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300k Organic Farmers To Sue Monsanto For Seed Patent Claims
microphage writes "Monsanto went after hundreds of farmers for infringing on their patented seed after audits revealed that their farms had contained their product — as a result of routine pollination by animals and acts of nature. Unable to afford a proper defense, competing small farms have been bought out by the company in droves. As a result, Monsanto saw their profits increase by the hundreds of millions over the last few years as a result. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto tackled 144 organic farms with lawsuits and investigated roughly 500 plantations annually during that span with a so-called 'seed police.'"
So what you're telling me is, all I have to do is develop an easily identifiable genetic strain of a common farm plant, copyright it, then let it pollinate whatever and wherever it can, and then I can sue EVERYONE? Forever?
Time to start reading up on genetic engineering!
Well, the very fact that second-hand seed is disallowed already is evil. So no grey in this case.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It does not matter. You cannot patent life so even if these farmers are using second generation Monsanto seed on purpose they are doing nothing wrong.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
300,000 plaintiffs... Monsanto has made a lot of enemies with their tactics. He who lives with the lawsuit...
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
Sorry if that complicates the "Noble Farmer vs. Evil Corporation" black-and-white narrative.
No, it just turns it into a slightly-scummy underdog versus one of the greatest hives of evil in the world. Monsanto has claimed it literally does not matter how their seed ends up in a farm, or if it is being used in any way whatsoever, they will still sue for patent infringement merely by it being present without being purchased. Lookup Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser if you don't believe me. For comparison, this would be like (not just kind of similar, but almost exactly the same as) suing someone for copyright infringement after finding a copy of your virus on their system, which they did not put there, and then winning.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
It's not a contradiction. There is a big difference between a farmer who may have some Monsanto crops on the fringes of his fields, and a guy whose entire crop is Monsanto (but who trying to claim it's "just from stray pollination").
BTW, not only is the latter "organic farmer" screwing Monsanto--he is also screwing the consumer, by passing off his genetically modified crops as organic.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Except most Organic Farmers I know view GMO seed from Monsanto to be like Kryptonite. Monsanto=Evil incarnate. Not something you would even serve to your dog or any living creature for that matter.
If you are talking about any old farmer, perhaps you could be right in some way, but most people who get into Organic farming are philosophically opposed to businesses like Monsanto. In my experience anyhow. I live in an area where Monsanto and GMO's are kind of worrisome because of the fear of cross-pollination.
What Monsato needs to do is prevent their seeds from getting loose, as well as the pollen. Cross pollination should be the problem of the patent holder.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I'm not entirely sure how this is a "contradiciton". Would you disagree with the following statement:
Yes, I have no doubt that some innocent people are being caught up unfairly in the process. But I also can't blame New York for having these much-malinged "police".
As much fun as it is to bash Monsanto, if we want to change the patent regime, we must do it ourselves. Monsanto is only doing what is best for their shareholders - protecting their patents. I'm not saying that is good or bad, but not expecting them to do so is silly. Having said that, innocent farmers should obviously not fall prey to this.
Cemil.
No they aren't sterile. The terminator gene got SO MUCH bad press that they never were able to use it.
When you say "you cannot patent life", do you mean "you should not be able to patent life"? My understanding is that you can, in fact, patent life other than a fully-formed human being -- all other life forms are patentable. But perhaps I am happily incorrect.
Yup. First-sale doctrine. A farmer can who whatever the heck he wants with the farm product. He already paid Monsanto for first-hand seed.
You can't control what the bees do. Cross pollination happens. The Monsanto genes have been found even in countries that have outlawed its use.
On top of this there have been fairly predatory actions by the "seed police" P.I.s. They look closely at *anyone* that does seed cleaning, and if there is any cross pollination they sue. There are even allegations they encouraged cross pollination so they could sue non-customers.
It's frightening that genetically-engineered crops have become so prevalent as to contaminate small-scale organic farms. The intellectual property arguments are obvious, but more concerning is the health risks. Compared with thousands of years of human agricultural co-evolution, these modifications are nowhere near as thoroughly-tested. Food crops nowadays are even modified to produce their own pesticides! There are likely very consequential side-effects lurking that will only appear generations later. Organic farmers, the ones that don't cheat, are doing us all a service by maintaining pure strains of our most important crops. Surely everyone should want to support this and protect them against contamination.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I don't know rt.com, but it seems to tend toward the sensationalistic side.
