300k Organic Farmers To Sue Monsanto For Seed Patent Claims 617
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.'"
Wait! (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the very fact that second-hand seed is disallowed already is evil. So no grey in this case.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Couldn't happen to a nicer corporation! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:1, Insightful)
99% of farmers are obliterated by lawsuits claiming $100 million in damages. And meanwhile, these seeds are about as healthy as dioxin.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Patents on LIVING things are total bullshit! (Score:2, Insightful)
They bent the law to allow these patents, and this is where we are today! We need to petition our congresspeople to BAN all patents on living organisms!
Take this with a grain of salt (Score:3, Insightful)
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/ [rt.com])
Maybe we should all be more worried about the internet disappearing than Monsanto's evil deeds.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
And meanwhile, these seeds are about as healthy as dioxin.
Exaggerate much?
Re:Wait! (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be possible for the farmers to sue Monsanto, not just as a response to their suits, but for polluting their crops. If Monsanto claims ownership of the genes, then the fact that those genes are trespassing is also Monsanto's fault.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
It's obvious to me (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait! (Score:5, Insightful)
She tries to be fair, but be aware it's very anti-Monstanto[...]
Theses two things aren't mutually exclusive.
whoa, man, like, go _natural_ (Score:5, Insightful)
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?"
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why bother with all the difficulty of real live things?
Just write poem, then a computer virus that places a copy of said poem onto the victim's hard drive and emails you their personal information.
Sue them for copyright infringement.
Profit.
PS: What the hell happened to mens rea? I was under the impression it was a necessary component for a great many crimes. Wouldn't this sort of copyright interpretation have some nasty side effects? Like you could be held accountable if you buy a book from the Kindle store and it turns out the person who uploaded it doesn't actually hold the copyright?
I suppose things like law and precedent (both past and future) go right out the window when the plaintiff has enough money.
COUNTERSUE! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
ButButBut, he didn't BUY the seeds, he LICENSED them!
You're modded "Funny", but that's actually Monsanto's argument.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:3, Insightful)
I meant laboratory cross breeding at the gene level, maybe I should have been more specific. Basic breeding takes 2 animals and get them to mate creating a new animal that hopefully inherits the *good* qualities of both previous animals. Genetic engineering allows you to CHOSE which traits get passed on. Once you can do it artificially (no sex), you can cross-breed different species, then you can pull individual traits from one species and put them into another, then you can start creating your OWN traits and put them in. No matter how you do it, you still have a normal animal (or plant) at the end, it's just been artificially evolved.
Had someone in the caveman erra genetically modified (at the gene level) a wolf into what is now a chihuahua, they would have been labeled evil and unnatural and probably had their new creation banned from public availability. But because the chihuahua was creating through old-fashioned selective breeding, we don't think twice about it (well, unless you neighbour has one that won't stop barking).
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
60 family farms (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:whoa, man, like, go _natural_ (Score:5, Insightful)
You gotta put it into accurate terms that most slashdotters can understand:
Organic = Open Source
GM = Closed Source
(I was partially going for a joke but this is accurate regardless...)
Re:Take this with a grain of salt (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of RT's "propaganda" is also reporting on the stuff that the American media blacks out. Sure there's spin and BS, but it's no different than nearly every other news source in America.
Reminds me of Sins of a Solar Empire a bit...
Re:Wait! (Score:5, Insightful)
"I suppose that they do not realize that the Native Americans also crossbred their crops, thus genetically modifying their food. "
That has to be the king of all straw-man arguments!
Monsanto has not just been "cross-pollinating" crops. They have been mixing in genes from animals, not just plants, some of them genetically modified themselves. That is NOT something that normally happens in nature.
Monsanto, and certain other corporations, want to rule your food supply. It is as simple as that. And there is no way in Hell they should be allowed to do that.
I hope they lose their shirts.
Re:Sue them for damaging private property (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's just say I grow Red Kuri squash. I get a premium for it. Then my neighbor grows Blue Hubbard. It cross pollinates. My seed is now a hybrid, no longer the pure OP line. What if I grow seedless citrus, then my neighbor grows some citrus of another variety. they cross pollinate, now I have seeds in my citrus. Should I have the right to sue? I don't think so. Cross pollination is cross pollination, and it doesn't just apply in GE crops. What if I grow rice and have a special market for people who believe science is evil and don't want the naturally occurring sd-1 gene 'contaminating' their rice, and my modern variety growing neighbor's plants cross with mine and now sd-1 is expressed in some of my rice? Why is it that farmers have been able to deal with these problems for years, then organic growers come along and suddenly there's talk of lawsuits? Think about what being able to sue for cross pollination really means. It's absolutely absurd if you know anything about agriculture.
Re:Is there a more mainstream news source for this (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Then read this. [cornucopia.org] 60 farmers. Not 300,000. Think critical about this: is a movement that lies to you going to give you good information about Monsanto and genetic engineering?
Is Monsanto the best company int the world? No. Are they the great Satan they're made out to be? They're not that either. The reason you see so much hate for Monsanto is because GE crops work. They work well, farmers are neither stupid nor powerless and they buy GE seed for a reason, and they're safe [biofortified.org]. If, for some reason, you dislike genetic engineering, there's only one way to reconcile these facts with you're superstitions: conspiracy. Think about how anti-vaxxers describe Merck or Pfizer, or what creationists say about evolutionary biologists. Same thing. I'm certainly not saying you should take anything Monsanto says at face value, be skeptical about them too, but 99% of what you hear about them is, quite frankly, just bullshit by the scientifically illiterate anti-GMO crowd.
They will not lose their shirts, we will (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope they lose their shirts.
I am afraid Mosanto will not lose its shirt
The politicians will support them
The politicians will write laws to protect Mosanto
And the courts will side with Mosanto
That's the rule of the law in this modern world we live in
Governments in the world do not need their citizens
Citizens, to most governments in this world are considered "burdens"
Corporations like Mosanto, on the other hand, in the eyes of governments in this world, are "Paymasters"
Re:It's obvious to me (Score:5, Insightful)
But there would had to be some kind of negligence on your part for them to win.
How can you be liable if there are no actions taken on your part to create the situation, and no reasonable measures you can take to prevent it?
Re:Wait! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think your focusing on the wrong thing. I understand from an eco-systems point of view why GM can be a hazardous thing by creating over-successful eco-system invaders (like grasses that wipe out native species etc), but GM itself isn't an inherent harm. We've been at it as a species since we first started selectively breeding plants and animals. This is kind of the next level stuff.
The problem with GM is twofold
1) Creating dependence on harmful pesticides that are themselves probably far worse for the eco-system than anything inherent to the plant itself. This has been an environmental wrecking-ball in places like argentina
and
2) Creating dependency in third world countries on seed providers who sell terminator seeds meaning that traditional self-sufficiency practices like seed-saving become worthless, and are replaced with a situation where desparately poor people have to pay ridiculous annual fees to monsanto where in the past they paid none. This creates essentially a privatized taxation on farming practices and thats economically *very* harmful for poverty stricken third world people.
GM could be a godsend to the third world. Higher yields and better nutrition could save literally millions of lives. But at the hands of companies like monsanto its being turned into a weapon against the poor and the middle class, and thats a very bad thing.