Plant a Seed, Get Sued? 732
Friar_MJK writes "Now even traditionally non-tech-savvy farmers are getting the rap for piracy. This isn't your grandma's p2p filesharing, but rather replanting bio-engineered seeds. Somehow the powers-that-be got the idea that replanting seeds grown from your own soil is a crime. A company called Monsanto sells those specially engineered seeds, and according to their license agreements, they make it illegal to replant the seeds harvested from a previous crop. To enforce this, they have brought many hard-working farmers to court and even thrown some in jail. According to the story, the company has not lost a case yet." We've had a couple of stories about Monsanto suing a Canadian farmer, but there hasn't been a lot of U.S. press devoted to the issue.
Mother Nature Brought up on Charges (Score:5, Funny)
"I swear, it looked like one of mine", exclaimed Ms. Nature, while being being booked. Several scattered, unharvested seed from a bio-engineered crop sprouted this Spring and the Monsanto Seed Police were right on top of it.
Unrelated to this incident, Peter Rabbit was charged with Intellectual Property theft, after taking a bio-engineered cabbage from Farmer McGregor's garden. "It sure looked good, all big and green, but it tasted like wood pulp", stated the incarcerated rabbit.
In other news, to show it's kind heart, Monsanto was offering assistance to Tsunami victims. "As long as they don't try replanting our seed", said an anonymous source within the company.
Re:Mother Nature Brought up on Charges (Score:3, Funny)
The Easter Bunny has just announced that, starting this year, all Easter eggs will be replaced with Monsanto GM Chocolate Tomatoes.
Disclaimer... Anyone experiencing the mild side effect of having Monsanto GM Chocolate Tomato vines growing out your ears due to eating GM Chocolate Tomatoes will be required to apply for a specially discounted "personal use" license. Volume discounts are available on request.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled posts.
Shitdrummer.
Great defense? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can charge them with tresspassing...
or maybe illegal dumping???
What you people think?
Re:Great defense? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great defense? (Score:5, Insightful)
But there's a problem with this. He was doing what plant breeders have been doing for ten thousand years: noticing which plants have a desirable property and saving the seeds from those. Monsanto is basically arguing for the end of agriculture as it was traditionally carried out, and certainly the end of subsistence agriculture (as their seeds, if they have a property that lets them out-compete other seeds, will spread everywhere). You'll either pay Monsanto or you won't eat.
Re:Great defense? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.commonground.ca/iss/0401150/percy_schm
Re:Mother Nature Brought up on Charges (Score:4, Funny)
first post (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:first post (Score:5, Interesting)
Not so simple- if your NEIGHBOR buys their seed, and you have the same type of crop, cross pollination by the wind could turn you into an Intellectual Property Pirate.
Re:first post (Score:3, Insightful)
Bringing about THOSE TYPES of lawsuits is a very dubious thing to do. Monsanto (I believe) has done this in the past, and it should not be allowed.
But if you'd RTFA - in the case we're talking about now, the guy saved and re-used the seeds he bought from Monsanto - which he had previously agreed not to do.
In this specific instance, Monsanto has a good case. But indeed, in the ones that you refer to - they're just being ignorant assholes.
Re:first post (Score:5, Funny)
Re:first post (Score:3, Funny)
Re:first post (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't weave up a whole arguement based on a contrived supposition.
Re:first post (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27041 [ipsnews.net]
Quoting that article:
"In the well-known case of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, pollen from a neighbour's GE canola fields and seeds that blew off trucks on their way to a processing plant ended up contaminating his fields with Monsanto's genetics.
The trial court ruled that no matter how the GE plants got there, Schmeiser had infringed on Monsanto's legal rights when he harvested and sold his crop. After a six-year legal batt
Re:first post (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, yeah. And these movies just happened to sprinkle onto my computer on the way to my neighbors house.
Re:first post (Score:4, Insightful)
Different license Agreements (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:first post (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:first post (Score:3, Insightful)
Just as if a record company came into my house and recorded thier songs on my blank CDs, they couldn't sue me for pirating thier songs, but I would sue them for damaging my CDs.
This is pure evil! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's like if I were to write a computer worm, then sue people who get infected by it for violating the terms under which I license it!
This is pure evil.
Re:This is pure evil! (Score:3, Funny)
SCO, RIAA, MPAA, et al don't need any more ideas...
Re:This is pure evil! (Score:5, Informative)
Is this not common knowledge in the US? (the suing over seeds bit) If not, perhaps the European reaction to GM crops is more understandable to some americans now.
