Monsanto May Have To Repay 10 Years of GM Soya Royalties In Brazil 377
scibri writes "Biotech giant Monsanto is one step closer to losing billions of dollars in revenues from its genetically-modified Roundup Ready soya beans, after the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled the company must repay royalties collected over the past decade. Since GM crops were legalized in 2005, Monsanto has charged Brazilian farmers royalties of 2% on their sales of Roundup Ready soya beans. The company also tests Brazilian soya beans that are sold as non-GM — if they turn out to be Roundup Ready, the company charges the farmers 3%. Farmers challenged this as an unjust tax on their business. In April a regional court ruled against Monsanto, though that ruling has been put on hold pending an appeal. The Supreme Court, meanwhile has said that whatever the final ruling is, it will apply throughout the whole country."
Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Informative)
Patents are the real problem. Monsanto designed these seeds to be sterile, so you have to keep rebuying the same product year-after-year (instead of just reusing last year's seeds for the new crop). Also the seeds cross-polinate to non-Monsanto seeds, polluting nature's generic seeds with Monsanto genes. And worst of all:
Monsanto has a nasty habit of suing innocent farmers who have decided to continue using the "generic" seeds provided by nature. They send-round lawyers to harass the farmers, issue threatening letters, and file court cases. Oftentimes these lawsuits bankrupt the farmer, which was Monsanto's original intent: To eliminate people who are not using their products. Their tactics are very similar to how the bastards at the RIAA and MPAA act, but very much more destructive.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Funny)
Monsanto has a nasty habit of suing innocent farmers who have decided to continue using the "generic" seeds provided by nature. They send-round lawyers to harass the farmers, issue threatening letters, and file court cases. /p>
So the plants make the farmers Roundup Ready as well?
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Interesting)
IMO, that qualifies as a crime against humanity.
This one example should end forever any discussion of the benefit from an unregulated free market. And no, regulations that are written by the companies being regulated do not qualify.
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Really? I mean... REALLY? You think it would be better to design seeds that could overtake the indigenous species and that there would be no backlash from that if it happened? Designing infertile seeds isn't a crime; it's a prudent ecological measure that also makes good business sense. Gnash your teeth all you want about the alignment of interests there, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still the best p
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This article is specifically about farmers who were using the fsking non-GM seeds, but Monsanto was going after them for a significant (considering the tiny profit margin for small farms) portion of their income.
That's the problem. Monsanto has designed their seeds to be the plant equivalent of the Mafia: Use my seeds? Fuck you, pay me. Didn't use my seeds? Fuck you, pay me. And don't ev
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The plants cannot produce seed if they are sterile, and with corn, the "seed" is the crop. The seed produced might be sterile, but this still does not seem to be the case since some farmers have been accused of saving and planting the supposedly "sterile" Monsanto seed. That said, the flowers need to pollinate in order to produce the Roundup Ready seed (ie crop). So cross pollination is virtually impossible to prevent unless those growing the plants are required to grow them indoors. But how would Monsa
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I don't think you understand how bad this stuff is. People are unsure if GMO is modifying *people* as well. So it's not just the patent and greed issues, GMO is literally affecting DNA/RNA. So it's another case where greed is literally bring down society in the same way as MPAA/RIAA.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Insightful)
And how do those genes get in the seed?
Are you seriously suggesting that there are illegal seed factories out there making generic versions of Monsanto's seeds?
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Informative)
They're called bees.
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Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Informative)
It wouldn't be a problem if the Roundup-Ready crops didn't produce pollen which would fertilise non-sterile seeds.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Just because the plant can't produce a seed (pollen or no) they call it sterile.
That's like calling a man sterile because he can't give birth.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe I'm just misreading your comment, but are you implying GE crops do not produce seed? You do realize that the thing in corn, canola, cotton, and soy (four of the big GE crops) that you use is the seed? It would be news to, well, everyone if those crops did not produce seed. Learn some basic crop physiology before making obviously baseless accusations.