For example, my 1 minute of browsing the site took me to the story "FBI might shutdown the internet on March 8", ( http://rt.com/usa/news/fbi-internet-server-servers-409/)
Maybe we should all be more worried about the internet disappearing than Monsanto's evil deeds.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Yes you can, in a limited way. You can patent genetic modifications. And that's what this is all about.
The problem here is that there's no foolproof way to prevent this variation of copyright infringement. (Monsanto is like the RIAA of the farm) And so they've bought the laws stacked heavily in their favor to make sure they can legally go after everyone they're entitled to, at a cost of being able to go after a lot of innocents as well. (one of my pet peeves, overly broad laws)
In this case the big issue is that if a farmer has a field near a Monsanto field, the wind WILL (not slim chance, not might, not maybe, WILL) cross-pollinate with some of the corn in his field. Then the goons can come in and find a kernel or two that contain DNA from their patented field, and by the law that makes you breaking the law and owing damagesa. So now the little farmer gets extorted out of his land. And that's just how the laws have been bought onto the books. It's not right, but that's the law now.
This isn't like music downloading where 95% is infringing and they're trying to hide under the "5% of it is lawful so you have to allow it" umbrella. There is a significant percentage of "unavoidable unintentional infringing" going on and companies like Monsanto abuse the law to their advantage as a result.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
What Monsato needs to do is prevent their seeds from getting loose, as well as the pollen. Cross pollination should be the problem of the patent holder.
No, if you're small or medium sized business and you have a stupid business plan, then you go out of business.
If you're big business and you have a stupid business plan, then you hire the government to make everyone else suffer until you make money.
Are you from the US? This is the same business model as RIAA, MPAA, the entire financial industry, blah blah blah. Not exactly anything new.
Get big, purchase the govt as hired guns, become a parasitical tax on the population.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It's alive and outside of anyone's control. The plants go where they want to. This is the basic problem with granting patents of this kind. The "product" spreads and infests everyone else's property. Pretty soon, you are stuck planting contaminated seed stock or nothing.
NO. It's it's Monsanto that should be getting judgements against farmers, it's farmers and entire countries that should be getting judgements against Monsanto.
This whole nonsense is like saying that Cheney owns your house just because his dog sh*t in your yard.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
And meanwhile, these seeds are about as healthy as dioxin.
Exaggerate much?
Despite the nonsense that certain organic farmers and various industry groups may claim, the terms "organic" and "genetically modified" are unrelated and in no way mutually exclusive. This is especially true in consumer foods, where the term "organic" is completely unregulated and thus meaningless, beyond than the implicit meaning of "really fucking expensive".
Time to write a virus that infects computers connected to the internet and sends home their location. Then sue them for having my virus on their computers... profit!!!
Monsanto should be the ones who have to pay those farmers for contaminating their fields.
But of course we're talking about the USA, where justice is but a distant memory and bribery is now known as lobbying.
But the Monsanto patented crops are sterile
No, *you* don't know what you're talking about. Monsanto seed is not sterile. Read it for yourself, from their own website. They make it pretty clear "Monsanto has never developed or commercialized a sterile seed product."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You can even patent body parts - guy found that a hospital patented an unusual genetic quirk of his while studying his blood...
That is why people are concerned with the unilateral roll-out of GMO's. It affects their crops whether they want to buy the seeds or not.
Apparently, now they have to be worried about getting sued out of business by a big multinational corporation because the corporation's crops are contaminating theirs.
Isn't Organic now officially defined in the US?
Doesn't it exclude genetically modified?
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=ORGANIC_CERTIFICATIO
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
ButButBut, he didn't BUY the seeds, he LICENSED them!
That if any pollen from monsanto crops were to stray onto my property, that is a form of industrial pollution. It's worse for my farm than radioactive fallout.
The damages should be in the millions, as now every grain of pollen must be removed. It's no different than if some asshole is crop dusting with toxic chemicals, and the toxins blow all over your land, and render your crops unusable. The soil needs to be dug up to a minimum 3 feet, hauled away, stored indefinetely, and replaced with arable soil.
