a biological point of view... which is why if you're going to claim it, I'd like to see primary peer-reviewed literature telling me so. But for Slashdot, I'd be fine if you could just provide me with a theory of what happens biochemically to have such an effect... you know... in reality... not in a hippie wet dream.
Providing better crops to a non-industrialized, poorly governed nation will not improve life there. They will just have more kids, feed more money into an already corrupt system, and end up right back where they started.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The real problem with the growth hormones is that the fast growth usually makes cows ill if they aren't given an antibiotic agent at the same time to combat the secondary effects of the growth hormone. Therre have been reports of pus-contaminated milk because of diseases related to the growth hormones. Also, the permanent use of antibiotics creates antibiotics-resistant bacteria on the cows, that are just waiting to get a chance to cross over to humans. Moreover, since these cows are often fed with GM crop that "naturally" produces pesticides which stay inside the plants when they are harvested, the milk and meat from the cows gets contaminated with pesticides.
Well, two major ones, at least:
First in GM seeds with its 'Roundup Ready' crops designed to sell more of its Roundup herbicide
"Roundup Ready" or glyphosphate-resistant crops actually weren't developed by GM techniques, but by regular selective breeding. And the point of RR is not that you use more pesticide, but actually that you use less - because you can treat the field at a stage when the plants are younger, and more susceptible to a smaller dosage, than you can when you have to wait for your crops to be hardy enough to withstand indirect exposure.
At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.'
No modern farmer "reuses" seeds, GM or no. Modern hybrids don't breed true, for one thing. And by planting part of the harvest, you miss out on protective seed-coat treatments, and terrestrial pests eat your crops before they've even sprouted.
For some reason Monsanto comes under fire from people who would rather distort the facts, or argue from a position of hostile ignorance, than debate the case on its merits. Monsanto does plenty of things I think are wrong, particularly their legal department, but figuring out ways for farmers to get larger yields with less pesticide use, less land use, and less water use certainly isn't one of them. For christ's sake, when did feeding people become something "evil"? What, you thought we could feed a world of 6 billion people organically? Forgetting for a moment the fact that organic crops are less safe, there's simply not enough arable land and water for that to be realistic.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
The main problem is that there are groups of people who are against any type of GM modified food, the fears range from stories out of Outer Limits to fears that they will increase poverty(you cannot produce the better product no-one wants yours) to loss of diverisity.
As for milk and rBGH it is not the BST that is the main concern but IGF-1, insulin growth factor-1. This is naturally occuring in the human and cow body. High levels of IGF1 has been linked to increased chances of certain types of cancer and mabye the increased chance of giving births to twins. Science has not shown in dietary intake of IGF-1 will increase this amount.
Injecting cows with rBGH may increases the amount of IGF-1 found in milk, some studies have shown an increase but all of the studies have shown that it amount falls within the normal amounts. There is no scientific test that can tell you if the milk you are drinking comes from rBBGH injected cows or not. FYI you would have to drink around 95 quarts of milk, any kind, to equal the amount IGF-1 the average human body produces in day.
Now the reason most countries have banned rBGH has not been IGF-1 but because of a udder infection called mastitis. While this is likly to effect all types of cows it can be more common in rBGH cows because they are milked more often. mastitis prevention is mainly done, in the US, by testing at the farms, testing at the plants and pasturization.
For the US that can work since we generally want to consider all milk and dairy products, (cheese, yogurt,etc) to be dead. We freeze and cool them if there is any type of life(mold) we will toss them. In other parts of the world that is not the case and mastitis can be a problem. FYI test to check for the presence of mastitis are cheap and can be purchased at various lifestock stores on even on the internet.
However with that all said, cows milk is probably one of the worst things you can drink as an adult, it is full of sugar and other things needed by children not adults. As an adult you are better off switching to goat milk or using cow milk just for the cream, cheeses or yogurts.
While I am pretty sure that they really are doing these things to farmers I find it disturbing that the quotes and statistics are from the CFS which has a known biased source that wants to prevent all GM products.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Some reporters at fox news found strong evidence that the Monsanto BGH hormone to make cow's produce more milk was pushed through too quickly. They tried to report on it, Monsanto threatened to sue. Fox pulled the report before the air and set about having their reporters change the story. Finally the reporters were told to lie outright, they refused. Hilarity followed with the courts ruling that corporate media has no legal obligation to tell the truth.
There has been ongoing lawsuit coverage and other related issues.
Monsanto reminds me of the Ag firm in the Clooney movie Michael Clayton .
Interesting you object to film "The Corporation". I work for one of the companies mentioned in the film and have for nearly 20 years. I found their treatment of information I had personal knowledge of to be completely accurate.
I think you'll find links to the actual peer reviewed paper hard to come by. However, there are a variety of sites (readily discoverable thanks to google) which adequately describe the biological processes (which in my opinion are not preposterous but I am not a biologist, I am a chemist) and the risks possed. However from your use of "hippie's wet dream" I conclude youâ(TM)ve already made up your mind... so Iâ(TM)ll leave it you find the links for yourself and decide whether or not to believe them.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I'm no specialist, but one of the problems is that the functioning of growth hormones does not stop in the animal ... also the consumers of the meat will be exposed to the growth hormone with all of its medical implications.
... there is no reason to give animals growth hormone but to increase the profits of the farmers. There is no medical benefit. We don't go around giving our kids growth hormones, do we?
Another problem is ethical
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
'ts called hysteria, fear.'
no, it's called "learning from experience".
so when you blather on about slavery in response for my call to put limits on ip law, this is speaking from experience?
huh?
so my call for limits on ip law is what, exactly in your mind? the first step on an unstoppable slippery slope to pol pot?
LOL
dude: its not learning from experience your thoughts come from on this issue. it comes from hysteria, fear, and panic. really
you're quite the hysterical twit. you really are
so, in your mind: ip law and its continued extension by corporate lawyers is completely natural and valid, it does not need to be reigned in. and for me to even suggest such an idea is tantamount to communist ideology. this is your position?
you're just trolling me, right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There is an interesting book, called "The World Without Us", detailing a hypotheticacl scenario of what would happen if all humans would magically disappear from Earth in the next minute. Maybe not the main topic of the book, but a large part of it deals with the effects of invading species. Asian trees on the east coast, extinction events fueled by changed conditions and species composition. It is truly frightening that most of this was caused mainly accidentally and the naturally occuring species simply being placed at another location wrecked such a huge havoc. We absolutely do not want to see the same process on steroids due to a plant artificially made more aggressive (in the way it spreads, survives, resists).