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No, I'm saying they can engineer a plant so that a given pair of plants offspring cannot produce seed (think if it as a plant version of the mule). However, they can still produce pollen, so they are not really sterile, they just can't reproduce themselves - the pollen can fertilize a different species/cultivar.
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Well, technically the licensing agreement is what they like to rely on first. There are no laws that directly prohibit re-planting seeds which have a patented component nor planting seeds sold as feed. If they don't actually have privity of contract they have some other dodges, but the inconvenient truth for them is that replanting is a traditional use of seeds, the seeds aren't patented, only the specific engineered improvement (Monsanto has no IP in 99.9999% of any seeds genome, in particular the parts t
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Informative)
Wow talk about splitting hairs, the person I replied to said that this was not the result of cross pollination due to wind blown pollen, but now you are saying well they weren't windblown, they were carried by bees.
Why in the fuck does it matter how the cross pollination happened, whether bee or blown, it has the same result.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Interesting)
If the uncontrollable wind blows some Monsanto pollen on your field, you are innocent.
But if uncontrollable bees transfer pollen from a Monsanto field to your field, then you are "knowingly [using] seeds with the Monsanto gene in them without paying"?
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"They're called bees."
We obviously need to genetically engineer BRM (Bee Resource Management) into future iterations of these creatures so they only interact with commercial crops as intended.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should the farmers pay for seed that Monsanto freely pollinated? No one forced Monsanto to let their plants spread that genetic material. They could require their growers to keep their plants only indoors.
Farmers should be able to sue Monsanto for contaminating their fields if anything.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up! A farmer can't help it if his field is being polluted by Monsanto's seed...even if it might be financially beneficial. If a coal mine created a pile of coal and the pile started spilling over into my property, then there are 3 options:
1. The coal mining company sues me for having their coal on my property (at no fault of my own)
2. I sue the coal mining company for putting their coal on my property
3. We call it a truce, and I just keep and sell the coal on my property
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Except in this case the company didn't put anything on your property,
The soybean plants' flowers have to be pollinated in order for them to produce soybeans. Soybean plants are normally self-pollinating, but if the pollen from a field planted with the Roundup-Ready beans is carried to another field planted in a non-GM strain of soybeans (either airborne or via bees), then the GM genome can hybridize the non-GM strain. Having the GM pollen cross onto your plot of soybeans is certainly analogous to coal spilling onto your land.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Insightful)
Easy, patent law. Anyone who uses a similar implementation as a patent holder is liable, even if the two came up with it via independent means. So when the Monsanto plants pollinate yours and infect your seeds, Montsanto calls it a patent violation even though Mother Nature did it.
That's the problem.
And that's the issue with GMO food - a lot of it derives from Monsanto's behavior on the market - basically bullying their way into complete control of the food we eat.
Hell, you've effectively signed the Monsanto license agreement even if someone else planted the seeds on your field.
And really, I'm guessing that's where most of the GMO opposition is coming from - forget Apple v. Samsung, it's really Monsanto v. food supply.
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Our Family Court systems work exactly this way. Whether or not you intended to be a father, by accident or deceit (stealing a sperm-laden condom, for example), the court will force you to pay for the child created. Not only that, the mother only has to name you on the birth certificate to put you on the hook for child support. Even DNA testing is difficult to get submitted and accepted by the courts. They REALLY want someone to blame and make money off of. Yes, make money, since they get matching Federal do
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heya,
No, mod parent down...*sigh*.
This has nothing to do with self-pollination - it's about seed smuggling.
Seriously, I know this is Slashdot - but does nobody actually read the source article these days? It's not even that long, and it's from frickin Nature, not some two-bit blog.
The story isn't about cross-pollination, or that sort of rubbish - that one's already been debunked anyway, sorry, evil corporation conspiracy theorists.
The issue here is with with Brazillian farmers smuggling in stolen GM seeds -
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Since you read the article yourself you know that these seeds aren't patented; they haven't been since 2004. Monsanto is owed nothing, the farmers can buy their seed from whomever they like. This isn't about some dodgy farmers "stealing" seeds - or even replanting them without authorization, it's about Brazil's highest court refuting the outrageous lies and misrepresentations of lying corporate lickspittles like yourself.