It has altered the biological nature of the crops in an unnatural way -- it is a toxic by-product of Monsanto's business. An organic farm would be irrepairably ruined by such an act.
It should be assumed that farmers did not illicitly buy Monsanto seed - as we have an assumption of innocence. It should be assumed that Monsanto knows, that absent extreme measures, there will be cross pollination and contamination of neighbouring farms. They should be liable for this widespread damage.
As long as Monsanto is picking up the tab, I'm fine with them winning lawsuits in the cases where it can be shown the farmer intentionally sowed their seed without "consent".
More correct way to compare it is: ....RIAA is hacking your computer and uploading "illegal!!!" movies and mp3, and then suing you for piracy.
The first post is a troll. No organic farmer is going to buy Monsanto tainted seed. The tainted seed ruins organic crops. You cannot sell your crop as organic if its contaminated with Monsanto gene. The farms get contaminated by Monsanto crops due to direct seed drift, cross pollination, bees etc. Monsanto knows this so they simply trespass on farmlands and steal samples. Then they sue the farmer out of business.
For all those who think that because they can't see the problems with GMO there's nothing to worry about, this is one of the most important things to grasp.
Millennia of co-evolution is why all those soft-headed hippies are so keen on "whoa, man, natural". It's extremely thorough testing of interoperability. Not only that, it's continued refinement, of both plants and humans, so that the co-evolved plants approach ideal foods for the co-evolved humans. Ironically, rather a sophisticated scientific concept that these hippies grokked out intuitively.
It's not necessarily Luddite or anti-technology to be opposed to GMO and other "scientific" advances in food. Opposition may be based on a deeper understanding of how these systems operate.
The contempt that GMO advocates have for their opposition is embarrassingly hypocritical. It's a special kind of ignorance that leads one to believe that a lack of seeing problems is the same thing as an actual absence of problems. Folks, these are complex systems.
"What could possibly go wrong?"
Organic does not mean no pesticides. There are pesticides that are certified organic, see here.
Some organic pesticides can cause cancer. Others are extremely toxic to surrounding wild life due to runoff. Organic pesticides may require more applications than equivalent non-organic pesticides.
I am not saying to not eat organic, but everyone needs to understand what "Organic" does and does not mean. And that term is under constant attack by large scale commercial farming organizations to water it down as much as they can. And most organic farms are not owning up to exactly how much organic pesticides they actually use. Or even disclosing the use of such pesticides.
It doesn't matter if even if 99% of the farmers were consciously cheating Monsanto. There is no reasonable way to separate them from those whose crops were planted by creatures or wind -- unless you actually catch the cheater in the act. It is unconscionable to let the law stand by evidence of possession alone.
Furthermore, if Monsanto modifies a gene sequence and patent it, it doesn't matter if the EXACT SAME DNA SEQUENCE has existed in nature for hundreds of thousands of years. The patent is still valid. Monsanto has been persecuting farmers in India who have been growing crops for generations under the false premise they stole a DNA sequence.
The "seed police" are little more than thugs and illegal vigilantes. I would place them under citizen's arrest for trespassing on my farmland if they dared to "audit" me.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
National Organic Program:
"What is organic?
Organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods that integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering may not be used."
FTFA:
Last year, 270,000 organic farmers from around 60 family farms tried to take Monsanto to court over issues pertaining to a genetically-modified seed masterminded by the corporation.
I don't know how many crops these folks can grow on a farm with that many farmers taking up so much room.
If only brainwashing citizens into being corporate shills were patentable.
I don't give a flying fuck how "legal" what they're doing is, it's wrong. The farmers' unethical labor and business practices is a completely separate issue, and your implication that they somehow deserve Monsanto's lawyer brigade for anything short of literally breaking into Monsanto granaries and stealing seed is ridiculous, as in you deserve to be ridiculed for holding such a stupid belief. Allowing them to be sued for bullshit because they did something else wrong is the very antithesis of justice.
While you're cheering your masters, those of us with a brain in our heads will be laughing them off at every struggle Monsanto and any other company that tries to patent life faces.
