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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?"
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?
Mmmmm, no.
Monsanto and others have been pursuing this type of policy for years. The farmers get caught because the yields really are better and can't compete as well if they don't buy the patented products. Although I think Monsanto ought to be able to profit from their research, the tactics they use are questionable at best. The trouble is that if congress ever does seriously consider patent reform, they'll do it in a half assed manner that compounds rather than solved the problems.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Darth Cheney will pwn your country and make you buy.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
they can keep planting the old garden variety ones
right until the modified crop contaminates their supply and they get sued for keeping the seeds.
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 think you entirely missed the point. The way that Monsanto attempts to protect it's intellectual property rights is egregious. You say that they can "keep planting the old garden variety ones". They actually are. The vast majority of these farmers never purchased, or obtained in any way, the genetically modified seeds.
They were brought to these farmers fields outside of their control.
It would be like having a huge server farm with various flavors of Linux and then walking in one day and having Microsoft "pop" up out of nowhere. Microsoft then charges up the road with the BSA and sues you for IP theft.
What makes it even harder for farmers is that there are no "logos" on the plants. Farmer Bob cannot walk through his fields and look down and say, "Awww Shit! Got Monsanto up and growing in the fields again. MA! Get the kids we got to pull them bastards up outa the ground before they get here".
How do you deal with intellectual property that has "legs"?
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.
note 4 years for Australian farmers, ten years for EU farmers...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
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
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
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
You're not misquoting. That's one of the main problems with the GM crop lawsuits. Farmer Bob decides that he's not going to use GM seeds and only plants non-GM seeds. His neighbor, Farmer Jim, though, plants GM seeds. One day a breeze blows a few seeds from Farmer Jim's property to Farmer Bob's property. These seeds take root and grow. The crops are similar, just GM versus non-GM, so there's no way for Farmer Bob to tell the difference.
Monsanto, knowing that Jim is using GM seeds but Bob isn't, sues Bob for infringing their rights. They check his field and find a few GM plants growing. He's then forced to pay Monsanto for the "right" to have those plants growing in his field. (Whether he wanted them or not is irrelevant to Monsanto.) And since the GM plants might pop back up in subsequent years or might blow over from Farmer Jim's field again, Farmer Bob's field is now contaminated and he must pay yearly fees to Monsanto or face legal action enough to make him lose his farm.
The lesson here is: Buy genetically modified seeds from Monsanto or you'll lose your farm.
Or put another way: Dat's a nice farm you've got dere. If you buy these seeds from us, we can ensure that you'll be "protected." Otherwise.... Well, it'd be a shame if something *happened* to dat farm of yours.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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.
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.
They also take a sort of "first one's free" approach to get people hooked. Through cheap rates or donated seed, they put whatever pressure or enticement or deceit they can to get people to the point where they no longer have stocks of unpatented seeds to grow. When that happens, you will see a gross change in policy because Monsanto will have patents on the food supply.
Aside from the ethics of patenting food, there are significant dangers to all of us. The spread of engineered crops removes the choice from the rest of us as we can no longer secure a "pure" alternative. Furthermore, Monsanto's aggresive pushing of its patented varieties brings about a homogenity of crops to a degree we've never seen before. Whilst the food supply is already more uniform than it used to be, the genetically identical crops being spread world wide by Monsanto go even further. Google for the Irish Potato Famine if you want a reminder of the dangers of putting all our eggs in one basket. Only in this scenario, it's world wide. And then there is the wider context to consider about what this technology actually offers us. For example, Monsanto's "Golden Rice" which is enriched with Vitamin A to help those who are deficient in it in the third world areas where they grow rice. The problem being that they are deficient only relatively recently since international agriculture business has forced them to only grow rice for commercial reasons. The Golden Rice looks like a good thing from a narrow perspective, consider the larger context and you realise it's comiong from the same root as what causes the problem in the first place. And all the issues about bio-diversity, establishment of monopoly, ethics of patenting food still stand.
Monsanto need to be stopped for all our sakes and I would love to do it.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The example you showed is NOT a case of crop contaimination.
If you read the decision, not the various sites put up supporting Mr Schmeiser, you find it came about because Mr. Schmeiser identified the round-up resisant plants, then isolated them so they would increase in strength and then saved those seeds. He was deliberatly breeding seeds he knew were contaminated.