Another example of such a lie is your bizarre claim that cross-pollination has somehow
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No, the yield isn't any better, it just doesn't die when you dump certain kinds of poison on it. Contamination with Monsanto products makes your formerly organic crop worth half as much and may force you to spend a great deal of time and money on lawyers, too.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Informative)
>>>They sue farmers who knowingly use seeds with the Monsanto gene in them without paying. People on the internet seem to think if they keep repeating a lie, it'll become true.
>>>
TRUTH not lies. They sue people they SUSPECT are using the gene, based upon flimsy evidence like, "Farmer John Does uses a shaking machine to extract seeds from his crop, and saves the seeds for next year." Then they send-round the lawyers to *invade* the man's property, confirm such a machine exists, and start issuing cease-and-desist letters (presumption of guilt just because he saves his seed). If the farmer continues using the machine, the lawyers sue the man. They act VERY much like how RIAA and the MPAA act when they send extortionate letters & file lawsuits against "John Does" who are entirely innocent of any crime (except they used bittorrent).
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Even assholes are in the the right to call someone a jerk for kicking a puppy.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Interesting)
Then they send-round the lawyers to *invade* the man's property, confirm such a machine exists, and start issuing cease-and-desist letters (presumption of guilt just because he saves his seed).
How does that even work? I recently moved from a farming state, and I say with very little exaggeration: a corporate employee found invading a farmer's privacy like that would likely never be seen again. If parts of them were later recovered, it would almost certainly be chalked up to 1) a farming accident, 2) wildlife attack, or 3) self-defense as circumstances direct.
I'm not talking about the stereotypical backwoods hillbillies who are protectin' their still from the revenuers, either. I know a guy who's in the process of rolling out GPS-enabled, self-driving tractors that can automatically adjust the amount of fertilizer they spray depending on what the latest satellite pictures show that a particular patch of field needs. One of my coworkers would routinely call me on his cell phone from the cab of his air-conditioned tractor when he got bored with watching TV. A modern farm is a surprisingly high-tech operation, often steered by college graduates who work other highly technical jobs during the winter months. With all that said, though, these guys are extremely protective of their farms, their families, and their livelihoods. I'll be damned if I'd want to get caught sneaking around on their property. How do Monsanto employees manage to do stuff like that without dying of acute lead poisoning?
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I'd say that the potential for cross pollination alone makes Monsanto seeds an inherent nuisance, and by that I mean in the legal sense.
Cross pollination contamination is IMO a foreseeable consequence and I think that makes Monsanto negligent.
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Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Informative)
The thing is, we now know for a fact that plants can be bread for roundup readiness without 'stealing' Monsanto's gene (because it's been done), using only more conventional breeding and selection techniques. We also know that there are weeds growing wild that have the necessary resistance to roundup and that they are close enough to canola to breed with it. We know this because now that fields are being drenched in roundup routinely, we have weeds that are resistant to it.
Further, until Monsanto started it's war on everything not Monsanto, it was understood that the proprietary nature of a trait in a plant died once it crossed with someone else's plants. That is, you have some very special variety of corn. I am free to plant my perfectly ordinary corn on my adjoining property AND select for the amazing traits of your corn in the resulting future generations. I can even do so until I fully recreate your very special corn down to the last gene (but in practice I would stop once I had the desirable traits and had bread out undesirable ones, I wouldn't need or want a perfect copy).
Actual ownership of the gene itself is quite new and on somewhat shaky ground, especially since the gene was NOT created by designing a sequence of amino acids necessary to create the wanted trait, it was found and inserted into the genome.
A wrinkle you're missing is that Monsanto's traits actually contaminated the line of canola that Schmeiser had been developing using conventional breeding techniques for his own use for many years. He was faced with a choice of destroying years of his own work or just pretending the Monsanto gene didn't exist.
And that's the big issue. Monsanto crops contaminate the genome of non-Monsanto crops, then Monsanto sues the victim.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Informative)
Here we have some successes at UC Davis breeding resistant lettuce. [westernfarmpress.com].