Until their cyborg police come bashing in our doors, anyway.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Not necessarily. Organic food has gotten the notice of big business. With so many Monsanto lobbyists working in the federal gov't & Obama administration, expect to see attempts to weaken organic standards. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_24575.cfm
Very well, first of all, Gene Patents are valid and legal, due to landmark cases:
Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
The most recent decision on this case is that patents can be held. The particular case I was referring to is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenberg_v._Miami_Children's_Hospital_Research_Institute
Utterly wrong. Life can be patented. Plant Patent Act of 1930; Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980).
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Practice safe pollination, kids; don't want to get the branch rot.
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
Genetically modified is just creative breeding
You are so wrong.
Regular breeding is the breeding of existing varieties of a species in the hope to achieve a better offspring
Genetic modification is done in a laboratory at microscopic level, right at the genes and often genetic traits of non-related species are put in the mix.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
If my farm's product is supposed to be organic, wholly natural agricultural products, imagine the damages resulting from finding out that said farm is actually producing genetically modified produce. Why, that could destroy the whole farm, not just the current crop.
Countersue. Monsanto's product was not adequately controlled and got out of control. Why, there might even be some (extremely major) criminal liability on Montsanto's part.
IANAL.
Can't the orgnic farmers sue Monsanto for infecting their crops with genetically modified pollen?
SEC. 2105. 7 U.S.C. 6504 NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR ORGANIC PRODUCTION.
To be sold or labeled as an organically produced agricultural product under this title, an agricultural product shall --
(1) have been produced and handled without the use of synthetic chemicals, except as otherwise provided in this title;
(2) except as otherwise provided in this title and excluding livestock, not be produced on land to which any prohibited substances, including synthetic chemicals, have been applied during the 3 years immediately preceding the harvest of the agricultural products; and
(3) be produced and handled in compliance with an organic plan agreed to by the producer and handler of such product and the certifying agent.
I see nothing in that definition that prohibits "genetically modified" seed being used. In addition, the CFR seems to be most interested in restriction who can used the official USDA "organic" label, not in what can be referred to as "organic".
FYI second generation seeds of recent (F1 IIRC) hybrids (e.g. Trainwreck, O.G. Kush, Sour Diesel) are useless.
The children will have random mixes of the grandparents characteristics. Not an even 50/50 mix. Some will be very like one grandparent, others will have different mixes. Unpredictable and basically useless.
Older stabilized hybrids and pure breeds (e.g. Thai Haze, Hindu Kush etc) breed true.
Put simply second generation seeds are disallowed by nature in many cases. Monsanto has counted on this 'feature' sense well before genetic engineering existed.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Interestingly, the "pesticide-built-in" plants are already losing their effect on pests which are now becoming "super-pests." There was a story here on slashdot a few weeks ago I believe.
It's amazing to me that current science fails to appreciate the power of nature to overcome our tweaking and fiddling. We have been seeing this for decades with antibiotics and more recently with poisons. So before long, the "value" of Monsanto GM seed will be lost while we selectively breed super-pests which will be even harder to kill and/or manage. Will Monsanto be penalized for creating these super-pests? I doubt it.
It's not necessarily only about whether it is "safe for human consumption." There are other considerations that make GM foods like these a BAD IDEA.
There is a big difference between a farmer who may have some Monsanto crops on the fringes of his fields, and a guy whose entire crop is Monsanto (but who trying to claim it's "just from stray pollination").
Is there? It seems like Monsanto really doesn't care one way or the other; as far as they're concerned, the seed police return a positive hit, it's time to mobilize the lawyer brigade and litigate someone out of existence.
This is a big problem with the legal system in my opinion. These huge corporations can use their considerable wealth to basically destroy anyone with the temerity to not immediately fold on just the threat of litigation. Sure, there can be a judgement for damages and the cost of the defense down the road (years down the road in most cases) but these aren't criminal cases, these are civil matters, so the burden of retaining representation is wholly on John Q. Farmer. How the hell can a regular Joe compete in the courtroom against these large corporations? Simply finding a lawyer that is willing to take the case is difficult a lot of the time because they know how hard it is going to be to fight these goliaths with their in-house legal staff. This creates an enormous chilling effect where a lot of lawsuits aren't even really fought, not because the case didn't have merit, but because they couldn't afford to make it in the first place.