In a fair situation Monsanto would be allowed to research things, but would be sued into oblivion if their crops would contaminate a farmer's crop and then terminate. Farmers should be able to sue Monsanto for destruction of their property, instead of the other way around.
If we allow corporations to own species or subspecies, then the incentive is in the direction of biological warfare between corporations. Artificial species are then corporately designed to spread more aggressively, treat other species with more hostility and be more resilient. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
The reason we have ethics that say it's not reasonable for anyone to own a whole species is because of the problems we encounter down the road, on the long term. If millions of dollars are needed to create a GM crop and there is no way to recoup investment other than owning a species, then that business model should FAIL. There are lots of business models that should fail, because society is not willing to pay the price of sustaining such business models. From the business' perspective, this might make sense, since they are not the ones that are directly bearing the cost of their business model, but from society's standpoint: no deal.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
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.
So fucking what?
Seriously, you have a field of crop X. Other farmers around you have a field of GM crop X from company Y.
You find that next year your crop has gained some of the properties/genes of the GM version through airborne cross pollination. You think this is a good thing and keep growing it.
Why should there be any consequences? Their modified genetic material has invaded your crop. You haven't stolen anything. Why should you be sued?
hell, the guy should be able to sell it on as his own roundup resistant strain in any sane world.
Regardless of whether or not Monsanto sue, there's still a problem as Farmer Bob can no longer legitimately sell his crop as non-GM. The choice of us, as the purchasers, is taken away from us. Reduction of options is bad.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
> 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 !
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
Bit of a bugger if you don't think it's a good thing though. For example if you're entire market is based on selling Organic Produce.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I didn't see anything in the post that would imply Monsanto should only get a one-time payment, or be unable to negotiate what price they can get for their product.
I saw it simply as noting that:
1) Monsanto uses highly questionable tactics that end up hurting its own innocent customers, and
2) Those who object to being treated in this way have little recourse, given their dependence on the Monsanto product.
In any case, I don't think the behemoth that is Monsanto is in any danger of being "owned" by farmers anytime soon. Quite clearly, the relationship is the other way around. Even farmers who try to avoid Monsanto products can end up with their fields being contaminated with seed from other farmers' nearby plots, and then Monsanto sends their lawyers after them. Hell, Monsanto even sends the lawyers after companies that advertise the fact that they DON'T use Monsanto products (e.g. the dairy in the article advertising its avoidance of hormone treated cows).
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
How about this for an actual trial?
From the BBC News (May 21, 2004):
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
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.
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.
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.
Oh absolutely, could ruin your whole market. I think the non-monsanto customer has far more grounds for suing them thatn the other way around.
That said, Monsanto even sends the lawyers after companies that advertise the fact that they DON'T use Monsanto products (e.g. the dairy in the article advertising its avoidance of hormone treated cows). this practice on Monsanto's part, I absolutely do not support. People have the right to make true statements about their products, even and especially if it's irrational to buy based on that. There's no evidence that Monsanto technologies are bad for you? Even if that were the case, so what? There's no scientific evidence that a rabbi's blessing will make your food healthier, or that a kosher diet will help you in the afterlife, yet we still permit products to be labeled as kosher.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
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.
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.
You really should read the Wikipedia article on this topic. The crop that got Schmeiser sued was 95%+ RoundUp resistant rapeseed. The only way that could have happened was an intentional informed effort to bypass Monsanto's patents. Accidental wind blown contamination does not give anything close to that result.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
How are farmers that reuse their seeds each year being compensated for their crops being "polluted" and unsellable by other farmers using "proprietary" seeds? How can farmers that want to practice "old fashioned" farming continue when their livelihood is changed by crops from other farmer's fields thru the normal course of nature and then the lawman comes and says they can't sell them? If farmers want to use GM seeds there needs to be guarantees those genetics stay in their licensed fields. Farmers make their money off the whims of nature, these seeds are no different. Otherwise they should sue for vermin and plague of locust that cross property lines too!
We can argue about how crazy patent laws are, but don't try to characterize that case as Monsanto suing a guy that harvested a field with some accidental cross-pollination.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
It's true that people have replanted for thousands of years, but is this "the same"? The amount of labor that went into the research for the new plant varieties, when you consider gains in productivity just since 1850, is (by rough approximation) is equal to about ten unbroken years of labor from everyone on the planet in 2000 B.C. Let's accept that leeching off of moderate amounts of others intellectual works is okay. Let's accept that modern use of IP legal rights is ridiculous.
Nevertheless, thousands of years ago, it was simply not possible to pirate that much intellectual labor! The kind of replanting that happens today, just can't be compared to what happened back then.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
if the money transport van was designed in such a way that it spewed money onto my property as it drove by, maybe. Especially if the transport owners knew it would do this.
I think the analogy is getting stretched a bit though.
:x
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.) Maybe my neighbors idea of "keeping it simple" is not such a bad idea after all. They certainly appear to be stress-free, and no need to worry about mega-corporations descending upon them like giants.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
This guy took it a step further by knowingly and deliberately selected for the Monsanto trait. He actually killed off all of the non-Monsanto rapeseed deliberately.
I happen to agree with you, I think. But that doesn't mean that you and I get to set public policy in Canada.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
As to the case of suing over labeling I have to disagree with your statement People have the right to make true statements about their products, even and especially if it's irrational to buy based on that. This is a problem because of the implied statement as to the safety of other products. It's a scare tactic because the labeling is intentionally misleading. It's akin to my recent change of mind over "Organic Food".
I used to be a huge fan of the Organic Foods movement because it meant that farmers received more money for their goods. I have never read a reputable article that shows organic to be any healthier for the consumer or the environment, but until recently farmers were getting screwed when they sold their goods so I thought it was a good idea because it was essentially those with too much money that were paying the Organic Tax. The problem is that now people are convinced that it is superior to normally produced food and people who cannot afford the extra money are forced to purchase organic either out of fear, lack of options, or peer pressure (applied by not only friends but half of the talking heads on TV)
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
"*sigh* If a money transport van crashes into your garden, is the money yours?"
*sigh*
That's the worst analogy I've ever heard. And I'm not kidding laddie, that one could win prizes.
Money doesn't require your own nutrients and your own plants to interact, breed with and nourish it. Money doesn't waft over walls with nobody to miss it, somebody probably cares and takes effort to stop money floating away. Money doesn't invisibly turn up and change your crops into something someone else has patented.
In short, sorry, but that analogy is so wide of the mark you may as well have said "*sigh* If a pizza truck crashes into your toenails, is the cat dead?"
Seed blows in the wind. So does pollen. Birds pick up seed and deposit it with handy fertilizer.
The beginnings of agriculture were like so: we ate the best plants, and their seeds were propagated as we dropped or pooped them. (Well, that's dropping, too. And again, with fertilizer.) Today, Monsanto can sue you if you follow this completely natural process.
The very idea of being able to patent a life form is ridiculous, for just this reason! Life exists to self-perpetuate. And there HAVE been cases in which Monsanto crops self-seeded on a small part of someone's land and they ended up losing the entire farm.
First thing, let's shoot all the lawyers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What the guy you're arguing with is saying is that a farmer who didn't buy licensed and restricted seeds has every right to do with his harvest what he damn well pleases. He bought the seed, he owns or leases the land, he planted it, fertilized it, applied herbicide to the weeds around it, harvested it, and insured it against hail, fire, and drought. He owns what he takes out of the field that he grew, and he can eat it, sell it, burn it, or use it.
The guy who buys Monsanto's seeds and signs a no reseeding contract gave up some of his rights in the contract. He didn't give up his neighbor's rights, as those aren't his rights to give up.
The farmers who don't buy patented GM seeds aren't trespassing onto the land of those who do and stealing pollen. The wind (yes, wind -- corn is self-pollinating or wind-pollinated as often as pollinated by bees) or bees do that naturally. The unnatural pollen many farmers consider dangerous crud actually invades non-GM farms and perverts their botanically hybridized crops. For that, should Monsanto be the plaintiff or the defendant?
If Monsanto is so concerned about their unnatural crops cross-pollinating other corn and beans, then they should GM it to keep it from doing that. It's not the fault of people trying to avoid it that the wind blows.
That's like running over a kid in a crosswalk while the walk sign is lit and suing the kid for being there because he dented your car. The kid's doing what he's supposed to do, you're infringing on his space, and then you blame him. That's what Monsanto is doing.
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.
Um...no.
Roundup Ready crops are definitely a GM product. Specifically, a soil bacterium gene that is resistant to glyphosphate-induced inhibition was inserted into the seed. For corn (strain 603, to be specific), here's the quote from Monsanto in their request to the Canadian government:
The 603 line of corn (Zea maysL.) was developed through a specific genetic modification to be tolerant to glyphosate containing herbicides. This novel variety was developed from an inbred dent corn line by insertion of a bacterial 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) encoding gene which provides enhanced tolerance to glyphosate compared to the native corn EPSPS. (a href="http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/gmf-agm/appro/roundup_ready_corn_603-mais_603_roundup_ready_e.html"ref: Health Canada.)
Similar for soybeans and canola.
Secondly, the key to RR crops is consumer (i.e. farmer) product lock-in. Spraying Roundup on early post-emergent seedlings means that you can ONLY grow RR crops. Even with careful application, the drift will cause significant damage to adjacent crops.
Finally, No modern farmer "reuses" seeds, GM or no.
Wrong. Just flat out wrong. It's not as common as it was, but MANY farmers harvest seed crops as well as food crops, get them washed and treated, and grow them again. Besides, whether or not it happens is irrelevant--taking away that option, either by splicing in terminator genes or by suing farmers, is just criminal.
"Forgetting for a moment the fact that organic crops are less safe..."
Um...what? I'd love to know what you mean by this.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
That's like running over a kid in a crosswalk while the walk sign is lit and suing the kid for being there because he dented your car. The kid's doing what he's supposed to do, you're infringing on his space, and then you blame him. That's what Monsanto is doing. Well, if you want to start an analogy war...
This would be like Monsanto researching, patenting, and producing self-replicating shape-shifter robots, many of which sneak into factories and slip into the output pile and form themselves into near-exact copies of the factories' output, destroying one widget for each widget they copy. Then, the factory owners, who often retain some of the output for e.g. spare parts, notice they actually have self-replicating robots among their widgets. They discover the capabilities and then use their reproductive capabilities to make widgets, which they then sell for profit.
Relevant similaries captured by my analogy:
-Monsanto has spent a lot of its resources on developing something genuinely useful, which it patents.
-Through carelessness and intentional spreading, these units trespass onto others' property and modify their output, which also regularly gets good and bad invaders.
-The factory owners normally exploit natural phenomena that affect their processes.
-Monanto's units replace those property owners' normal output, but with better functionality.
-Those property owners notice the better functionality, and that it clearly could not have come from anything they did, and exploit its greater functionality and reproductive capability to make more of them.
Inferences from analogy:
-Monsanto should compensate others for their loss of normal spare parts. (I said they should replace lost normal seed.)
-Monsanto should be forced to use better containment protocols.
-Factory owners (farmers) should not be allowed to use reproductive capabilities of Monsanto's self-replicators, as that would infringe on a well-deserved patent.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
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
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
STRAWMAN ARGUMENT. Nobody said anything about living like Amish. (Poor debating tactic.)
The point of my previous post was: If you use "open source" products, you can do whatever the hell you want and live free from corporate dictatorship. However if you use "copyrighted" or trademarked products, then you have to be complying with your chosen corporations' rules and restrictions. ----- It's a choice, and each has pros & cons. Welcome to the "real world".
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Your comprehension fails - some farmers don't sign any contract, because the seeds come from plants that have spread out from other fields. So a farmer that hasn't entered into a contract is now unable to use seeds from plants on his own land for fear of being bullied by a huge corporation, because the seed might have come from a neighboring farm that uses their product.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Because I read the Canadian Supreme Court decision too.
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2004/Monsanto-V-Schmeiser-Ruling21may04.htm
I quote:
"The respondents are the licensee and owner, respectively, of a patent that discloses the invention of chimeric genes that confer tolerance to glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup and cells containing those genes. Canola containing the patented genes and cells is marketed under the trade name "Roundup Ready Canola". The appellants grow canola commercially in Saskatchewan. The appellants never purchased Roundup Ready canola nor obtained a licence to plant it. Tests of their 1998 canola crop revealed that 95-98 per cent was Roundup Ready Canola. The respondents brought an action against the appellants for patent infringement. The trial judge found the patent to be valid and allowed the action, concluding that the appellants knew or ought to have known that they saved and planted seed containing the patented gene and cell and that they sold the resulting crop also containing the patented gene and cell."
I am sorry, but this windblown nonsense is a crock of bullshit. 95-98% is clearly a deliberate action to circumvent.
If Monsanto was going after somebody who had a small percentage of contamination, I would be mad at Monsanto too. But this was clearly a cynical action and even worse a program to manipulate public opinion with a campaign of disinformation using politically motivated media sources.
"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.
At the same time, if we're going to feed a growing global population, we're not going to do it by "organic" means. Unfortunately GM foods have been the object of one of the most effective FUD campaigns in recent history. Some of the bizarre scenarios touted by anti-GM types are right out of science fiction, and seem to have little or nothing to do with reality.
Unfortunately people are not ruled by reason or sound logic, but rather by emotional appeals. Some folks seem quite happy to pay far more for "organic" grains and produce, without any evidence that these foods are any safer or any better. The heavy-handed tactics of Monsanto play into this, allowing the pseudo-scientific conspiracy theorists an avenue to claim evil corporations are trying to force us to eat frankenfoods.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Not quite. As I understand it, you cannot use a patented technology for commercial use. Personal use is still free and clear - you just can't sell it or use it in commerce. In this case, the unwitting farmer who replants seeds which are contaminated* by GM IP is using them in commerce as he intends to sell the end product. The problem is that he can't _not_ use them, as he has no control over the pollination process.
*I use this in the technical sense, not claiming GM to be good or bad. We've been hybridizing for centuries. IMO the jury is out on GM.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I've never understood why that situation means that Monsanto gets to sue the farmer instead of the other way around. Usually, if you do something in your yard, and that something comes over my fence and destroys my property, you are liable for paying to fix the problem. Yes, Monsanto seems to have lots of lawyers, but they must have deep pockets too.
Or if you resell the seed.
At a glance that seems fair, unless you are a corn seed producer who lives in corn country (you must) and one of your neighbors happens to plant Monsanto seed (hence potentially contaminating your seed crop).
The case I heard about (on CBC) some of the outlying crop of a seed farmer was "infected". Monsato claimed he could not sell the seed as it was IP infringement. How is this fair or right? This farmer would normally sell all his seed off however many 100 acres he had. He can't exactly control cross pollination. And even if he could, why should he have to spend the expense of trying to control pollen?
The best analogy I can think of is Microsoft coming along and inserting their copyrighted code into an open source project, then suing that project. Worse, it's like a virus they created that inserts the infringing code without any manual intervention. Only issue is that removing the infected portion from a living crop is a lot more costly than removing lines of code from a project.
If Monsanto is successful in these cases, then what is to stop them from getting greedy and subsidizing farming neighbors of "natural" seed producers. Heck, they could go as far as tossing some seed onto the bordering areas or the farm to make sure their crops are "infected" so they can start another profitable lawsuit.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I doubt they needed *those specific seeds* for a full replanting.
Do you know of a method for extracting only one type of seed from the harvest? DO you know how the farmer is supposed to know by looking at the harvested corn which corn seeds are contaminated by Monsanto? You probably don't and neither do the farmers. I live in a city that is still heavy in agriculture. I work with many farmers, and though I work with computers for them, they give me an earful about what is happening. Monsanto has sued farmers whose crops have been contaminated by Monsanto seeds. Some of the farmers around here have had to get out of those markets, as they can not afford the risk or insurance of defending against a potential Monsanto attack. It has also ruined some fields that were growing *natural* crops, as the cross pollination corrupted the seeds of the natural crops.
So, all things aside, there is plenty of fiscal damage going on to many others, but not Monsanto. They are not being held liable for the damages they have caused.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
At least some of those cases have been because the farmers knew that they had Monsanto seeds and continued to replant them, including the Canadian farmer who saved essentially only the Monsanto seeds and replanted virtually his entire farm with them, knowing what he had.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.