Bolivian Cocoa farmers also managed [wikipedia.org]. As a result, the DEA accidentally helped improve their yield with free roundup.
Here [google.com] we have weeds developing the trait. Certainly they didn't even have the minimal help of conventional breeding. They most certainly weren't created by GM techniques. If it can happen by accident, it can be made to happen.
Cocoa != Coca (Score:3)
Reread the linked article there. It doesn't say anything about cocoa farmers. It says something about coca farmers. There's a bit of a difference between the two crops.
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I was breeding for it as an undergrad. You really need to dig into the literature more.
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Bob: Hey Phil, we're losing them over here. Help me out.
Phil: Got it, Bob. I just posted an anonymous, quasi-NPOV reply to your unpopular post. They'll never catch on.
Bob: Thanks, Phil. Surely these neerdowells will come to see things our way...
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's the REAL way to do the PR game:
1. Each shill makes about 20 accounts or so at the same time. It takes awhile -- you'll have to source accounts from multiple sources most likely. Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail...though at least you only need to make those once. Since our account IDs here are numerical, maybe each person makes their accounts a couple days apart from each other.
2. Whenever a shill topic comes up, use one -- maybe two of those accounts at most. Think of them as disposable -- obviously we can see your history.
3. Don't come on so strong for your cause. You have to see the overwhelmingly prevailing point of view and even fire a couple rounds against your side before you can be trusted. It's kind of like deep undercover cops who infiltrate the mafia -- they have to straddle the line for awhile.
4. Once you've done this, SLOWLY bring the conversation in a direction that is more favorable for your organization. Don't be all "you're all wrong, FU." That won't work.
That's all there is to it. Good luck and happy shilling.
p.s. Where y'all went wrong is that most people here essentially think patenting our food supply that is so easily distributed by accident and enforcing it the way Monsanto does is inherently evil. It's essentially a "gotcha" for a CRITICAL and underpaid sector of society. We don't give a flying fuck what the legal argument is -- we want to fix the law.
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Accordingly, the cultivation of plants containing the patented gene and cell does not constitute an infringement. The plants containing the patented gene can have no stand-by value. To conclude otherwise would, in effect, confer patent protection on the plant. Since there is no claim for a “glyphosate-resistant” plant and all its offspring, saving, planting, or selling seed from glyphosate-resistant plants does not constitute an infringing use. As was done here, the respondents can still license the sale of seeds that they produce from their patented invention and can impose contractual obligations, such as prohibition on saving seeds, on the licensee.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:4, Informative)
the seed is sterile the pollen is not
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This is one of the most misinformed comments I have ever seen on /.
You clearly have no knowledge whatsoever about the Indian farmer suicide problem [wikipedia.org], which began years before Monsanto started selling GM seed in India, and is absolutely nothing to do with the company. The suicides are, according to most analyses I've seen [ifpri.org], usually linked closely with widespread crop failures which follow monsoon drought seasons. It's a climate problem, not a Monsanto problem.
And farmer suicide being the #2 killer in India? Th
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This is one of the most misinformed comments I have ever seen on /. You clearly have no knowledge whatsoever about the Indian farmer suicide problem [wikipedia.org], which began years before Monsanto started selling GM seed in India, and is absolutely nothing to do with the company. The suicides are, according to most analyses I've seen [ifpri.org], usually linked closely with widespread crop failures which follow monsoon drought seasons. It's a climate problem, not a Monsanto problem.
If you check your own source, it states: "monsoons leading to a series of droughts, lack of better prices, exploitation by Middlemen, all of which have led to a series of suicides committed by farmers across India." If the droughts were the main cause then prices would go up from lack of supply. Since prices are falling, the pricing problem is largely for other reasons, including middlemen like Monsanto.
And farmer suicide being the #2 killer in India? That's so stupid it hurts to read. If you check the WHO mortality data [who.int], you'll find non-communicable diseases and infectious diseases account for 9/10 of the top ten causes of death, with accidental injury being the 10th.
Again, if you check your own source, the WHO data is irrelevant since it's for all of India, not just far
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Informative)
There have been claims of genetically-modified (GM) seeds (such as Bt cotton) being responsible for the farmer suicides.[25][26][27][28] A short documentary by Frontline (U.S. TV series) suggested that farmers using GM seeds promoted by Cargill and Monsanto have led to rising debts and forced some into the equivalent of indentured servitude to the moneylenders.[29]
A report released by the International Food Policy Research Institute in October 2008 provided evidence that the introduction of Bt cotton was not a major factor in farmer suicides in India.[30] It argues that the suicides predate the introduction of the cotton in 2002 and has been fairly consistent since 1997.[30][31] Other studies also suggest the increase in farmer suicides is due to a combination of various socio-economic factors.[32] These include debt, the difficulty of farming semi-arid regions, poor agricultural income, absence of alternative income opportunities, the downturn in the urban economy forcing non-farmers into farming, and the absence of suitable counseling services.[32][33]
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The confusion is simple enough. SOME of their seeds are of the terminator variety. The problem with those is that a neighboring farmer can't know his crop was contaminated until he plants next year and nothing grows.
Others are not a terminator variety. The problem with those is that they crossbreed with neighboring non-Monsanto varieties and then Monsanto sues the owners of the contaminated varieties.
If you are going to attack someone, at least have your facts straight.
Agreed! Hop to it!
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not every day you see someone make the RIAA and MPAA look like amateurs.
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Funny)
this is not funny.
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Oh no. Monsanto is the amateur. You don't see Monsanto getting the FBI to get a foreign gov't to seize a farmers land and begin extraditing him for selling seeds supposedly patented by Monsanto.
When you are good, you get the gov't to spend far more money and effort implementing/following your agenda than you have ever given to the gov't.
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Oh they aren't blind.
They just prefer looking at barrels of money shoved in front of them by lobbyists.
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>>>I have no sympathy for farmers who steal or lie about their seed.
Please explain how someone steals seed? The seeds produced by Monsanto crops are sterile, so there's no point to sneak into a neighbor's field & steal his sterile seed. It won't grow. Please enlighten us Mr. Monsanto employee how this supposed stealing happens then???
Re:Remove the yoke of Monsanto! (Score:5, Interesting)
Stop bitching about Monsanto and fix the law.
Even better solution is to "fix" the Monsanto corporate board, permanently, like a gelding.
Were you aware that the lunchrooms of Monsanto facilities explicitly prohibit GMO foods for their employees, and at the insistence of those employees? Why are Monsanto employees treated better than USA citizens? Could it be that if USA citizens were informed of the GMO origins of many of their foodstuffs, that they would knowingly & willfully boycott those products?
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The problem is that just like the MAFIAA Monsanto doesn't give a damn if the people they sue are actually guilty.
Shutting down farmers that don't buy from Monsanto is in their best interests whether or not the farmers are innocent, so they have no incentive to be reasonable when all they have to do is make a legal show of force to get the poor farmers to cave without a fight.
Too much control (Score:5, Insightful)
To have one company have total control over a food source is disturbing. They essentially have a monopoly and have risked destroying non GM crops through cross-contamination and I think it should be Monsanto that should be paying damages to farmers who do not want to deal with GM crops.
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Yep, probably cross contamination. If a farmer doesn't want to use a GM crop he shouldn't have just because his neighbor got a little too close with his crop.
Re:Too much control (Score:4, Insightful)
If we can't feed the world's populations without genetically modifying crops and spraying all arable land with poison then maybe we should do something to curb population growth. The danger with companies like Monsanto is that rather than having a choice to use GM or conventional crops, in time GM will be the only choice and the companies will be able to dictate the price they choose rather than having fair competition and reasonably priced alternatives - if it's not too late already. It's similar to the way that medical providers in the USA dictate their prices to their patients, and the reason why medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcies in the USA today. Physicians groups and hospitals blame technology for higher costs, but much of the care provided today isn't substantially better than what was offered 20 years ago, especially considering that today a large number of patients cannot continue or complete their treatment because they first run out of money.
Free markets are great for consumer choices, like listen to radio with commercials or buy CDs without commercials. "Free markets" are not so great for "your money or your life" types of choices. Physicians, pharmaceutical sales reps, and hospital administrators don't necessarily have more education or qualifications than physicists, car salespeople, and school administrators, but the first class earns substantially higher incomes. Children need to go to school on a daily basis but only a small number will require a hospital, yet just one trip to a hospital can cost more than a year of school. The "cost" of healthcare in America is directly proportional to the lifestyles of those who control the healthcare industry. Current laws allow them to charge whatever fee they choose AFTER services are rendered while patients rarely have the ability to shop and compare providers by price, especially in emergency situations. Medical treatment is often literally not a choice - many states mandate that people provide and pay for the medically necessary care of their spouses and children, and even if you are unconscious you are liable for the cost of care you receive during your "implied consent", regardless of how many tens of thousands of dollars that may be. The only reason many ER visits can be invoiced an exact amount is because legally the hospitals cannot sue for "everything you have or ever will have" so they make up a price that closely approximates what they think this figure might be.
Monsanto wants to have the same kind of power. To take everything you have or ever will have (or you don't get to eat). Every person NEEDS to eat every day while most people can go years without devastating medical bills just by good luck and healthy living (which, by the way, is the only reason the GOP can drum up so much anti-Obamacare sentiment - most people haven't been screwed by the system yet so Obamacare seems unnecessary in their eyes).
Giving Monsanto or an Oligarchy of mega-corporations this kind of power will have natural consequences for all of us. I'm not saying the Monsanto or any other GM crop related company is inherently evil. It's just that the structure of our economic system leads large publicly listed companies to behave this way. Hence the universal and timeless need for regulation and oversight. Allowing companies to possess too much power or to be "too big to fail" is a failure of corporate sponsored representative democracy.
Broken business model. (Score:5, Interesting)
And I'm not even against GM foods, I find most of those people to be clueless Luddites. I'm just against their corrupt business model enabled by corrupt governments.
Re:Broken business model. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about not letting them patent living things?
I think that would be enough. A farmer should be able to save seed, or benefit from cross pollination. In the later case I can't even think of a reasonable argument against it. If you don't want to give away your plants genetic material then grow it indoors.
I think GM foods are fine, and even useful, but I don't think you should be able to make your neighbors responsible for material you are spreading freely.
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If Monsanto can't patent the GM crop you created, Monsanto is not going to create any GM crops.
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If Monsanto can't patent the GM crop you created, Monsanto is not going to create any GM crops.
Fine, there's no reason a private entity has to. Tons of public research has been sold off to private entities over the years and then they claim total ownership of the end result. We're free to pursue public research to the end and create these things. They are supposed to be for the public good, after all. If they benefit all mankind then by all rights these are the things we should be funding (just as we publicly fund a lot of medical research).
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I have no problem with them patenting things they invent, alive or not. I have a problem with them asserting ownership of something, anything, that occurs after they've sold a _physical thing_ (seeds) to someone else. Once the farmer buys it, it's his. Any seeds that come from it later are his.
If Monsanto can't somehow make sterile seeds or something, tough luck - broken business model. They had their "Terminator seeds", that's what they should sell and if the market doesn't like it then tough.
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So Monsanto are they only people that could do that?
In the past seed lines were created by government agriculture programs I see no reason why that could not be the case today.
Brazil could continue to use these products without paying, when you have your own country you can do stuff like that.