I don't know how we solve that problem, but it needs solving. Our justice system is already ridiculously skewed towards the benefit of the wealthy, shit like this just tips the balance that much more.
So does the license agreement Monsanto must make people agree to require users to forfeit their right to sue and settle for arbitration like all the software companies are doing now? If not, I bet it's coming. That will solve their lawsuit problem once and for all.
America! Fuck Yeah!
My neighbor's dog come into my yard and damage my yard...my neighbor has to pay for restitution
Mosanto pollen come to my yard and modify/damage my plant and its output...Mosanto has to pay for restitution, No ?
Or should it that i have to pay Mosanto for the opportunity of getting my plant screwed up without asking for it ?
Logical legal and patent system please.....please
.
You, sir, are categorically wrong. I have known a family for years, with their own fields dedicated to seed production, that were entrapped in Monsanto's corruption. Their own land. Their own seed. Their own equipment.
They were threatened with a lawsuit, and they could not afford the money to defend themselves. Everyone around them was using Monsanto seed- they were positive it meant their crops had been contaminated with whatever blew over the fences over the 40-plus years their family had owned the operation.
One is now a cashier at Walmart. The other tries to be a woodworker. They don't raise seed on the place anymore- they lease it to someone who uses Monsanto seed.
Read The Windup Girl for a (fictionalized) glimpse at that thought.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It was mentioned earlier RT seems a bit fringe. Certainly a class action of this size would be on some mainstream news sites, but some sniffing on google turns up other small sites quoting RT.
ButButBut, he didn't BUY the seeds, he LICENSED them!
You're modded "Funny", but that's actually Monsanto's argument.
ButButBut, he didn't BUY the seeds, he LICENSED them!
In other words, after the GM food comes out of you again at the other end of your gastrointestinal tract, don't resell it to anyone else, since you're not allowed to, but carefully collect it instead and mail it back to: Monsanto Company 800 N. Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis. (Large batches preferred.)
Ezekiel 23:20
Systemic pesticides don't wash off. They enter the plant and work from the inside. Root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, radish, etc) are pretty much sponges that suck up anything in the soil, pesticides included.
Oh blow it out yer' hole. The day the Monsanto blows up in a fiery ball is the day I'll happily dance on their graves. That's not a threat, but I think they are one of the most dangerous companies on the planet.
The facts that I've seen so far, claim that Monsanto GM crops are worse in the long term - they require more herbicide than normal crops long term, and they are more expensive. Also, these herbicide crops are cross-polinating with road-side weeds and transferring the Roundup resistance to wild species. The farmers they sell seed to are not being trained to properly plant, rotate and rest fields. All in all I think it will be the biggest disaster in agricultural history.
I'm NOT against GMO foods - I think that genetics can do wonderful things for humanity. I just think that the work Monsanto has done so far is terrible.
The truth is that instead of creating nutritional, high quality and resistant foods, Monsanto concentrated on profit and pesticide sales. Companies shouldn't win when the product is crap - and that's all I see in Monsanto GM foods.
Forget the whole GMO debate, but how is it even possible that a multi-billion dollar company can threaten to sue a small farmer and then force them to sell out to them when the farmer cannot mount a proper defense. Couldn't you just create a well funded company that would identify small farms and threaten to sue them for anything, forcing them to sell out to you for lower that fair market prices as a part of a settlement? How does that not fall under some Organized Crime law?
Linux O Muerte!
I'm sure that Monsanto must have identified Organic food as a strategic threat to their business and are doing all they can to stymie its expansion. Between their attempts to weaken organic standards to include GM foods, and farmers losing their organic certification because of GM contamination (http://permaculture.org.au/2011/02/01/australias-first-legal-attack-on-monsanto-for-gm-contamination-of-organically-certified-crops/), and now suing organic farmers that can have no interest in encouraging patented GM crops on their land, it appears that Monsanto are being quite effective.
Personally, I view this as the 21st century version of the Scottish enclosures, where what was once common property (or at least accessible) was forever fenced off and the traditional occupants evicted.
The scary thing is that the scientific studies that are peer reviewed about gmo's is shockingly close to zero.