It wasn't just about having modified crops, it was about the whole way it worked: They're not modifiying crops to make them better, they're modifiying them so they sell more of their pesticide.
At least that was the issue for me anyway...
Nobody else here understands plants so.... (Score:5, Informative)
Beans are different. Beans are not hybreds because its just not economical to industrially produce hybred seeds. Beans self polinate, and ONLY SELF POLINATE! Its impossible to get your beans contiminated fron your neighbor's field because they dont disperse pollen. Each flower is contained, and they are not polinated by wind, nor insects. Its impossible to have pollen contamination unless you intentionally do it. This involves getting on your knees with a tiny brush and cutting off the stamen of the mother flower and then brushing on pollen colledted from a father plant flower on the pistil of the mother flower. This single flower will then produce a pod of beans containing a grand total of 3 seeds. You can do it in a lab and it only takes a few hours per plant (1 hour per 100 seeds). But because the plants are selfpolinating, the seeds from a normal farmer's crop are all true. He could simply replant them and never pay the money that was spend to develop the plant. (thousands of tries of combinations of plants crossbreeding them in a lab for an incredible amount of work. So the seed companies require famers not to replant their patented seeds. Some may want to anyway, and like any other form of illegial copying, the companies does, and has the legal right to, prosecute the copyright infringment.
Re:first post (Score:3, Informative)
Doesn't matter according to Monsanto- and they won that case too.
Re:first post (Score:3)
Ah, but this was exactly the case in the Canadian farmer's case. Seeds landed on his property on their own, and Monsanto did sue, and won. Signing a license is not required to be sued successfully. This is the hostility stems from more than anything else.
Re:first post (Score:2, Informative)
This is nothing unusual or unreasonable. The farmer's have an agreement with Monsanto. The agreement lets them use the seeds they bought to produce a single crop. If they don't like that agreement, then they don't have to buy the seeds!
This, by the way, is one of the main reasons that seedless crops have been developed. There is, of course, the benefit of not having to deal with the seeds when harvesting or eating the produce, but it also helps enforce the use agreements on them.
Next time you
And we wonder why Africa doesn't want them... (Score:4, Insightful)
Haven't we at least learned anything from Microsoft about single-source monopolistic controls? And this is food! I'm starting to think we deserve our new fascist state.
Plant A Seed, Get sued... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Plant A Seed, Get sued... (Score:3, Interesting)
Monsanto is the true farmer's Sauron. Monsanto is about chemical factory farming (in other words, anti-Farming). My best friend is a small farmer. He has some livestock, he leases out his tobacco allotment (this is Virginia), and he raises some small "cash crops" which are all legal and vary from year to year. Unless he's not telling me everything. He steadfastly refuses to use chemicals and accept subsidies
Re:Plant A Seed, Get sued... (Score:3, Informative)
This is not the case of some poor, hapless chump who had some accidental cross-polination imposed upon him, this is someone who knowingly bought Monsanto's seed, agreed not to harvest the seeds, and did so anyways. Sounds like an open and shut case, and no threat whatsoever to American farmers who honor their contracts.
Re:Plant A Seed, Get sued... (Score:3, Informative)
My dad is an independent farmer with a medium sized operation. When it comes to corn and cotton, all he plants is genetically engineered seed. It just so happens that pest resistant seed is a lot cheaper in the final analysis than "natural" seed + chemical pesticide application. Yes, even taking into consideration the fact that he has to buy the seed every year.
Re:Plant A Seed, Get sued... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, I sure hope they don't jack up the price when all the non-Monsanto farmers are gone...
preventing the ecocaust (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's one of the larger threats facing the planet. People think about nukes or terror attacks or whatnot, but I think mucking around with the planets food supply with GM products will eventually result in some rather nasty disasters. I simply *don't* trust those industries spokesmodel scientists to be anywhere nears truthful on the subject. IMO, they are simply too blinded by economic greed to seriously acknowledge the inherent dangers in what they are doing. We've seen the same arrogance and public assurances of "safe" with any number of past "new shiny and improved" products that turned out to be not so swift. Just generally speaking now, could be anything, thinking that just relocating species to brand new areas was a good idea (carp, english sparrows, kudzu, etc). Releasing chemcicals for various purposes, medications that turned out to be more harmful than good or had unintended side effects, etc that were missed in the "scientific testing".