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Luddites?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/monsanto-gm-corn-causing_n_425195.html [huffingtonpost.com]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/genetically-modified-soy_b_544575.html [huffingtonpost.com]
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Modified-Soya-Rats10oct05.htm [mindfully.org]
basically, no one does ANY testing, they just trust that Monsanto says that it is safe,
http://www.fda.gov/Food/Biotechnology/Submissions/ucm161107.htm [fda.gov]
And please, don't get me started about "nature does it for millennia" bullshit. Nature does not insert random genes from some weir
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Citing Jeffrey Smith on GE is as bad as citing Andrew Wakefield on vaccines (read this [academicsreview.org], watch this [youtube.com]). In the first link, the study he cites was widely criticized by the UFSA, FSANZ, and French HCB. In the second link, the first two studies he cites were not published in peer review journals, the third was withdrawn for flaws, and the fourth has nothing to do with GE if you actually read it except for sing a GE variety and stating that some of the chemical components of GE varieties are different than non G
It's their business model... (Score:4, Insightful)
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There are quite a few of my genes in both Monsanto's fouder, their current CEO, and their top scientists. How much do they owe me ?
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Monsanto's business model is using extortion to intimidate their competition into going away. If they shut down an innocent farmer simply because he is too broke to fight back, they still win.
no, it's not (Score:2)
Monsanto doesn't need to rethink their business model. When it comes to greed and capitalism, they have succeeded. They're raking in gigantic profits. Why should they change?
It's the countries that allow this which need to rethink whether they want to allow Monsanto - which they should not. Businesses which are anticompetitive are supposed to be penalized by antitrust, etc.
Finally, sanity in the courts (Score:5, Insightful)
I know patents protect against independent invention, reverse engineering, etc. but if your product produces seed that "infects" another field or wind blows those seeds to another field, you are NOT entitled to royalties on those seeds.
Re:Finally, sanity in the courts (Score:5, Insightful)
Monsanto shouldn't be allowed to assert rights on second generation seeds. If they want to protect their GM products, they need to make them sterile.
Imagine if a company used their patented method to modify your genes to fix a genetic defect in you. For $100,000 they cured your diabetes. Then what would happen if they asserted that you owed them an additional $100,000 for every child you had, and every grandchild born within the patent term? If you didn't pay per child, and they were found to have the fixed gene, you owed them $150,000 each.
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Sterility might be difficult. If plants don't flower and pollinate themselves, then there will be no seeds. So the sterility has to happen in the seed - it must be incapable of producing a viable plant. But what happens if the pollen from one of these plants pollinates a 'natural' plant? Just imagine the outcry if neighboring farmers are unable to use their own seeds for planting next year.
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Monsanto has already perfected sterile seeds. - "Just imagine the outcry if neighboring farmers are unable to use their own seeds for planting next year." - That's exactly what's happening. And farmers get sued and driven out-of-business trying to defend themselves, when they are completely innocent.
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They are forbidden (by Monsanto) from using the seeds, they are not unable to use them. But imagine what would happen if they planted the seeds, but no plants grew. No harvest at all that year. I'm pretty sure Monsanto would go bankrupt quickly if things like that happened (not that I think that one less Evil corporation would be a bad thing).
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They need to sue the farmers who let the seeds escape. Unless and until the contaminated farmers become complicit they should not be subject to anything beyond an injunction.
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This is just Monsanto using patent infringement as an excuse to send lawyer goon squads after people they'd rather eliminate anyway.
They don't have to be right. They just have to look good enough not to get called on it. They do that and their superior legal budgets handle the rest.
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As far as I can tell Monsanto has never actually brought a patent infringement suit in a case where solely windblown pollen was involved.
(And DON'T give me any hooey about the Schmeiser case - that was not solely windblown pollen - Schmeiser treated and saved seed from plants to get nearly 100% RoundUp Ready seeds which he both sold and replanted).
There have been relevant comments by some leading judges on the topic. For example:
"As Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circui
Pros of Monsanto? (Score:3, Interesting)
However to play devil's advocate, are there any benefits to a company such as Monsanto?
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To do the research behind GM seed/food is actually a great thing; they've proven to be safe, often more nutritious, and grow with less pesticides and run-off into the ecosystem. In short, GM foods are great.
The problem of course is that Monsanto is almost a monopoly, and they are an egregious patent abuser. That leads people like Jeffrey Smith (the "King" of the 'natural foods' movement) to capitalize on making a patent abuser also somehow relate to making an unsafe product by using dubious "evidence" to da
Re:Pros of Monsanto? (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, GM foods are great.