Some of the gmo's are possibly a lot better for you and some are possibly as bad as the grand parent post claims, and the industry doesn't seem to want to know, which leads to some uncomfortable thoughts about the safety of our food supply and monocrops that are enabled by gmo's.
Did you know that if a five digit PLU code starts with the number 8 it is GMO, but nobody uses that code, the idea was that maybe GMO foods would be higher in vitamins or have some other positive value and be worth more to consumers. The reality is that food industry believes that if it was easy to tell if food was GMO it would not sell except at very steep discount. Sort of like Chinese peppers are about 1/5 the price of peppers grown in Chile in the San Francisco area (at least at the stores I shop at.)
The food industry's behavior around GMO food is similar enough to how the tobacco industry behaved that people are very suspicious of GMO foods.
If the food industry was willing to have clear labels on all GMO food maybe there would be some studies that would allow us to say what GMO food is and isn't fit for human consumption. Some of it is probably fine, some of it probably not so.
Work bio at MMWD
Remeber that _tiny_ test plot of Bayer Life Sciences unapproved for consumption GMO rice that managed to contaminate the entire states rice supply in sufficient quantity that the states entire crop was wasted.
Hmmm... a tiny test plot, and and entire states crop ruined.
Some of that may have happened here too.
Monsanto GMO pollen trespasses on the organic farmers land, contaminating his crop. Farmer collects the seed. Seed exchanged with other farmers (genetic diversity is a good thing normally). Now the contaminated seed has spread well beyond the original farm.
Monsanto should have to pay for the cleanup of its contamination. And any losses the farmers suffered.
Wild rape seed in Canada is GMO now, due to "Roundup Ready" genes hopping over from GMO Canola. Containing GMO is a fantasy. And the costs for GMO contamination are born by the innocent party who was damaged in our corrupt corporate run country / world.
No, it's not. It's fucking evil. And it's fucking evil that anyone can even THINK of asking such terms just to sell seed.
This retarded idea you have that big business can do whatever the fuck the want has got to stop. Just because someone "agrees" to something does NOT make it right.
As a society we need to start figuring out where the line is between what's good for the stockholder vs. what's good for society. Its great for holders of tabacco stock to make cigarettes as addictive as possible. Not so great for society. Monsanto is systematically wiping out any farm that doesn't grow with its seed. It will take a class action suit against them from thousands of farmers to stop what amounts to predatory practices against innocent farmers whose only crime in most cases is being downwind when Monsanto crops pollinate.
That, or allow Monsanto to destroy all small farms not using their product. I which case, Monsanto share holders do incredibly well, and the country suffers.
More to the point, Monsanto's dominant seed crops constitute a monoculture, which is a dangerous thing. For example, there has been a near monoculture in wheat since someone managed to selective breed a variety resistant to stem rust (a fungal disease). When stem rust eventually evolved to grow on modern crops, it quickly became an epidemic, and spread far more quickly than would have been possible in biodiverse crops. AFAIK, it's still a major problem, and they're still trying to find the solution.
Of course, Monsanto aren't worried about monoculture, because they can just invent and market a new monoculture later, and they'll get paid just the same. But for the farmers, the lost crops mean lost earnings, and for the rest of us, well... it isn't possible for a whole society to buy themselves out of a famine, only the privileged few.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
The biggest advantage of the popular GM crops is that you can drown them in pesticides without killing the plant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)#Genetically_modified_crops
bickerdyke
It's amazing to me that current science fails to appreciate the power of nature to overcome our tweaking and fiddling. We have been seeing this for decades with antibiotics and more recently with poisons. So before long, the "value" of Monsanto GM seed will be lost while we selectively breed super-pests which will be even harder to kill and/or manage. Will Monsanto be penalized for creating these super-pests? I doubt it.
It's not about current science failing to appreciate the power of nature. Instead it's all about profit (ie. money). Even a temporary short-term advantage means more profit for however long it lasts and that's all companies care about, long term consequences be damned. In fact, by creating super-pests they're queuing up more problems to solve in the future for profit.
I think a more apt metaphor would be if I were to create a computer virus that dumped itself into commercial software that had been created by others, and then suing them for infringing on my copyrights.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Indeed they should be able to.
