Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Monsanto May Have To Repay 10 Years of GM Soya Royalties In Brazil

Posted by Soulskill on from the bean-counters dept.

scibri writes "Biotech giant Monsanto is one step closer to losing billions of dollars in revenues from its genetically-modified Roundup Ready soya beans, after the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled the company must repay royalties collected over the past decade. Since GM crops were legalized in 2005, Monsanto has charged Brazilian farmers royalties of 2% on their sales of Roundup Ready soya beans. The company also tests Brazilian soya beans that are sold as non-GM — if they turn out to be Roundup Ready, the company charges the farmers 3%. Farmers challenged this as an unjust tax on their business. In April a regional court ruled against Monsanto, though that ruling has been put on hold pending an appeal. The Supreme Court, meanwhile has said that whatever the final ruling is, it will apply throughout the whole country."

5 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. Remove the yoke of Monsanto! by Gr33nJ3ll0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's nice to see somebody standing up to Monsanto. Never has one company been so close to totally controlling the food supply for the entire planet. Their abusive practices with farmers both home and abroad have been well documented, and yet our elected leaders turn a blind eye.

    1. Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! by Bigby · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Mod parent up! A farmer can't help it if his field is being polluted by Monsanto's seed...even if it might be financially beneficial. If a coal mine created a pile of coal and the pile started spilling over into my property, then there are 3 options:

      1. The coal mining company sues me for having their coal on my property (at no fault of my own)
      2. I sue the coal mining company for putting their coal on my property
      3. We call it a truce, and I just keep and sell the coal on my property

    2. Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! by quarkscat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Stop bitching about Monsanto and fix the law.

      Even better solution is to "fix" the Monsanto corporate board, permanently, like a gelding.

      Were you aware that the lunchrooms of Monsanto facilities explicitly prohibit GMO foods for their employees, and at the insistence of those employees? Why are Monsanto employees treated better than USA citizens? Could it be that if USA citizens were informed of the GMO origins of many of their foodstuffs, that they would knowingly & willfully boycott those products?

    3. Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Which is why these patents scare the fuck out of me. Am I the only one that is more than a little worried that these GMOs are basically handing over control of the food supply to a single corporation? its bad enough when patents stifle innovations but we are talking about the fricking food supply folks, its not like you can just eat dirt. Since its already been proven that GMOs can contaminate nearby crops this lets them have a nice racket, where you either pay them to use their "product" or your field gets contaminated by theirs...and you pay them MORE. Does anybody else find that more than a little fucking disturbing? I mean if I dump shit in my neighbor's yard I can't force them to pay me for the privilege, so why can Monsanto do the same thing by patenting the shit?

      Finally a little weird possibly but...does anyone else look at the nasty shit Monsanto pulls and gets reminded of that scene in "Damien: Omen II" where the head of genetics at Thorn is bragging about how with control of the food supply thanks to GMOs they can pretty much call the shots? Not saying Monsanto is the debil but the way they've got GMOs rolling it does strike me that they are climbing past Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, and Blackwater on the "Holy shit, that's fucked up" scale of corporate nastiness. I mean its pretty bad when a lot of your current gameplan seems like its nicked from a movie about the rise of the fricking antichrist.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Broken business model. by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    If Monsanto can't find a way to make money on their product without special government intervention like this, their business model is broken. The point where they make money should be (only) when they sell their product to a farmer. All this bribery and whatnot to get special laws or to abuse existing laws to prop up their business model is nonsense.

    And I'm not even against GM foods, I find most of those people to be clueless Luddites. I'm just against their corrupt business model enabled by corrupt governments.