I am sure they are intellectually aware of it,back to these various GM modded plants, but that itch for buckets of scratch is just too strong for them to ignore. I know they are capable of creating most anything now, and I have read some amazing claims on what they can do with them, make new medicines, etc, but still...I just don't know if *they* know way down the road how things will turn out. Here's a good analogy, well, good enough for slashdot purposes. Look at software code, people can look at it and use it for awhile and it seems fine, perfectly ok, then one day someone does something just a tad different and POOF a large vulnerability is exposed. With code (in most cases), it's not that big of a deal, it just gets fixed, but with live growing things? Wind blowing pollen around, trucks hauling stuff hither and yon...it could get messy. Look at down in Louisiana now, the last batch of hurricanes brought up a nasty disease that's spreading all through the soybeans now. Stuff happens, planetary wildcards happen. I think with "food" they should go real s-l-o-w and careful. Wouldn't bother me a bit if they studied their products for decades before even teeny tiny uber controlled trials out in the open.
As to "always be able to purchase non GM.." you should investigate what's going down in a lot of african countries and in india lately on this front. Even in Iraq, we had as thread on Iraq and farmers just a little while ago, like last month. They -monsanto they and others- are actively trying to corner "the market" there with their brands of seeds through the legislative (read:bribes) process. They are as far from playing fair as you can get. They tried to even patent a widely used Indian wheat that's been openly grown and shared around India for thousands of years, and they didn't even invent it! It's a form of wheat that lacks some markers that causes it to be not as "sticky" in baking as regular wheat, it has lower gluten content, that's where Indians get their "flat bread". Monsanto ups and patents it! Just said "ya,we own it, give us a patent" and the freekin patent office rubber stamps it! In india they are fighting it, they had to fight in in england
Quick, act surprised! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Quick, act surprised! (Score:5, Insightful)
You talk like Monsanto can allow and disallow anything with their product.
Imagine that extending to every product in the world. Every Single Thing That "You" Own..
Either you're just a troll, or 200% clueless..
Controlling seeds and how other people use "your" product, just to create a higher profit, is unnatural, is not "Right" (whatever that means) and should not be allowed in law and ethics at all.
Monsanto does not have a right for profit, or maximum profit. It's just a company. Never forget that.
Why should seeds be burned just because a company sets arbitrary limits to its customers? Why should we tolerate to be held ransom to large international companies? We're talking about Life itself here.
My only rational conclusion must be that I have fed a troll. Nobody can be this stupid and cynical.
Why they're really suing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why they're really suing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Pulic service announcement (Score:5, Informative)
For the record, that is only an entry point, most of the exchange of genetic material happens much more informally.
Call them tree huggers or whatever, but these are the people that are keeping the world's genetic line available to all, and this started about the same time that the patent madness did. For obvious reasons. Think of this as the ham radio response to the internet.
For the record, I'm not even a botanist, or whatever, but I'm a member. I get requests maybe twice a month for things I'm growing, and I send them off. Kinda cool, right? At least, I think it is.
I don't need Monsanto's crap, and if they infect me, I will be pissed off, and they can count on me making that apparent.
Monsanto Sueing Farmers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Monsanto Sueing Farmers (Score:2)
Marketing Virus (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Monsanto Sueing Farmers (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the same kind of brilliant forward-thinking that produced DiVX single-use DVDs.
Re:Monsanto Sueing Farmers (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like every other company or person continues to survive after they've sold their developed seeds or plants. Keep putting out quality products and charge a fair price. This whole "we own the product afterwards" when it comes to organic matter is bullshit. What you think this is a unique situation where Monsanto is the first company who has spent time and money on developing a particular
Re:Monsanto Sueing Farmers (Score:3, Interesting)
Can I still have children? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wha...? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, farmer entered into an agreement with Monsanto, got it.
Somehow the powers-that-be got the idea that replanting seeds grown from your own soil is a crime.
No, somehow the powers-that-be got the idea that contracts are legally binding instruments.
What's the story here?
Re:Wha...? (Score:5, Insightful)
People, particularly americans, often confuse what is legal/illegal and what is right/wrong. Please don't.
Re:Wha...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't like it? Grow natural soy beans. Mother Nature's patent expired a long time ago.
Re:Wha...? (Score:3, Insightful)
You make it sound like what monsanto did was some amazing feat. They did not engineer a new species of soybean from the ground up. Nobody has yet to do that for anything but single-celled organisms. What they did was akin to crossbreeding, only more high tech. These patents aren't about custom made genes, they are patents on existing biological code made by nature, applied to a different species. All you have to do is
Re:Wha...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wha...? (Score:3, Insightful)
--jeff++
Re:Wha...? (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's BSD, which is why there is a problem.
Wha...?-The Old "/." (Score:4, Insightful)
I got a better question for Slashdot. Why should anyone clear up misconceptions, and provide more information? When we all know that it will go in one ear and out the other. So when the next story comes up, we get to listen to the same mistakes, over and over. Apparently there's a lot of talking (as witnessed by the post numbers). but there's absolutely no listening. I don't know about the rest of you. But I always thought that part of the definition of a geek, was someone willing to learn. Not having to be repeatedly told the same things over and over. Always willing to do research. Now it's talk loud, be a rebel, and speak from a position of ignorance.*
*Maybe the old "/." is dead, for all the people that made it was it was, have been driven off, in the pursuit of "karma".
Re:Wha...?-The Old "/." (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah. They learned. What you're seeing over and over again is new people hitting the same questions and reacting the same way.
Re:Wha...? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wha...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wha...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wha...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wha...? (Score:4, Insightful)
WHY?
They are his fields and his crops. Why is someone "supposed" to contact Monsano if Monsano pollen/seeds/whatever contaminates thier fields? Hell, what if they've never even heard of Monsano?
What if a farmer is growing, I dunno, kumquats. And while running his farm he decided he likes some of his kumquat crops better than others. Maybe they grow faster. Maybe there are more kumquats per plant. Maybe they don't get as chewed up by bugs. Maybe they better stand up to some typical farm chemical like RoundUp. Or maybe they simply smell kumquattier. Are you saying this farmer is supposed to run around calling every company in the country (or maybe every company in the world) and ask if if his kumquattier-smelling kumquats aren't really his or something? And that he is supposed to ask them to come haul off his crops? Whether this company is willing to offer him a check isn't really the point (even if we do ignore the question of that company getting to fill in whatever dollar amount they like). The point is whether this farmer with kumquattier-smelling kumquats is somehow liable under civil or criminal law for not running out and trying to find out if some company claims to own kumquattier-smelling kumquats, or for "failing" to contact such a company even if he already knew they existed.
When you say "should" you are presumably talking about legal liability for non-compliance. And that is an insane legal liability. One you apparently extend to an ordinary innocent farmer going about his routine business exactly as he has every season for the last 20 years. And if his field is "contaminated" by some gain of pollen blowing in the wind, he is under some legal obligation to someone he has no business with, someone he never saw before, possibly even someone he never even heard of?
I certainly understand the motivation for "IP" laws. However good motivation does not equal good law. When you run into insane reults like this it is a BAD and BROKEN law, no matter how much you think we need to protect Mansano's "property".
-
Re:Wha...? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sitting in my livingroom. I've done nothing wrong. You're saying some random schmuck I've never heard of can barge into my house, haul me into a court room, waste my time, make me jump through all sorts of insane loops, and in general turn my life upside down. All of which is going to be a far more serious assault on me than any of my property you also say they get to steal. The theft is the lesser part of this assault.
Oh, and in case you somehow FORGOT, my second sentence was "I've
The Merchant of Venice (Score:4, Insightful)
The moneylender can take one pound of flesh without blood or hair, from the borrower.
Similarly, Monsanto should be able to the protect its magic gene, but not anything more.
If they can enforce their IP just to that gene but not anything else go for it. They are overly greedy and ignore (or forget) the fact that 99.99999% of the plant is contributed by the mother nature and generations of farmers who adopt the selective breeding technique (keep only the seed from a good and strong plant). To me it is a bit like adding a proprietary extension to Linux and claim the whole lot belong to yours. So sad that God forgets to sign GPL with Man
Re:Wha...? (Score:3, Interesting)
gather up as much of thier seeds and fly over
as many fields as possible and distribute the seeds
over them, eventually you'll pullute the entire
soybean crop of a nation with thier IP.
at that point something will be done to solve the impasse.
I don't see the problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
He is being sued because he saved and re-planted seeds. Exactly what he agreed not to do by purchasing the seeds in the first place.
Don't like the Terms and Conditions? Don't use their product.
There have been reports of VERY shady Monsanto lawsuits in the past that were really crappy - but this one seems fair enough.
Not Just Corn... (Score:3, Insightful)
Assholes always keep trying to make nature illegal. Har!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting. (Score:5, Funny)
I may apply this to my daughter.