Unfortunately there is a certain asymmetry in the legal resources that can be deployed by Monsanto and by the small farmers.
I believe that when there is crop contamination of an organic farm it takes a very long time to re-establish the accreditation and all that time results in loss of earning that ought to be compensated by Monsanto, imo. Let;s add to that the cost to reputation, some opportunity costs, etc...
I hope Monsanto has enough money to cover all those for all those farm that have been and will be contaminated even by a single GM plant found on their fields.
The legalization of GM crop is one of the most idiotic output of the legal system. There is no way that cross contamination will not occur, even without any action by a legitimate organic farmer. What is worse, it will increase and spread. It is totally impossible to contain... the genie is out of the bottle and he is not benign, far from it.
The Monsantos of the world will be perceived in the future as worse than cigarettes companies are now, they have unleashed an uncontainable plague.
I recall a story of Monsanto getting caught planting their seeds in unlicensed farmers' fields at night and then shutting down the farmer when the plants were found. I couldn't find a good source for this particular point in my quick Googling, but the comments on this article talk about it: http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/monsanto-illegally-plants-gm-corn-in-india/ . Additionally, Monsanto has been caught doing a bunch of other dirty business practices. Google "Monsanto Dirty" for a quick peak. (I'm not doing proper research, I know, but its past 5)
Not exactly.
Breeding only selects on the allele level (except for the seldom situation of an actual and not life threatening gene mutation). That means you don't get any new genes into your lifestock, you just recombine the alleles and then select for the best combinations.
There is a way to actually get new genes into your lifestock, it's called hybridization. It works pretty well for plant species that are closely related, so are most citrus fruits actually hybrids. It does not work so well for animals, the few wellknown examples of hybrids are almost all sterile, like the mule.
Genetic engineering puts genes that come from completely different livings into the genome, e.g. bacterial genes into plants, vertebrate genes into bacteria etc.pp. You don't get that type of modifications with breeding.
And meanwhile, these seeds are about as healthy as dioxin.
Citation, please.
The plants are engineered to produce an insecticide that kills insects, and it's escaping from the fields...
Lets say an ecosystem needs insects: Having 85% of all the streams around a genetically modified crop being polluted with insecticide masquerading as food might be an issue... In fact, it would be equivalent to sprinkling the countryside with some level of dioxin.
I'd say that pesticides escaping and even proliferating on their own is a generally bad idea. You can disagree with me, but then morons also exist.
I call BS on this.
Anecdotal I know, but growing up on the farm when I showed up with a load of chopped corn the cows came running just as fast and ate just as much whether it was out of the non-GM fields (our fields) or a load that we bought the crop from the neighbor that only grew corn (GM).
Their might be some types of GM that the animals can detect (maybe the natural pesticides that some GMs produce) but they sure cannot detect all the GM crops.
So yes as the law that was purchased by Monsanto stands right now if Cheney's patented dog shits in your yard they Cheney owns all the shit in your yard from not only his dog but from yours also. This is the law as purchased by Monsanto.
"270,000 organic farmers from around 60 family farms" Thats 4,500 farmers per family. Must be keeping busy on those cold winter nights.
So can a man patent his sperm and sue any woman that gets pregnant from it because it was the terms of use were not agreed upon?
Al Jazeera will probably pick it up, I'm sure the BBC will too. USAian networks don't seem as interested in this sort of thing, except for Comedy Central.
I hear that Monsanto's "seed police" are usually heavily built ex-military types driving black SUVs with tinted windows and hired to be as intimidating as possible.
I'm always a pretty critical thinker and always question the source, but based on everything I've seen and read on this topic this seems to be the real deal. Monsanto is a company with the ethics of Enron and the reach of Exxon. They've got to be stopped. Period.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The "synthetic chemicals" part has to do with adjuncts added to the soil, not the growing seed, so I don't think that would apply. But, as I'm reminded, Federal bureaucrats always provide their own interpretations of laws in the Federal Register, and enforce the law based on those rules, not the way consumers or businesses interpret them. The applicable version is found here, and states, in part:
So I'm convinced that the USDA will exclude any kind of GMO crop from certification as "organic".
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia