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Monsanto Takes Home $23m From Small Farmers According To Report
An anonymous reader writes "Seed giant Monsanto has won more than $23 million from hundreds of small farmers accused of replanting the company's genetically engineered seeds. Now, another case is looming – and it could set a landmark precedent for the future of seed ownership. From the article: 'According to the report, Monsanto has alleged seed patent infringement in 144 lawsuits against 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses in at least 27 U.S. states as of January of 2013. Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta together hold 53 percent of the global commercial seed market, which the report says has led to price increases for seeds -- between 1995 and 2011, the average cost of planting one acre of soybeans rose 325 percent and corn seed prices went up 259 percent.'"
That is, in this case, a good point. Here farmers were knowingly replanting seed they had purchased.
When farmers purchase Monsanto seeds, they sign a contract and agree, in writing, not to save seed.
there have been instances of Monsanto claiming that farmers who simply have their seeds in their field, even through natural spreading, owe them a fee.
Citation please. There is plenty of mythology about Monsanto doing this, but what really happened is that some farmers intentionally saved seeds grown adjacent to GMO fields, saved and planted the seeds, sprayed them with glyphosate to kill the beans without the GMO gene, saved the resulting seeds again, planted the resulting "pure" GMO strain the following year, and treated their crops with glyphosate thus taking full advantage of Monsanto's patent. To portray these farmers as innocent victims is nonsense.
Perhaps Monsanto isn't as bad as they're portrayed here...
That said, I believe the farmer who sold his seeds to the grain elevator was in the wrong, not the farmer (who didn't even know better) who purchased the seeds. This is similar to the file sharer being in the wrong, as opposed to the pirate.
When farmers use Monsanto seeds, they have to realize that they can't redistribute those seeds (or seeds made from those seeds). If this were legal, then Monsanto could be cut out of the picture after the first sale. Farmers could just go to "special" grain elevators who were known to have Monsanto seed progeny and pick up some good cheap stuff. In this case, Monsanto would never be able to recoup the time and billions of dollars spent developing those seeds. It's important to therefore realize that farmers who use Monsanto seeds forfeit their right to distribute seeds to grain elevators; this is their choice.
Farmers choose to use Monsanto seeds. If they still want to distribute seeds to grain elevators, then they can't use Monsanto's products. If it's so crucial that they use Monsanto products, then all hail Monsanto for saving the grain market -- it would have failed (or at least done more poorly) otherwise. And if Monsanto is price gouging, then competitors should have no problem creating alternative products and undercutting them... but they can't because of the aforementioned time and billions spent (which Monsanto needs to recoup or they can't make these "crucial" products).
Although it's easy to paint a David and Goliath portrait here and shed tears for the poor farmers getting sued by a big corporation, right and wrong aren't so black and white here. There's a reason why the laws (made by the people) are defending Monsanto's products here. It's simply not an easy case.
It's a statement of a very plain and rather limited personal opinion. It contains no argument, no additional facts, no exploration or suggestion of consequences or alternatives. For example, should seeds be freely re-plantable and research funded publicly? Or not funded at all? Or should some other form of funding or protection be granted? What are the negative consequences and why does the poster believe them to be greater than any benefits? How does the statement add to the discussion? Where is the, umm, insight?
All it tells us is that there exists one person on slashdot who doesn't like either seed or software patents, which we already know, and that five others have decided to use the '+1 insightful' option as if it meant '+1 I agree'. The comment is worthless and the moderators are lying....sounds like a good reason for someone to down-mod it to me.