Why would anyone buy seed from Monsanto? (Score:2, Insightful)
Once you buy their seed, it's very difficult to go back to non GM seed. Mostly just because Monsanto will hound you until they find just one unlicensed grain of their GM product on your land and sue you into oblivion.
Even 3rd world countries are aware of the potential problems. Some have even gone so far as to
This just in: farming is a business (Score:3, Insightful)
If you buy Monsanto's seed, you sign a contract that says that you won't save seed for next year. If you end up saving seed, you're in breach of contract. Point finale.
If you don't agree to their terms and conditions, you're not being forced by anybody to buy Monsanto seed. You'll just have to be content with other seed that doesn't have value-added traits such as herbicide or pest resistance.
Re:This just in: farming is a business (Score:3, Insightful)
You cannot remove all of the seed that you plant. There will be some that you plant which does not immediately germinate, and there will be some that spills off into the soil from the original stock.
If that "excess" plants, then the farmer is in violation of the contract unknowingly and unwittingly.
Further, there is the issue of the mature plants spreading to non-contracted farms and fields, "contaminating" the seed stock there with the contracted genetic code, and thus caus
Parent is Incorrect (Score:5, Interesting)
They sued an old man who tested to see if his canola seed (non-Monsanto variety) contained traces of the Roundup Ready canola variety, by spraying a small section with Round-up. It lived, and thus contained Monsanto's patented genetics. He did not ever plant this variety, but instead had gotten these traits from windblown pollen in previous years, from others' fields.
However, it was ruled that he's responsible for these traits appearing in his field, despite never using them, and not having a way to prevent them from appearing. He can't control pollen travelling through the air anymore than anyone else. But he's still responsible for some stupid reason.
However, I don't think this would fly in the US. Why? Well, first of all, Canadians tend to do this type of litigation. You know how there's a premium for CD-R's, DVD-R's and other recordable media that is paid to artists, with the assumption that piracy will occur? Well, it's pretty much the same deal here, and will end up the same way such litigation and legislation has in the US.
Old news (Score:3, Informative)
Remember Africa too! (Score:3, Interesting)
As I recall, Robert Mugabe (I think?) refused to accept gifts of genetically modified corn to his country from the US. As a condition of accepting the gift, he required that the corn be milled, thereby destroying it's capability to grow/sprout/etc, and rendering it impossible for Monsanto and the other giants from having a legal case against him.
I'm really surprised that the farmers are so stupid as to go along with this. Only a few months ago, Wired had an article
Re:Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
When the BSE story first broke, the UK government tried to convince the British public that British beef was safe (there is wonderful video footage of the environment minister of the time (John Gummer) publically feeding his daughter a beef burger - but she refused to eat it!). Anyway, the whole sorry saga led to two things. Firstly, the British people stopped trusting the government when they said that things were safe. Secondly, people became a lot more aware of what they were eating and sensitive to production methods. Remember, BSE came about because of greedy farmers, with the encouragement of the Thatcher government, feeding dead cows (meat) to living cows (herbivores).
So, sensitised to farming methods, the British public questioned the wisdom of genetically modifying food. Most of the concern was centred around the impossibility of undoing any genetic pollution that would result. The UK government (Blair in particular) have tried to tell everyone that GM is safe - but thanks to BSE, no-one believes them.
Our government has passed laws making GM crops legal, but fortunately, there has been such a strong anti-GM movement here, that supermarkets don't dare stock GM food. Since BSE, the British public have become slightly more aware of the way that food is produced.
This means that there is no profit to be made from GM crops and so no companies are even bothering to apply for licenses to grow them.
Re:Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
If food is marked "contains GM stuff" no one in Europe will buy it. Consequently the supermarkets don't want it. The importers don't want it, and even if the yield is higher, most farmers here don't want it cos they can't sell it. A few farmers have been bribed by Monsanto to try it out for test purposes. Several of those have joined the protest movement, not least because they contaminated their neighbours crops after being told it wouldn't happen. (Most farms in Europe are under 100 acres, so farmers have a lot of neighbours, and they are not very far away!)
Any MP/MEP caught voting for GM stuff risks losing his seat, so there is a tendency for our laws to prohibit it until its adequately tested.
The US has problems selling it to us because of consumer resistance. So they are threatening retaliation on the grounds that it is "illegal interference with free trade". Surely its interference with free trade to force people to sell what their customers won't buy?
Re:Old news (Score:3, Insightful)
Obvious question (Score:5, Interesting)
The bigger story here (Score:5, Interesting)
Sweet deal for Monsanto, and it makes growing soybeans very easy and profitable of course, but where does all that Roundup go, do you think? Can you say, Water Table? There are a lot of people very worried about the over use of Roundup by a lot of farmers in the midwest.
MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:5, Informative)
glyphosate is an amino acid analog designed to inhibit enzymes needed for neogenesis (the target supposedly being 5-enolpyruvyl-shikimate-3 phosphate synthase) of the plants amino acids.
while glyphosate has not been found to be harmful to humans, the inactive ingredient surfactant (which makes up 15.0% of roundup), polyoxy-ethyleneamine, IS known to be toxic to humans and is typically contaminated with dioxanes (as a byproduct of the formation of it) which is a known human carcinogen.
Sue the birds... (Score:2, Insightful)
We can enforce our opinions as law when they hire the new farmer-overlord judges. Anyone here with an opinion to enforce?
perfect for monsanto.. (Score:3, Insightful)
just once.
and grows them alongside his own.. or whatever.. then he must buy from monsanto for all eternity after that, because monsanto can argue that there's their ip in that crop regardles...
so cheaper, more effective crop becomes more expensive thanks to force of law.
Copy-Protected Food (Score:2)
Despite the fact that, "contracts should be respected," and "R&D investments should be protected," this is still fairly wacked. But it's not nearly as wacked as Monsanto Terminator seeds. Do a Google search on it.
Intellectual "property" needs a fundamental re-think.
Schwab
why people hate corporate America (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, many people maintain that they never used Monsanto seeds. Their plants were very likely cross polinated by Monsanto crops growing nearby. And yet Monsanto is sueing them. Insane.
Second of all, I buy large bags of seed to feed to wild animals all of the time. There is nothing explicit or implicit in my purchase of these seeds that agrees that I will not replant the corn. However, if I were to plant this corn and it so happened to contain Monsanto seed (which I realistically have no way of knowing) how could I be legally lible to Monsanto, who I have had no dealing with? A the very least Monsanto should require that corn produced with their seeds be properly labeled so this does not happen, but instead of requiring it by contract to the farmers that they supply, they have agressive fought the labeling of corn produced by their seed.
Viral Marketing (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine if your next-door neighbor's EULA click obligated *you* to subscribe to Microsoft's trusted computing, while you also had to install Windows antispyware, though you installed only Linux on your machines.
Big issue in ROW (Score:5, Interesting)
Europeans are well aware of the issue; the anti-GM protesters have used it very effectively to win support. There are stories in the news of non-GM farmers being sued because of cross-polination that they weren't aware of and had no control over, and it has upset a lot of people.
There are African countries that have refused food aid from the US because it would include GM crops. That grain would be useless to a rural African, because the first thing they would want to do would be to keep a portion of it to plant for next year, even if it was intended as food aid (that's how subsistence farming works).
Personally, I avoid engineered food for other reasons, but the legal issues are certainly helping to put a lot of other people off them as well.
Monsanto has a point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Farmers do not collect their own seed generally- they harvest their corn, and repurchase seed every spring. That's the way it is done. There is no sense in harvesting corn for seed and it is rarely practiced. If you've got good corn you sell it at price It's cheaper and easier to go to the Coop and get more seed each spring.
The genetically engineered corn is actually the life blood of many farmers- yes even the small ones. They plant tracts of corn that are then observed for the quality of the corn. I lived in an area of TN that Monsanto and others used for testing- you've never sen more curious rows of corn.
Monsanto is engineering a seed that produces better product. The result is simple- a farmer sees that he can harvest the engineered corn and create his own seed for less than Monsanto charges for the engneered product. That would be the only reason to replat Monsanto seed- the last thing any farmer wants to do is more work than they have to, but if they can get Monsanto's branded seed for less, they will do so.
In addition, they can at that point actually sell seed that was engineered by Monsanto for their own profit. Monsanto actually engineers the seed to help the farmers bottom line- to make them more productive.
However, I do agree that suing the little guy in this is pointless. the big agriculture corporate farms would be the major players if "seed copying" ever became a huge problem.
Still, you've got to realize that the reseeding farmer is trying to save money by copying superior product. Call it the genetic equivalent of P2P or whatever you like, but trying to use superior seed to grow it to avoid paying- that's not quite kosher.
The farmers would be motivated though because in this day and age, family farming is nearly an impossible adventure- the cost are astronomical and the payoff risky as hell.
Re:Monsanto has a point. (Score:5, Informative)
Monsanto is just wrong.
Re:Monsanto has a point. (Score:3, Interesting)
Contrary to the poster's assertion whether or not seed is collected and reused depends on the crop and the preference of the farmer. He makes sweeping generalizations based upon his observations of a single crop (corn) in a single locale.
When I was a kid working on farms in Oregon, for example, it was common to collect seed and replant for most crops. Doing otherwise was thought of as wasteful, sloppy, and lazy. It's more common to buy seed now, but then it's generally more profitab
This is VERY IMPORTANT (Score:4, Insightful)
I have challenged the supermarkets where I live to label foods that are genetically engineered. They cannot of course do anything but the more noise I make the more aware other people become. So this is the little revolt that I am making.
Now the issue is that Rape (now called canola) has been genetically engineered so it is resistant to roundup. Percy Schmeiser had his feild contaminated with Monsanto genetically altered seeds and rather than the supreme court of Canada finding that Monsanto is to blame for not keeping their experiments in the lab the court instead found Schmeiser to be liable for not being able to keep Monsanto experiments out of his feilds.
The logic of this totally excapes me.
The economics of the agricultural community are such that even a minor percentage inprovment in productivity will be picked up by a select few. The consequence of this is that in the long term no-one wins. The reason farm income is low is because from an economic standpoint there is almost perfect competition so everyone competes to the lowest income people can survive on. This is how commodity markets work.
From the standpoint of sustainable agriculture however - this is a very dangerous development.
First off we end up with only selected strains being planted across vast acerages. Next we end up with Monsanto (95% of the genetically altered seeds come from Monsanto) controlling the distribution of these seeds and to top it off we now have an uninformed court ruling that 100,000 years of workable agriculture where any farmer is free to develope any strain of seed is to be replaced with a regime where Monsanto Labs rule the roost.
Not only this - those genetically altered seeds will form some of the most viralent weeds one can imagine.
But - what if we end up with 100% of the farm land planted with a single strain and some biological vector brings in an infection. This will result in close to a 100% crop failure. Anyone who knows of the consequences of the Irish Potatoe Blight should realise what this will mean.
Genetic alteration is not necessarily bad. What is bad is mono culture. When we get a ruling that the individual farmers are somehow responsible for preventing contamination of their seed then we move into a world where a single corporate interest can control the seeds all farmers use.
This leads directly to mono-culture and all farmers are forced into abandoning their individual strains. The result of this mono-culture will be a massive crop failure at some point in the future.
So the judges may have been well schooled in law but they are ignorant of the biology which provides the food they eat.
As I said before - as a lone voice the only thing I can do is bitch and complain which I do. What we really need to do is get a very strong movement going. Even a million voices are not enough. The disaster mono-culture can precipate can be much larger than the Tsunami that just hit SE asia.
This is royally fucked up... (Score:3, Insightful)
What happened outside our overly optimistic minds? Corporate greed took over, corporations like monsanto created new pesticides and the correlated pesticide resistant plants, they had their lawyer draw up special license agreements - and the promise of feeding humanity with less pollution and higher efficiency was broken down to higher corporate profits. I was not a part of this personally, but simply the fact of being employed in a related field makes me bow my head in shame for all this great opportunities given away and sacrificed on the altar of capitalism.
Patent office? Yes, I'd like to patent life itself (Score:3, Interesting)
This illustrates perfectly what is wrong with "Intellectual Property." Aside from the egregious abuses that Monsanto has been guilty of in this particular case. For example, suing farmers who DON'T use Monsanto seeds when seeds blow in from a neighboring farm which does, going after farmers who break off the deal (it would be nearly impossible to eradicate all traces of the previously-planted Monsanto seeds, so chances are high that any farm which has ever used Monsanto's seeds still have some lying around in their soil, giving Monsanto grounds for a lawsuit), and many other abuses. While unproven, Monsanto has even been accused of "planting" (in both the sense of planting a seed, and planting evidence) their crops on the farms of those who refuse to use their crops.
To my thinking, arguing that "patents" are applicable to any living organism or any part thereof (including its DNA sequence or any portion thereof) is dangerous and absolutely ludicrous. If someday it becomes possible to genetically engineer humans to cure them of crippling genetic diseases, will that person have to later purchase a "license" to have children, and the children, if they receive the modified gene, will have to also purchase such a license, and so on...
"Intellectual property" is out of control. Time to bring it back to reality (max. 5 year length of copyright/patent, only tangible, non-living, truly unique items patentable, no personal use restrictions) or, better yet, abolish entirely the dated and inappropriate concept that a person (or, worse yet, a pseudo-person known as a "corporation") can OWN an idea. This case makes the perfect argument that such laws do great harm FAR beyond college kids sharing a few movies.
One way to get the genetically altered seeds (Score:5, Informative)
A very simple way for the seed to show up is if Schmeiser hauled a load of seed into an elevator for cleaning. This is a very normal practice in Saskatchewan. I have personally done this.
Elevators have rather decent cleaning equipment and it does not cost all that much to run the seeds through.
The issue is that elevator agents will sometimes substitute seed and not tell the farmer. This is so very simple to do and clearly from an efficiency standpoint why not switch the bins instead of making the customer wait?
If Schmeiser hauled a single load into an elevator this is all that would be necesary. He didn't know and the elevator agent also had no idea of the consequences.
That being said - another more sinister explanation is that bees like to spread the genes around. Biological studies have proven that a bee will go to a plant with a different genetic makup for its next load of honey. This is probably built right into the genetics of a bee.
If so - then Monsanto genes would be spread willy nilly all over the place and there is NOTHING a farmer like Schmeiser can do to prevent this. It makes perfect sense that biodiversity will enhance bees' food supplies. 500 million years of evolution will favor bees that maximise the bio-diversity of the plants which produce the honey they consume. Any bee colony practicing mono-culture may well have died out millions of years ago when their food source failed.
Monsanto in GE bribery scam (Score:5, Interesting)
More at: http://www.greenpeace.org.au/features/features_de
Monsanto: exploiting the starving (Score:3, Interesting)
The "technology" is a fancy word for genetically designing the next-generation seeds sterile, so that the farmers can't grow any new plants from the seeds produced from plants grown by Monsanto seeds.
Now, very few things pisses me off to the extent that this kind of behaviour does. (I can actually start sweating, merely thinking about this)
The idea of exploiting the starving seems to be good business for the Monsanto people.
This kind of behaviour - maximizing profits, disregard for human life, and the complete lack of any moral consideration, is, I believe, one of few that is taking us in a direction which ultimately will bring down the sad downfall (sudden, fiery death for the masses is still a threat) of humanity.
To me, the people who profit from selling these "Terminated seeds" (I here refrain from spilling my thoughts too bluntly, especially avoiding a sentence containing a suggested use of the words "Monsanto executives" and "terminate") to starving people, occupy a niche lower in the food chain than people who murder the elderly for money, and those who sell women and children for sexual exploitation and their personal profit.
Please, even if you disagree with my views, let at least the facts about this be known.
Re:Not "illegal" (Score:5, Insightful)
True enough- except for Monsanto has been successfull in suing farmers who DIDN'T SIGN THE CONTRACT for patent infringement, so it's also illegal.
Re:Not "illegal" (Score:2)
Why not sue the plants for unauthorized duplication? It's the plants who are infringing on the rights of Monsanto.
Providing a self replicating product and then suing people for it could be perceived as a form of corporate entrapment.
Re:Not "illegal" (Score:3, Interesting)
That's what Monsanto wants you to believe, but the truth is that they had to stop calling their product biodegradable because it is persistent. It's also very toxic for plants and animals. Just google for "roundup biodegradable" and see for yourself.
Re:Not news (Score:2)
Re:Ask Slashdot ... (Score:2)
Re:Oh yes, I completely understand. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Informative)
It is patently false that Monsanto's lawsuits only target contract holders. They sue every farmer who saves seed from the same crops as Monsanto-owned crops within the same geographical area.
A quick search turned up Monsanto v Schmeiser, a Canadian farmer kept from growing canola because he chose to save seed from his naturally-produced strains which became crossed with Monsanto-owned strains. It is an impossibility to prevent cross-pollination in most uncontrolled environments, thus the burden should be on Monsanto farmers to prevent pollen drift, rather than those whose crops are infected.
Monsanto puts farmers out of business with their predatory legal practices, plain and simple. They force their way into markets that they otherwise can't access by suing farmers who won't buy seed every year. If they can get one farmer in a geographical area to sign up, pollen and seed end up contaminating all same-species crops in the area, making seed-saving illegal. Shame on anyone who does that.