Also, population problems won't be solved by any kind of increase in food production. Even a 0.002% increase in population size very quickly turns into a physical impossibility to sustain, if continued long term. We either control the human population, or the increase is prevented by starvation and death. I'll illustrate the case by quoting Richard Dawkins: Now, to answer your original question, first we have to postulate that whatever Monsanto says about the issue needs fact checking, as evidenced by Samuel Epstein's affair with Monsanto.
As far as I know the amount of IGF-1 content is significantly increased (+ 40-70%) in Posilac treated cows compared to untreated ones. (source)
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I work for a company in an agriculture related industry.
My company's product helps to reduce environmental impact. Our customers include multinationals who grow such crops as rice, cotton, oilseed, potatoes and dairy feed.
While ethically dubious about the production of some of these crops in unsustainable areas, I've previously rationalized it to be okay, as I believe that I am in some way minimizing harm.
This article comes at the time that my company has been approached by Monsanto.
I am considering my options (note that I'd already read a lot more about Monsanto's practices than this one piece).
Do I stand on principle, and leave the company, making no difference whatsoever?
Or do I continue to attempt harm minimization, and in some way help a probably evil corporation?
What would you do?
(Heh. Captcha: rectify. Is that my answer, Slashdot?)
... if they're not paying.
Just saying.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
they are human beings, just like you and me. not some weird abstract one dimensional construct on par with fungus that just keeps growing and growing
if your view of the third world is that hopeless, then you are a misanthrope. or a racist. or both. you do not go below the rio grande or the straights of bosporus and then suddenly logic and reason cease to exist. population control is not a very difficult concept to grasp, really
but from your point of view, apparently you are all too happy for the current state of suffering to continue unstopped. for cruelty to control population instead of planning
which makes you part of the problem, asshole. you have no human conscience
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There is currently a bill in the Missouri (USA) house, obviously written by Monsanto lobbyists, and brought to the floor by their bought-off legislators. The bill specifically prohibits organic milk producers from being able to label their product as BGH-Free, but fails to force any BGH-based milk from labeling their products as being produced with this substance.
Sorry, but that's evil. As a consumer, regardless of whether I like BGH or hate it, I have a right to know. There are enough people concerned about the possible effects of BGH that they want to steer clear. But if Monsanto gets their way with this bill, how will a Missouri consumer be able to know?
This is just one example of Monsanto's evil-ness. There are similar bills in other states in the US that are written by Monsanto lobbyists as well. It needs to be stopped. Yes, I've written my house representatives and told them I am against the bill.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
In India there was a massive movement away from subsistence farming to cash crop farming, mostly rice. When the rice market collapsed there were suicides as a result.
Maybe I am behind the times... but could someone please explain to me what harm comes to PEOPLE from treating cows with growth hormone? It's not like a pesticide - it doesn't get concentrated up in the food chain. Hormones are species-specific, and their effects are strictly physiological. At least that's the information that I have.
So if anyone could explain to me what the problem is, I would highly appreciate it.
Changing how an organism grows can change quite a lot of things about it.
Vegetables GMed to grow quickly and grown in a greenhouse tend to taste less, have fewer vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. Farmed fish has less of the healthy Omega 3 fats. I'm not sure about beef, but it might be a similar principle there. More fat, worse kinds of fats. Also as other posters pointed out, they are usually crammed full with lots of other things like antibiotics because their size and growth rate is so unnatural it affects their immune system.
large landowners and their abuses breed things like the npa in the philippines (aka "the nice people's army"). nominally communist/ socialist, the npa in turn loses it's ideological rigor and becomes just a vehicle for kidnapping and extortion to continue the brave existence of camping and robbing people in the jungle. meanwhile, every election cycle in the philippines, it seems the 200 peso note grows scarce. it is joked that this is so because they are all being used to bribe the votes for the local politician, entrenched in the local power structure that supports the local landed gentry. endless cycle
this is the state of humanity, unfortunately, but these cynical, borderline misanthropic observations are thoughts that lead us to inaction, to believe human progress is impossible. no, progress is possible, or we'd all still be living under feudal kings
so i reject the hopeless implicaitons of your thoughts, as should you. change for the better is real, it has happened, is happening, and will happen. never forget that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So it really isn't giving Monsanto a monopoly on the chemical business with their round-up ready seed. There are many generic Glyphosate herbicides on the market now. Though I have to agree though, Monsanto does rather alarm me, as well as farmers that I do business with, and my dad.
I hardly believe that Monsanto is behind The Matrix.
it's an easy call. in monsanto's world, they stole the food.
so they starve, that is if they are not hacked to pieces or gang-raped and murdered first,
you did use africa as your example
Yes, the people that designed the crops should only get a one time payment. That is all that it is reasonable for any party to profit off the sale of crop seeds.
Society determines what is reasonable for a party to profit off, and what is not reasonable. For example, society determined it should be illegal for people to "negotiate" additional profit into the price of ice when the power goes out for an extended period of time.
Farmers have always paid once for crop seed. That's the way the transaction worked since the beginning of time. Monsanto and other agribusiness giants are trying to change the terms of the business. Well... sorry. We're happy with the terms of business exactly as it was for thousands of years. If Monsanto isn't happy with the way the business of selling seeds was done for thousands of years, Monsanto needs to find another business. We're more than capable of funding U. S. Government research on crops at Universities, etc that has no patent issues that will be available to all.
By this I am talking about those farming less than 2,000 acres. The number one rule for small farmers is not to get in bed with these fucks
I heard a lot about the things Monsanto was doing, and growing up on a small farm(well under 2k acres) I was pretty upset. The next time I was back home to talk with my dad I asked him what he thought of the nasty things they did. He usually doesn't hesitate to criticize big entities that are hurting farmers like himself, so I expected an ear full. Much to my surprise the earful I got was about all the people protesting against companies like Monsanto on the grounds of them hurting small farmers. He reminded me that if farmers couldn't make more money with Monsanto's seeds they wouldn't use them. My mind immediately started forming all the usual rebuttals like massive input costs and price control and stopped when I remembered that guys farming small farms are just as smart as me. It reminded me the reason I brought the whole thing up with my dad was to get a more informed opinion. Intelligent farmers, with excellent business skills and a more complete understanding of the economics of farming make decisions that are good for their bottom line. For better or worse, Monsanto's round-up ready varieties are a very profitable product for farmers, large and small alike. There are other reasons to criticize Monsanto, but crushing small farms isn't one of them.
The Future Of Food covers the Monsanto thing in good detail. Summary: a large company buys up all the seed, genetically modifyies some strains to be Roundup-ready, then sues into submission anyone who ends up with a cross-pollination with Roundup-ready strains, while creating a strain that is _inferior_, requiring increased fertilization and dependence on said company. File under 'Stuff that matters'.
I come here for the love
Yes, let's all blame Monsanto for the farmer suicides. After all, it couldn't be a huge, institutionalized problem created by years of government mismanagement? Nope: it's the big bad guy from the West! Wait, well, let's look it over, shall we?
The Indian government, during the "green revolution", convinced huge numbers of ordinary joes to take up farming. The government subsidized their crops, and held a monopoly over them. They then instituted rationing programs across the country. Huge, rousing success. Famines were nearly eliminated. Problem was, it created a huge number of new farmers who used to be auto mechanics, dhobi-wallahs, shopkeepers...etc These guys had never farmed in their lives, and had no experience. Their efficiency rates didn't matter back in the days of the Green Revolution, they just needed to produce anything. Fast forward to now, however, and the problem this created is apparent. The Indian government has opened the market up to international trade, and these farmers can't be competitive. They're competing with Thai and Indonesian farmers who are two to three decades ahead of them in terms of technology, and whose families have been farming for ten generations. So, big problems. What does the Indian government propose? GM seeds! They dole them out by the tonne without explaining that they can't be reseeded (it's not illegal, it's just impossible: the crops can't be replanted). The farmers plant them, get huge yields, go apeshit, take out huge loans, and then go bankrupt when they realize that the have to buy seeds for the next year.
"But ringmaster_j," you say, "isn't that proving that Monsanto is responsible?!?!" No. The crops themselves are not to blame. They have the potential to bring prosperity to the farmers of the Green Revolution, and make India competitive. No, what needs to be seen is the horrible way in which the farmers have been treated by their government. This is a very typical Indian government move: dump tonnes of grain from on high, get elected, move on to the next town. No planning, no advice on how to use the grain, no caveats; just "Apne GM grain he! Vote BJP/Congress/AIADMK/DMK/CPI(M)! Namaskar!" It's horrible. Then, when farmers start killing themselves, they blame it on "evil grain", and burn effigies.
Yours,
-A Canadian Living in India
Let's assume you replant from your own harvest.
Farms use seeds in rather large quantities. For a solid estimate I'd have to ask my brother-in-law, but a metric ton per farm seems a halfway realistic guess. The seed corns are pretty small, under one gram each. So you end up with more than a million seed corns, some of them Monsanto(r) plants because of that field your neighbor planted.
How do you propose to sort them out?
If there was an easy way to do it, farmers would just sieve out the Monsanto(r) seeds and use the "pure" corn for replanting.
Now if you're talking about Monsanto replacing the entire corn for replanting, that would get really expensive. Similar to that what they otherwise get paid. Would kill their business model.
C - the footgun of programming languages
I strongly recommend this french documentary film, "Le monde selon Monsanto" ("The world viewed by Monsanto")
It will be broadcasted again for french and german peolple on ARTE program DVB-T (see http://www.arte.tv/monsanto)
This document is also available on DVD, with english translation (here: http://www.infogm.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=47, sorry, all french websites).
Growing more is not what we need, and whilst the grandparent post contained a number of factual errors, I would have to agree with the sentiment. Many of us on
If you don't think that's evil I suggest you seek some therapy. The problem is, the parts of your post that aren't just your opinion simply aren't true. The business about monarch butterflies is a myth, an urban legend.
It doesn't even make ecological sense. Butterflies weren't exposed to the bT toxin in corn pollen because they don't eat corn pollen, it's well-known that milkweed is the food source for monarchs.
There's not a single serious entomologist - crop or otherwise - who puts any credence in the "Monsanto is killing teh butterflies!" nonsense. It's been universally discredited.
For those not aware, Monsanto has been avidly continuing to research ways to ensure that crops will die and not reproduce.
Right - as a safety protocol. I mean, it's amazing - the very same post where you complain about the possibilities and dangers of GM genes entering the wild, and Monsanto comes up with a way to allay that concern - and to you, that's just more evidence that they're "evil."
This company is messing around with the very code of life itself.
And so were the meso-American farmers who originally created corn, 7500 years ago. You don't seem to bat an eye when pre-industrial peoples are doing it for profit - or maybe you're just, as is indicated, completely ignorant about the history of crop husbandry and genetics - but the minute modern people are doing it for profit, suddenly that's "evil."
You're a reactionary, ignorant luddite.
An example might be getting rid of Dengue Fever, or the elimination of Malaria, etc.
How about feeding people? Starvation is the root cause of the top five causes of death, worldwide. It kills far, far more people than those two diseases. Combined.
We're talking genetics here.
Well, I am. God only knows what the fuck you're on about, but it certainly has no basis in scientific, genetic reality.
1. doesn't work to increase growth, not "doesn't work to do anything at all".
3. that's controversial in of itself.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
How is it preposterous from a biological point of view that a growth hormone accelerating the lifecycle of a mammalian farm animal, in use for under 20 years so long-term effects are uncharacterized, can have a direct or indirect effect on the concentration of carcinogens in those animals and their milk?
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Yawn. Citation needed.
Ohhh the temptation to let you fall is so great... http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/general/milk.htm
We do when they don't grow well. That's a therapeutic treatment for situations where the child is seriously sick in the first place. And you're suggesting that it's OK to use that in all circumstances? Do you also want healthy people to undergo chemotherapy?
You've been given citations of ample reason to be wary of the newly introduced use of any hormones. Yet you have ignored those replies and concentrated on attacking the less scientific ones. Do you have a vested interest in the use of rBST?
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Bunk!
There North American - European trade war has guaranteed surplus stocks of grain now for decades, it's not a question of whether or not we can produce enough food, it's a simple matter of are we willing to wear the loss of giving the surplus away to those who are starving thus depressing the overall market price, or are we willing to let people starve so that we can enjoy a wealthier lifestyle, it seems that we have chosen the latter option.
you know it would help if you responded to what i actually wrote, rather than respond to the weird demons in their head
what i am saying has absolutely nothing to do with abolishing it, nor did it ever. read, interpret, then respond. don't: read, creatively extrapolate off of deeply rooted fears, then respond. k thx
oh, ps: you're a hysterical twit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
rule of law is not something that exists in and of itself. if it doesn't have an organic affinity with whomever or whatever it is being imposed upon, if its rationale for existing can't be logically defended, enforcement of it is bound to fail, no matter how much you redouble your efforts. the concept that ip law is overstepping its bounds and serving runaway corporate greed rather than the common good is readily appreciated, evne by you and your fellow nazis, i dunno. therefore, you can recognize that rethinking an approach, an alteration of the law rather than cracking down with something fundamentally flawed, is a better course of action
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The fact that a company can force a manufacturer to put a disclaimer on their product for NOT using the drug is really scary. Very recently an attempt was made in Pennsylvania to BAN ORGANIC MILK. Really, no lie, Monsanto tried to make it illegal to sell milk that was NOT from cows treated with hormones. When that fell flat, they tried to outlaw labeling milk to state that it did NOT contain rBST. Thanks to some fancy footwork in the state legislature the bill was tabled until farmers managed to get in touch with (PA Governor) Ed Rendell. Rendell's always done poorly with the voters in the country - his stronghold is Philly - so he leapt at the chance to curry favor with farmers.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/13889101.html
And it it weren't for that political chicanery, Monsanto's political chicanery would have succeeded!
Of course, my kids drink organic milk, so they are the oddballs in school. They weren't obese and fully sexually developed at age nine like their peers.
what a bunch of protectionist assholes. european opposition to gm has nothing to do with ethics, not business ethics, not biological ethics, none of that. it has to do with the peculiar european phenomenon of protecting their farmers from the slightest global hiccup. sure other countries are protectionist, but europeans take it to a fetishistic level
europeans pretend to care about starving africans. if europeans would stop protecting their pampered farmers, and allowed african produce to enter their markets unfettered, african economies would bloom, and europeans would pay less for their food
but then assholes farmers will firebomb a mcdonalds in france. the gm issue in europe is pure propaganda. the fearful propaganda about frankenfood is exactly that: low iq propaganda
europe is morally bankrupt on the issue of gm food. when europeans open their agricultural markets, and stiff their pampered farmers, then they can lecture us about gm food. until then, fuck european farmers and fuck europe on the issue of gm food. holding back economic progress in the third world. let european farmers die off please. romantic notions about farmers in europe and the food they make is a fucking propaganda joke
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Infants and young children are most sensitive to bad milk. If we can't drink bad milk, then I guess goat milk will have to do, maybe satan will leave goat milk alone.
The dangers are real, not fictitious, do the research folks.
Something I can tell none of you know...
You cannot, in north america, commercially buy a hen that will lay a clutch of eggs, then sit on them until they hatch, then raise them.
They have been bred out of existance, in favour of egg hens, and meat hens....
I could go on about vegetables but that would clearly be beneath your concern.
These things are the very basic elements of the means of production for common folks.
A 1930's experience without laying hens will be something to see.
So what has this to do with Monsanto you are sure to ask. All I can say to that is would you trust monsanto as a neighbor in really tough times?
True evil is not individual actions; it is a social virus infecting groups of humans making good people 'sick'. The accumulation of large numbers of 'sick' individuals collectively result in the EVIL of the worse kind. Naturally, mentally ill people can fit into the picture and be directly involved in the more direct actions - these people end up taking the blame while the community that they acted for never takes responsibility.
Resident Evil is quite relevant with the issues and accidental metaphors. Think of how the Nazi program functioned. There were only a few Nazi sickos and they were simply manifestations of the populace - infected by the propaganda.
Farmers who get pulled in are infected and are PART of the EVIL. Think about it. True 'EVIL' is a mob behavior pattern.
There is enough food; we all should know that by now. Its a distribution and cost issue why we have so many starving people.
Selective Breeding under the control of humans is not natural; however, it is far closer to what nature does and it takes longer. We can mess up there but its not as horrible.
Genetics is NEW and vastly more complex a field than many areas of science. It is not a toy to be played with and we don't know jack. We can't even get 90% using an OS that works predictably and that is on a fully controlled rigid digital system! The real world is chaotic, analog, and not designed by us from the ground up; its vastly more complex and yet we still act like newbs!
irresponsible.
IGF-I had been associated with the growth of numerous tumors, including colon (Tricoli et al., 1986), smooth muscle (Hoppener et al., 1988), breast (Rosen et al., 1991), and others (Pavelic et al., 1986). You're making a very common mistake. You're drawing conclusions based on inadequate information. This is what you're given: 1. IGF-1 overexpression has been associated with cancer 2. IGF-1 is identical for cows and humans 3. IGF-1 is increased in cows treated with growth hormone.The data you're NOT given are the most essential figures: 1. How much IGF-1 is transferred from consumed cow products into the human bloodstream 2. What is the absolute contribution of the xenobiotic IGF-1 to the total IGF-1 3. How is the latter value related to the amounts of IGF-1 found in cancer.
Without those 3 figures, you can't make ANY conclusions... especially given that a 70% increase in blood levels of IGF-1 in cows is unlikely to transfer efficiently through the digestive system of people into the bloodstream, and what makes it across is probably going to be irrelevant against the background levels of IGF-1 already present in the host bloodstream.
This is a very common mistake that people make, when they are not used to analyzing data on a daily basis. I think it took me the better part of a graduate degree to learn to see it, and I still miss it a lot more than my advisor.
News for Nerds? Lingere ads?br />
The issues pro and con behind Monsanto's business practices have been discussed heavily for years in agricultural journals and other relevant publications. Why are we reading a populist rendition of the facts from a magazine who's other features include photos of Madonna?
1) You are not a biologist.
2) multiple generations, not ONE generation. The roundup being essentially being more dominant.
3) the legal impact is BAD for everybody
4) the hard work to breed good plants was LOST by contamination; and since the GM ones did better he continued to go with them.
5) One has to question the testing methods and who does the testing involved. I could see a future where normal breeding produces strains similar enough to the GM one so that in typical testing it looks like an IP violation
As the son of a Roundup-Ready farm family, I thought I'd chime in on where the farmers come from: money. As far as chemicals go, Roundup is one of the nicer ones. Now you can spray any time without hurting your crop (corn, soybeans, many more here and on the way). Yields are much higher, supply increases, and anyone else who *doesn't* use Roundup-Ready loses the farm. Literally.
In my mind, that leaves farmers with two viable choices: either all GMO or all organic. People are willing to pay more for organic, so farmers can afford to plant a low-yield crop. But, as many posters have said, the GMO crops will cross-pollinate with the organic crops. Now what?
We need to pass a "kill switch" law that will force all GMO plants to have a gene added so that they can only pollinate with other GMO plants. If it pollinates with a non-GMO, no plant will grow. Now we can keep the pure, non-GMO strains alive. I'm sure that this can be done fairly easily -- more easily than creating these chemical-resistant strains, anyway. Monsanto's lobbyists won't let a full-scale GMO ban happen, so we at least need to keep consumer choice alive.
Monsanto can't be all bad, they have a Butterfly Garden next to the Muscatine, Iowa plant. And a prairie restoration project right next to that.
I havent actually SEEN any butterflys there, but then I admit that for some reason I don't tend to hang around the plant.
And I have never SEEN any buffalo roaming the restored prarie, But there is a buffalo farm East of Muscatine on highway 61, so that is almost the same thing.
> So the farmers should be getting all the profits from higher yields
As if farmers are making profits. There are huge agri-business entities that are doing well. There are also still a few little guys trying to survive. They don't really have much choice but to milk every last drop out of their land, unless they've been fortunate enough to find a niche market. And it's these little guys that Monsanto attacks.
> the people who designed the crops should be getting a one time payment?
Did Monsanto invent corn? It's been genetically modified incrementally for thousands of years. What Monsanto has done is engineered their crops to be less susceptible to RoundUp so that they can sell more RoundUp. And as a free added bonus, their "terminator technology" renders their crops sterile so the farmers have to buy their seeds all over again next season, instead of saving seeds from their crop as farmers have done through the previous millenia.
I'm ok with Monsanto making money off of RoundUp. I'm ok with them making money off their "RoundUp-ready" seeds. I'm really uneasy about this "terminator technology" and general unintended consequences. But this business of suing the little guys is just rubbing salt into their wounds.
As the population grows, climate changes, topsoil is washed away and toxified, groundwater is depleted, etc, this will become ever more serious. We will need to use GM higher-yield crops if we want to keep our population growing (as economists demand). There will simply be no way to move away from it. And of course here in the USA it is private corporations who will offer the service of basic survival. "Take away our rights as patent holders, and you will all starve."
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I'm not a farmer, but if I were one, and my field got some peripheral seeding from a neighbor's farm, I'd have two questions:
1) The seeds have already been paid for - by my neighbor. How is this patent infringement? Sounds like double-dipping to me.
2) I'd ask them, at their expense, to go through my fields, identify all the incorrect plants, and please destroy them. That should remedy the patent infringement, get rid of the GM seeds which I didn't want, and not require me to pay a cent. Why can't they do that (because, of course, they don't want to pay for the infringement to be remedied, they want you to pay them for crops you never planted)?
I have one other question: Is it possible for GM crops to cross-polinate/infect non-GM varieties? I'd be truly ticked off if I had planted all my own seeds which weren't from Monsanto, only to be told I had to pay Monsanto because their product ruined/infected my fields.
ALL "intellectual property" is based on government-granted monopolies. If Monsanto keep abusing their powers over what is essential to a country's food supply, Monsanto risk that a government revokes their patents on the GM seeds under national emergency laws (which the WIPO accept as far as I know).
So step gently, big corporation - you only get to play by government fiat.
Statement: '"I don't know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base,"
Answer: SCO
I just watched 'The Future of Food' this past weekend, and much of that movie focuses on the questionable to evil tactics employed by Monsanto. While watching I was struck by an idea, and perhaps someone from the /. brain-trust can help me.
I want to trademark evil - or at least a servicable definition thereof. That way, when someone like Monstanto is being evil I can sue them for copyright infringement.
I can see no holes at all with this plan.
I've actually listened to Percy Schmeiser speak
Perhaps something your not aware of, again, from the supreme court findings:
However, the appellants in this case actively cultivated canola containing the patented invention as part of their business operations. Mr. Schmeiser complained that the original plants came onto his land without his intervention. However, he did not at all explain why he sprayed Roundup to isolate the Roundup Ready plants he found on his land; why he then harvested the plants and segregated the seeds, saved them, and kept them for seed; why he next planted them; and why, through this husbandry, he ended up with 1030 acres of Roundup Ready Canola which would otherwise have cost him $15,000. In these circumstances, the presumption of use flowing from possession stands unrebutted.
He deliberately sprayed round up on his own crop while it was still growing and then saved what survived for seed. Farmers know round-up kills everything, so either he wanted to kill a few acres of his own crop or he wanted to take the fullest advantage of any blow over from his neighbor's land. I'm not inclined to believe he just wanted to destroy his own crop for kicks.
Unfortunately, Monsanto has deep enough pockets that a suit filed by the farmer against Monsanto claiming theft and damages from their asserting ownership over his crop after their GM plants promiscuously spread their pollen to his land wouldn't get anywhere. What would be particularly amusing would be to bring Monsanto up under RICO on the premise that their ongoing failure to prevent their GM plants from spreading pollen to other farmers' property, then claiming ownership of the resulting seed, constitutes an organized pattern of robbery against farmers. But given the political climate, that's unlikely to ever happen.
its the farmers version of MAFIAA
The US, Canada and, the EU have literally 100's of millions of tons of stockpiled grain
I learned today - from an expert plant breeder - that the United States has less than a 30-day supply of wheat, currently, and that Indonesia is rolling back rice exportation to ensure adequate local supply.
So, yeah. Is there a single thing in your post that actually turns out to be true?
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Trespass is exactly what is happening. But it is Monsanto that is guilty of trespass. Take the case of Percey Schmeiser, he planted non-GM seeds and Monsanto pollen trespassed onto his property. As a result he is unable to use his seeds anymore.
Monsanto pollen has clearly trespassed onto his property and taken his livelihood from him.
These detectives who go out to find unlicensed farmers are also trespassing (and stealing) when they enter someones land to take a sample to see if it is roundup ready.
The US has an advertised 30-day official surplus. EU countries claim similar things, and they are correct, in that the size of the surplus we actually keep to feed ourselves in an emergency is completely inadequate. If you read what I said above more carefully you will notice that I said that the bulk of the surplus harvest is destroyed... why would we do that I hear you ask? Because that's not what the surplus is for.
In any case even if we go with the argument that we need more yield, etc, etc, then there will still be a much larger second problem we need to address: where the fsck is the water going to come from? Many countries around the world are suffering through water shortages and it seems things are only going to get worse, any technology that can increase yields will also increase water usage.
Additionally, many of countries that do have problems with famine, especially in Africa, are suffering because of the inevitable failure of crops that goes hand-in-hand with civil war and other internecine strife, _not_ because the land in that country suddenly became incapable of growing anything. It doesn't take something as severe as civil war to cause crop failure; I spent a significant part of my childhood in wheat farming country and the effects of the previous round of technological "improvements" to farming practices to improve yield, throwing herbicides and pesticides around like they were water, extreme mono-culture and the loss of the technique of crop rotation has turned once beautifully productive land into salt filled desert.
I should also make the point that I am not intrinsically against GM foods, I just simply don't trust the likes of Monsanto to ensure that they don't release something into the wild that could potentially fsck the food chain in its entirety guarunteeing that we really wouldn't be able to feed the resultant starving billions.
ps. You just happened to be talking to an "expert" breeder today about this very topic, how very opportune. You're expert wouldn't contract to Monsanto by any chance?
captcha: autonomy
people are suddenly so interested in saving someone elses job. of course these people were probably the first to buy foreign cars american factory workers be damned.
In any case even if we go with the argument that we need more yield, etc, etc, then there will still be a much larger second problem we need to address: where the fsck is the water going to come from?
Nowhere. We're not going to get any additional water. In fact we're liable to have a lot less of it, and a lot less arable land, as time goes on.
So doesn't it make a lot more sense to concentrate on improving yields from the land and water we do have, rather than switching to land- and water-intensive, wasteful forms of farming like so-called "organic"?
I just simply don't trust the likes of Monsanto to ensure that they don't release something into the wild that could potentially fsck the food chain in its entirety guarunteeing that we really wouldn't be able to feed the resultant starving billions.
Monsanto isn't any more likely to release an agricultural super-plague than regular old evolution is. The so-called "terminator genes" are far more likely to keep proprietary germplasm out of the wild populations than introduce it.
That's the most hilarious thing. Monsanto is actually addressing your concerns about losing control of proprietary genetics, and that's precisely the one thing you choose to attack them for. Unbelievable.
I spent a significant part of my childhood in wheat farming country and the effects of the previous round of technological "improvements" to farming practices to improve yield, throwing herbicides and pesticides around like they were water, extreme mono-culture and the loss of the technique of crop rotation has turned once beautifully productive land into salt filled desert.
Yes, exactly. It's the 50's-era farming techniques that scare the shit out of me; the return to Silent Spring-type pesticide use that anti-GM hysteria will necessitate. GM modification of crops helps prevent the stuff you're talking about. Pesticides poisoning the water table. Monocultures leeching nutrients out of the land. GMO's are the solution to those problems - and you want to take us back to those days!
You're expert wouldn't contract to Monsanto by any chance?
No, he wouldn't, actually.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
I can't fathom that you believe that labeling an item correctly is wrong, and bad for the consumer.
I personally, don't like to consume animal products unless I'm sure the animals animals are raised in a natural 'humane' environment (free range chickens)
http://thnq.wordpress.com/
As long as corpoartions are "persons" in the eye of the law; people have argued that the law should be applied equally. Of course, sending a coporation to jail doesn't make sense, but the death penalty would be fairly straightforward: shut it down, auction off the tangible assets, free up its IP, revoke it's corporate charter. Of course, it'll never happen, but if there were a petition to sentance Monsanto to the corporate death penalty, if the petition had any authority, I'd sign.
Barring that, has anybody ever considered chartering a non-profit holding company, with the charter having the expressed purpose of buying enough outstanding shares of Monsanto to effect a change in its practices? Their market cap is $67 Billion, I just checked. Certainly not an easy mountain to climb, but merely acquiring a significant voting block of shares could be enough to make a difference, and there are plenty of wealthy people who don't agree with their current policies. Oh, and it pays a dividend. The non-profit could take all those dividends and donate them to defendants in the lawsuits. Delicious.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It most certainly is true that farmer have always paid once for crop seed.
According to Monsanto.com, Monsanto has only been around since 1901.
Now... how long has cultivated agriculture been around?
"...archaeobotanists/paleoethnobotanists have traced the selection and cultivation of specific food plant characteristics, such as a semi-tough rachis and larger seeds, to just after the Younger Dryas (about 9,500 BC) in the early Holocene in the Levant region of the Fertile Crescent. There is earlier evidence for use of wild cereals: anthropological and archaeological evidence from sites across Southwest Asia and North Africa indicate use of wild grain (e.g., from the ca. 20,000 BC site of Ohalo II in Israel, many Natufian sites in the Levant and from sites along the Nile in the 10th millennium BC). There is even evidence of planned cultivation and trait selection: grains of rye with domestic traits have been recovered from Epi-Palaeolithic (10,000+ BC) contexts at Abu Hureyra in Syria, but this appears to be a localised phenomenon resulting from cultivation of stands of wild rye, rather than a definitive step towards domestication. It isn't until after 9,500 BC that the eight so-called founder crops of agriculture appear: first emmer and einkorn wheat, then hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax. These eight crops occur more or less simultaneously on PPNB sites in the Levant, although the consensus is that wheat was the first to be sown and harvested on a significant scale...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture
Funny... not one bit of evidence anywhere Monsanto or any other agribusiness corporation was getting a single cent from farmers for 10-20,000 years of human history.
