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Monsanto May Have To Repay 10 Years of GM Soya Royalties In Brazil
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."
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.
To have one company have total control over a food source is disturbing. They essentially have a monopoly and have risked destroying non GM crops through cross-contamination and I think it should be Monsanto that should be paying damages to farmers who do not want to deal with GM crops.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
Monsanto needs to rethink their business model. While some may have emotionally based reactions toward GM in general, the consensus is that it's an essential tool in the effort to feed the world's growing population. In order to continue, Monsanto needs to stop thinking in terms of genetics as intellectual property, and being paid for wherever their genomes spread. Instead, they need to focus on their relationship with the farmer, and making that relationship essential enough to pay for on a yearly basis. Aside from the product of seed, there are a wide number of services that Monsanto can and should be providing to farmers to help ensure that yields remain high as well as managing business and ecological concerns. Instead of alienating, they should be making themselves as useful as possible.
I know patents protect against independent invention, reverse engineering, etc. but if your product produces seed that "infects" another field or wind blows those seeds to another field, you are NOT entitled to royalties on those seeds.
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So from everything I've heard and read about Monsanto, it is the epitome of evil and functions with impunity here in the US. That Brazil would be the stand up (and win) against them is very inspiring and should set an example.
However to play devil's advocate, are there any benefits to a company such as Monsanto?
What?! The linked article doesn't say anything of the sort! It says:
When someone says, "Any fool can see
I generally think of Monsanto as evil. The power that Monsanto has over large portions of the global food supply frightens me. That said, the "Roundup Ready" gene is really useful to farmers. People complain about Monsanto's use of terminator seeds, patents, lawsuits, etc. only because it is so difficult to compete without using Monsanto's products. Otherwise, no would care.
Soya beans and civilization in Brazil are both older than Monsanto. The Brazilian state could have banned the import, distribution, and cultivation of GMOs - but it did not. And Brazilian farmers could have used their existing seeds, but they did not. They used the piper's awesome seeds. Given what I know about Brazilian politics and trade practices, and human nature, I suspect this case is rooted more in the desire not to pay that piper than in actual law.
If the GMO soya beans can be shown to be contamination, like a small fraction primarily adjacent to road or property boundaries, perhaps Monsanto should be charged 3% for spoiling exportability to Europe or as "non GMO organic". Monsanto should be required to show that its current license fees relate to unexpired patents.
Monsanto is a subject that has so much hyperbole on both sides (usually those against GMOs), calling the Monsanto pollen a "contaminant" is way overboard and doesn't make much sense at all. Saying Monsanto doesn't attack small farmers is a bit of a stretch, but all companies abuse copyright/patent laws. Just loosen up the laws, reform copyright, patents, licensing, etc. This is not as easy as "it's a contaminant!, let farmers sue!" (and wouldn't they sue the -other- farmer anyhow? Not Monsanto?) Instead it a genuine problem across the spectrum of commerce. From Apple, Motorola, Microsoft and yes, Monsanto. Intellectual property rights are a relatively new idea, and it's going to take decades for it to be sorted out to be more optimal.
Suppose a company creates a way to insert a gene into a human egg, perhaps to imbue some immunity to a disease or correct for a genetic defect. Under the current law, the company could patent their new gene. Add according to Monsanto, that person's children would be using the company's gene and would have to pay a royalty for their own existence.
Reread the linked article there. It doesn't say anything about cocoa farmers. It says something about coca farmers. There's a bit of a difference between the two crops.