All general statements are false. In this case, it depends a great deal on what the modifications do.
GM plants needing less pesticide: Good. GM plants that don't produce a viable seed for the sole purpose of increasing Monsanto's profits at the expense of poor farmers in Brazil, India, and a lot of other places: Evil. And using GM patents to force all farmers in the world to buy your product: Obviously very evil.
In a perfect world, research on GM would have been publicly funded research with no patent protection and the option of any private seed manufacturer to get in the game of producing the seeds with these modifications. That would have given us the pesticide benefits and such that you speak of, but without all the BS from Monsanto.
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Indeed. It's not as though there are no non-GM non-Monsanto seeds to buy and plant. The Monsanto ones are just that much better.
Monsanto will make up the loss... (Score:2)
By examining every United States Citizen.
If it's determined that we've eaten food that is GM'ed by Monsanto, we will all have to pay a 3% royalty for their intellectual property now being a part of our genetic makeup/biosystem.
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Speak for yourself! I'm Kirby, you insensitive clod!
Horrible summary (Score:3, Informative)
What?! The linked article doesn't say anything of the sort! It says:
Re:Horrible summary (Score:5, Informative)
the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled the company must repay royalties collected over the past decade.
What?! The linked article doesn't say anything of the sort!
From the same arcticle:
"On 12 June, the judges of the Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice ruled against Monsanto, deciding unanimously that the ruling by the Justice Tribune of Rio Grande do Sul, once it is made, should apply nationwide. Monsanto has declined to comment on the case."
So, Judges of Rio Grande do Sul ruled out that Monsanto should repay back the last decade royalties. And the Brazilian Supreme Court stated that once this ruling is confirmed, will be valid for the whole country!
So, yes, it says exactly that - but not directly, as any person that is not a fool can see :-)
What if Monsanto is less wrong? (Score:3, Interesting)
I generally think of Monsanto as evil. The power that Monsanto has over large portions of the global food supply frightens me. That said, the "Roundup Ready" gene is really useful to farmers. People complain about Monsanto's use of terminator seeds, patents, lawsuits, etc. only because it is so difficult to compete without using Monsanto's products. Otherwise, no would care.
Soya beans and civilization in Brazil are both older than Monsanto. The Brazilian state could have banned the import, distribution, and cultivation of GMOs - but it did not. And Brazilian farmers could have used their existing seeds, but they did not. They used the piper's awesome seeds. Given what I know about Brazilian politics and trade practices, and human nature, I suspect this case is rooted more in the desire not to pay that piper than in actual law.
Re:What if Monsanto is less wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe this misinformation about the Schmeiser case is so wide spread.
The reason Schmeiser lost his case was not due to a small accidental contamination of his crops. Schmeiser noticed a an area of his land that had volunteer canola plants on it, sprayed it to select for Round-Up Ready plants, saved the seed from the surviving plants, and then replanted 1000 acres with the seed, and as well resold some of the selected seed.
The result was a crop that was some 95% RoundUp ready canola due to intentional planting of selected seed.
This was a bald-faced case of intentional patent infringement, not some accidental case of a few wind pollinated plants.
From Wikipedia:
The Canadian Court's ruling concluded: ... on the balance of probabilities, the defendants infringed a number of the claims under the plaintiffsâ(TM) Canadian patent number 1,313,830 by planting, in 1998, without leave or licence by the plaintiffs, canola fields with seed saved from the 1997 crop which seed was known, or ought to have been known by the defendants to be Roundup tolerant and when tested was found to contain the gene and cells claimed under the plaintiffsâ(TM) patent. By selling the seed harvested in 1998 the defendants further infringed the plaintiffsâ(TM) patent."
unexpired only (Score:3)
Monsanto & Overreaction (Score:3, Interesting)
What if this happened with humans? (Score:4, Interesting)
Suppose a company creates a way to insert a gene into a human egg, perhaps to imbue some immunity to a disease or correct for a genetic defect. Under the current law, the company could patent their new gene. Add according to Monsanto, that person's children would be using the company's gene and would have to pay a royalty for their own existence.