It most certainly is true that farmer have ALWAYS paid once for crop seed.
Also... Monsanto's claims on greater yields are not true.
"Monsanto claims that yield on its Bollgard Bt cotton will be up by 30 to 40 percent on conventional hybrids, and that pesticide use will be 70 percent down because Bollgard kills 90 percent of bollworms....Agricultural scientists Dr Abdul Qayum and Kiran Sakkhari conducted the first independent study on Bt cotton and released their report Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh: A three year assessment in 2005. The study involved a season-long investigation in 87 villages of the major cotton growing districts - Warangal, Nalgonda, Adilabad and Kurnool. It found against Bt cotton on all counts and was vital in getting the hybrids involved banned in AP:
* It failed miserably for small farmers in terms of yield; non-Bt cotton surpassed Bt by nearly 30 percent and at 10 percent less expense
* It did not significantly reduce pesticide use; over the three years, Bt farmers used Rs2 571 worth of pesticide on average while the non-Bt farmers used Rs2 766 worth of pesticide
* It did not bring profit to farmers; over the three years, the non-Bt farmer earned on average 60 percent more than the Bt farmer
* It did not reduce the cost of cultivation; on average, the Bt farmer had to pay 12 percent more than the non-Bt farmer
* It did not result in a healthier environment; researchers found a special kind of root rot spread by Bollgard cotton infecting the soil, so that other crops would not grow...."
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/IndianCottonFarmersBetrayed.php
Monsanto has enough money to keep enough lawyers on retainer to basically sue anybody over anything over and over again. If they lose, who cares. They judge shop enough, and they might hit one of Bush's far right extremist judicial appointment and win one.
The Amish-American farmers that I live next door to don't seem to be having any problems. (Probably because they choose to use "open source" corn seeds, rather than patented Microsoft....er, Monsanto seeds.)
If the Amish have the source code to (compiled) DNA, then hats off to them!
I believe God violates OSS by not including source code in every life form. He only distributes the executables which manage to modify their binaries at runtime. (I contend that DNA is more similar to machine instructions and/or settings [data, not instructions] rather than open-source).
I, for one, think we should go after the All Mighty Smiter...
Nuclear power was a fairly new technology. I remember lots of nuclear power advocates saying stuff just like your claims up there this article is a smear job, GM food is safe and organic isn't healthier.
Then Chernobyl happened.
Those nuclear power advocates suddenly vanished about a millisecond after the true nature of Chernobyl disaster really was.
GM crops are new science. Organic food is new as well. There hasn't been time for the science to get done determining whether GM crops are dangerous.
The fact that the jury is still out on the safety of GM crops does not mean GM crops are safe. The fact that the jury is still out on health benefits of organic food doesn't mean is isn't more healthy. It means the jury is still out and the answer isn't available yet.
"Organic" foods is by and large just a pseudo-scientific bunk phrase like "moisturizes your skin". That's not to say that I don't approve of some forms of agriculture over others. I'm seriously pondering getting my own chickens, for the fresh eggs and maybe even a few meat birds.
Do you have any scientific evidence to back up your claim? Here's some links to science articles on organic food:
At the same time, if we're going to feed a growing global population, we're not going to do it by "organic" means.
Some scientific studies on this conclude organic food can't feed the world while others say it can:
Maybe I missed it but I didn't see one key way to feed the world in any of the articles above, cutting out a lot of meat if not moving to a vegetarian diet. Raising animals to eat requires more land to grow the food to feed them than if people didn't eat meat.
Falcon
Oh, don't take what I wrote in that last paragraph to mean I'm vegetarian, I'm not. I love going to BBQs where we'll cook some frog legs, gator tail, and wild boar or hog.Should there be a Law?
Is it possible for GM crops to cross-polinate/infect non-GM varieties?
Yes cross pollination can happen, and does. Actually because it happens superweeds are being created.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Nowhere. We're not going to get any additional water. In fact we're liable to have a lot less of it, and a lot less arable land, as time goes on. The extra yield doesn't come for free, more energy is used, the sunlight is essentially free, but more water will also be used; that is the nature of the biological process, if you think monsanto is able to give you a free lunch then perhaps you should consult the laws of thermodynamics and the processes of cellular biology. So doesn't it make a lot more sense to concentrate on improving yields from the land and water we do have, rather than switching to land- and water-intensive, wasteful forms of farming like so-called "organic"? I agree with your premise but not your observations about organic farming, most organic farming techniques emphasise less water use. I just simply don't trust the likes of Monsanto to ensure that they don't release something into the wild that could potentially fsck the food chain in its entirety guarunteeing that we really wouldn't be able to feed the resultant starving billions.
Monsanto isn't any more likely to release an agricultural super-plague than regular old evolution is. The so-called "terminator genes" are far more likely to keep proprietary germplasm out of the wild populations than introduce it.
That's the most hilarious thing. Monsanto is actually addressing your concerns about losing control of proprietary genetics, and that's precisely the one thing you choose to attack them for. Unbelievable. This is what Monsanto claim, sure. But given their track record I simply don't believe them. I don't necessarily disagree with the science but a full balanced scientific review of the technology is not going to be forthcoming from Monsanto's management, and that is all I am really wanting...I am not intrinsically opposed to GM, I just don't trust large corporates, especially one of monsanto's calibre. I spent a significant part of my childhood in wheat farming country and the effects of the previous round of technological "improvements" to farming practices to improve yield, throwing herbicides and pesticides around like they were water, extreme mono-culture and the loss of the technique of crop rotation has turned once beautifully productive land into salt filled desert.
Yes, exactly. It's the 50's-era farming techniques that scare the shit out of me; the return to Silent Spring-type pesticide use that anti-GM hysteria will necessitate. GM modification of crops helps prevent the stuff you're talking about. Pesticides poisoning the water table. Monocultures leeching nutrients out of the land. GMO's are the solution to those problems - and you want to take us back to those days! I wasn't suggesting that we should return to those methods, it was obvious to anyone that read my post that I was not suggesting we should, in fact quite the opposite. And for you to claim that I was making such an argument is ingenuous at best.
