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:Wait! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes... this is essentially what has been happening. Plus as part of the agreement that small farmers MUST sign they can not keep any of of their crop to be "cleaned" and used for next year's seed. The agreement essentially makes it that the plant is owned by Monsanto. Even if farmers steer clear of Monsanto seed, if there is any cross pollination and the the gene that Monsanto "owns" gets to be part of the crop then the seed police come knockin'.
If you are interested in more information about this and the other evil that Monsanto has been a part of, take a look at the movie and the book "The World According to Monsanto" [wikipedia.org] by Marie-Monique Robin. She tries to be fair, but be aware it's very anti-Monstanto since they used the trick of never talking to her about anything.
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.
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: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.
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.
Re:Wait! (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Couldn't happen to a nicer corporation! (Score:5, Insightful)
Something we all should be concerned about... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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: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:whoa, man, like, go _natural_ (Score:4, Informative)
Addressing the lot of responses...
Eating poison ivy or fire: Co-evolution with a species is critically dependent on the manner of interaction between the species. That is, using a plant as a poison for millennia does not mean it's also safe to eat. It does mean it's likely to be a good poison.
Modern crops are different from older species, just by hybridization/breeding: Yes. But they're based on the genes of crops that have co-evolved with humans, using a process that's also naturally occurring (though using it somewhat artificially). And they may indeed be lacking benefits afforded by progenitor cultivars and species. Likely no one tested the resulting breeds for the subtle (and certainly not the unknown) benefits of the original species when selecting their "successes". Older species are probably better for you, generally, if not as tasty or pretty.
Many or most modern food plants are a novelty to any given person's ancestry: True, but not a novelty to humans in general. So the question here is how much pressure is put on the humans to evolve versus the crops? Also, there are differences between what foods different races can tolerate.
What's precaution [wikimedia.org] and what's science-stifling irrational fear:
As stupid as that may sound at first, there is actually a very important concept being asked about. What's prudent and what's ignorantly fearful?
We need to weigh several factors. The possibility and degree of benefit. The possibility and degree of harm. The amount of knowledge we have about the topic. The amount of knowledge we have about the scope of the topic. (Rumsfeld's "known knowns" and "unknown unknowns" idea.) My review of these leaves me on the side of playing it safe.
The primary wildcard that makes me sit up and pay close attention to folks playing with the genes of food crops is the fact that "Life finds a way." Crops breed out of our control. We've seen it already with GMO. If you're not using a time-tested method for changing crop genes (breeding, for example), you want to figure out more clearly what kind of results you'll be making. Fuck it up in a bad way and the "life finds a way" factor could leverage your mistake into a catastrophe.
But, even if life does tend to find a way, I'd be for scientists experimenting with Frankenstein GMO crops in tightly controlled environments, and testing the results over the course of a couple generations of test subjects. But I guess that's infeasible.
Likely we'll all be test subjects. And then we'll just have to wait a few generations to iron out the big problems, and a few hundred generations to smooth out the relationship, and a few hundred more generations to polish it out to a beautifully symbiotic sheen.
Re:Something we all should be concerned about... (Score:5, Informative)
It's way easier than that. All they need is to get one farmer in a region to use their seed, and the wind does the rest.
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:Take this with a grain of salt (Score:5, Informative)
It's a Russian's goverment foreign propaganda arm, so it usually tries to shoot down Western views on Syria, Egypt, Libya - you name it. But this news bit seems to be legit. This is definitely screwed up situation. I hope that company gets it's lesson well.
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:Take this with a grain of salt (Score:4, Interesting)
Get real, it is simply a Russian for profit multilingual tabloid, without ties to major US corporations, hence has no qualms about sticking it to US corporations. Of course they do tread lightly in Russian politics.
Off uniquely Russian political stance, you either sought power through wealth or through politics but not through both, to do both invites a more aggressive permanent solution to your excessive ego. In the interim http://rt.com/business/news/russia-privatization-1990-legitimacy-915/ [rt.com].
So is RT better or worse than US mass media, truth is, it is far better and nothing to do with politics, simply lacking ties to many multinational corporations it can stick it too them. I expect it will eventually be bought out and tow the psychopath corporate line.
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.
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: (Score:3)
We also seem to have lost mens rea. Where's the "guilty mind" when a farmer's crops are cross-pollinated by his neighbors', the same as every other year since the dawn of time?
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?