It also ingenuous to claim that monsanto's techniques will reduce the use of chemicals, pestiside use aught to go down with GM crops but the kind of techniques that monsanto employ mean increased use of herbicides; that's part of the strategy herbicide resistant crops so you can be completely indiscriminant in your use of herbicides. As for reducing the use of monoculture techniques, GM will actually increase it as there will only be a small number of strains that will be "round-up ready". You're expert wouldn't contract to Monsanto by any chance?
No, he wouldn't, actually. Perhaps you are shilling for them then?
Monsanto's dominance stems from the destruction of its European competitors by so-called "activists". The EU was happy to back them and ban GM crops. They had provided a ready made excuse to maintain Europe's barriers to trade as the old barriers came down. You can re-use wheat 2 or 3 times, then it drifts too far from the parent crop and yield plummets. This is why organic farmers purchase named varieties from seed companies.
Wow, that's definitely a case of comparing apples to a rack of lamb dipped in trans fats.
GM crops have been evaluated extensively by the FDA and USDA. They've even been pulled from the market when they were shown to be other than safe. I don't remember the name of the corn but it was removed from the market because it turned out that the pesticide it was producing was also toxic to the butterflies that fed on it.
No one was claiming that Nuclear plants were without risk, just that the risks were manageable and being managed appropriately. My understanding of Chernobyl was that the plant wasn't being managed appropriately, The existence of Nuclear plants from the same era around the world that haven't melted down (France has a lot of them) shows that the first part can be true.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Actually, isn't that what some virus-writers do? The extortionist types infect computers and disable them, then the makers demand payment to remove the software.
And a large contingent of slashdot readers usually say this is partly the user's fault for not securing their system properly. So does this mean the farmers should be securing their fields against the wind?
The best analogy would be if virus code got patented, then they infect your machine via your neighbor's computer, and sue you for the patent violations. Trouble is the patent cycle is too slow for the vulnerability/exploit/patch cycle of the IT security industry.
The extra yield doesn't come for free, more energy is used, the sunlight is essentially free, but more water will also be used;
Evidence?
if you think monsanto is able to give you a free lunch then perhaps you should consult the laws of thermodynamics and the processes of cellular biology.
I'm aware that the processes of cellular biology aren't already maximally efficient; there's room for improvements.
I agree with your premise but not your observations about organic farming, most organic farming techniques emphasise less water use.
When you have to grow three tomatoes for every one you can take to market, that's a great deal of water waste, regardless of how much "less water" you're using per crop. The fact that organic produces so much less usable crop completely obviates the gains in water efficiency.
But given their track record I simply don't believe them.
Their track record of success in the field of plant breeding? Their track record of charitable contributions worldwide to the tune of 30 million dollars? Their track record of funding public research all over the country?
Compared to the track record of the anti-GMO hysterics - wrong on every substantive point - I actually think they come out looking ok. Not saintly, but then no corporation is. But they're not "pure evil." What nonsense!
I don't necessarily disagree with the science but a full balanced scientific review of the technology is not going to be forthcoming from Monsanto's management, and that is all I am really wanting...
Do you think that Monsanto is the only outfit in the nation doing work on GMO's? The scientific review is already out there. I've been telling you what they determined! If you want it, go out and get it!
And for you to claim that I was making such an argument is ingenuous at best.
It's the inevitable result of turning our back on GMO technologies. There's simply too many people to feed with inefficient, wasteful organic farming. Too many people to risk widespread e. coli poisoning. Too many people to expose to pesticides, either in the crop naturally, or on the surface of produce people didn't wash because they thought "oh, organic means no pesticides."
that's part of the strategy herbicide resistant crops so you can be completely indiscriminant in your use of herbicides.
Wrong again. The point is to use blanket coverage of pesticides once, when weeds are especially susceptible to them; instead of having to hit the weeds over and over again, because you had to wait for your crops to mature enough to be resistant to pesticide drift and other accidental exposure.
Varietals like glyphosphate-resistant crops result in the use of less pesticides overall. Even more so when we consider crops like Bt corn and soybeans, which can protect themselves from insect pests without the need for pesticide sprays.
Pesticides are expensive. They constitute a large portion of a farmer's budget. Reducing the required applications is a large part of how GMO crops make economic sense for farmers, and ecological sense for the rest of us.
Perhaps you are shilling for them then?
Maybe you own an organic farm? We could play this all day.
The truth of the matter is that I researched some of Monsanto's crops in the USDA, and even locked horns with them at one point, for doing resistance studies that they would have preferred to do in-house (in case the results were unflattering.) We did the studies anyway, of course.
I'm not shilling for anybody but the science, here. I don't get paid by Monsanto, but I know a lot of the people that are being slandered here - personally - and it's tiring to have them accused of being "pure evil", and worthy of being murdered, for the crime of wanting to feed people.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
One human mistake caused the Bhopal tragedy, too.
Human beings screw a lot of things up. The only guarantee that can be made in science is that human being will screw thing up.
Nuclear power was such an unsafe technology, one human screw-up caused what we now call a "Chernobyl-sized" disaster.
One human mistake in genetic engineering could do something like.... maybe make wheat store the element arsenic in it's seeds. That's a screw-up most of humanity would not survive.
Oh, and please don't you dare EVEN suggest one single scientific study done during the Dubya White House counts. Mr. Dubya "I think we'll doctor the NOAA studies to hide global warming" lost his science card. Every bit of science done during Dubya White House gets re-done from square one.
"The reason is to increase yield of meat or milk per animal. Yet it seems that you're bothered by even the possibility that the farmer may benefit..."
Bugger off. I come from a long line of diary farmers.
I have grown up with a love for animals, but also an understanding that farm animals have to be productive. That doesn't mean they are a milk machine, they are living animals which earn respect.
In my personal opinion, giving them growth hormones is uncalled for and blurs the line between a living being and some kind of meatmachine producing milk.
Growth hormones in livestock are banned here in Europe, and I believe with good reason.
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
1. no, the us does not protect its farmers anywhere near as zealously as the europeans. no one does
2. if the european consumers reject gm food, they are morons. OH NOES, IT HAS GENEZ! SAVE US!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it