What are they farming? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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:COUNTERSUE! (Score:5, Informative)
That case was just two farmers trying to get class action status though. If this one is 300,000 farmers, then I suspect they'll have a much better chance.
Sue them for damaging private property (Score:5, Interesting)
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
.
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:Sue them for damaging private property (Score:5, Interesting)
My neighbor's dog come into my yard and damage my yard...my neighbor has to pay for restitution
Except Monsanto didn't plant it or own the original seed, a neighboring farmer did. If your neighbor's dog digs up your yard, the dog's owner is liable, not the pet store where he bought it.
Except from Monsanto's perspective the neighboring farmer doesn't own the seed -- he just licenses it.
Say we modify the analogy a little -- assume the neighbor's dog is attacking someone in your yard.
If the pet store knows the dog has a history of attacking people and rents the dog to your neighbor without telling him of the dog's history, who should be liable when the dog attacks someone?
Is there a more mainstream news source for this? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Is there a more mainstream news source for this (Score:4, Informative)
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.
A couple questions (Score:3)
1) At what percentage of GMO seed is Monsanto suing? If it's 5% it's probably contamination they should definitely not be suing, but if it's 95% than that's probably deliberate contamination.
2) How should their business model work? I find the idea of patented lifeforms and violation of first sale doctrine to both be repulsive. But if you're in the business of developing GMO crops how else can you fund your research?
Legal? (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
60 family farms (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm. Patenting life!?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Would it be easy to tell through genetic testing whether it was a second hand monsanto seed or a hybrid of it and another breed?
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)
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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: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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Funny)
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, Funny)
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.)
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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)
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.
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:5, Interesting)
You can even patent body parts - guy found that a hospital patented an unusual genetic quirk of his while studying his blood...
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:4, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Informative)
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: (Score:3, Funny)
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!!!
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, Informative)
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.
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.
Re: (Score:3)
Man, whatever Monsanto is paying you, it isn't enough. Spoken like a true flak.
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: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: (Score:3)
A lot of cheap-ass farmers will buy secondhand Monsanto seed from cleaners
Are you serious? The farming majority are being litigated out of existence because their neighbors Monsanto GMO corn can be cross-pollinated by natural processes (eg: wind, bees, animals). The farmers have _no_way_ to prevent this. How can they be held liable for that?
Monsanto is pulling sneaky, sleazy copyright sh*t on a bunch of people who are hardly making a living here.
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, Informative)
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.
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, Informative)
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".
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:4, Informative)
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 [usda.gov]
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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, Informative)
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".
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Informative)
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 [usda.gov], and states, in part:
So I'm convinced that the USDA will exclude any kind of GMO crop from certification as "organic".
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I recall reading/watching something saying that organic farming still used pesticides, but none of the new, probably better, synthetic ones. I guess they were 'natural source' pesticides. I guess wikipedia has a list of some.
Eh anyway, also in the same study I remember that on average it said most organic fruits did have much less pesticides on them when they hit the store, but all things end up equal after you rinse it off under water.
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, Informative)
Organic does not mean no pesticides. There are pesticides that are certified organic, see here [wikipedia.org].
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.
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National Organic Program: [usda.gov]
"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."
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Informative)
Read The Windup Girl [wikipedia.org] for a (fictionalized) glimpse at that thought.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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:4, Funny)
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I know that somehow (scent?) animals can tell the difference. If you have herbivorous animals and you give them a choice between eating naturally-occurring crops and genetically-engineered crops, they will eat the naturally-occurring ones every time. If nothing else is available they would eat the engineered ones but they definitely don't want to. Just like the way animals suddenly evacuate an area prior to a tsunami, don't you think maybe this is telling us something?
Yeah, it's telling us that there are poisonous plants out there and animals prefer a whitelist of known non-poisonous plants over a blacklist of known poisonous plants. We all know that whitelists are more secure than blacklists, why is it surprising that evolution played out that way, too?
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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, Informative)
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.
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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 spe
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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)
And meanwhile, these seeds are about as healthy as dioxin.
Exaggerate much?
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
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, Informative)
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... [independent.co.uk]
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.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Informative)
No they aren't sterile. [wikipedia.org] The terminator gene got SO MUCH bad press that they never were able to use it.
Re:I hate to defend Monsanto somewhat, but (Score:5, Informative)
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 [monsanto.com], from their own website. They make it pretty clear "Monsanto has never developed or commercialized a sterile seed product."
Re:Did they buy the seed because of the added feat (Score:5, Informative)
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