Makes you wonder why Monsanto aren't considered the Worst Company in the United States. For my money, I find BP and oil companies as well as the banks incompetent but with a bit of malice.
"When crops failed in the past, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year.
But with GM seeds they cannot do this. That's because GM seeds contain so- called 'terminator technology', meaning that they have been genetically modified so that the resulting crops do not produce viable seeds of their own.
As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices. For some, that means the difference between life and death."
3) Monsant's entire argument rests on taking farmers' rights away. From TFA:
"Monsanto contends that the patent violation is Bowman's fault because he took the grains and used them to create new versions of Monsanto's patented soybeans that Monsanto, the patent holder, hadn't sold him."
Monsanto wants planting a seed to be patent violation. They want to stop you buying something and putting it into the ground.
Please don't perpetuate the Indian Farmer Suicides fallacy. It's a real and tragic phenomenon but it is not about GM seeds or Monsanto, starting long before they entered India. There's a very good review by IFPRI here: http://www.ifpri.org/publication/bt-cotton-and-farmer-suicid....
a) False. "However, a 2008 report by the International Food Policy Research Institute showed that there was no evidence for an increased suicide rate following the 2002 introduction of Bt cotton, but instead that the rate had been consistent since 1997."
b) If a farmer buys seeds with the condition that they not replant those seeds, what happens if they do replant? Aren't they violating the terms of their purchase? It's like me buying a software license for 1-year, and not renewing but continuing to use the software beyond the expiration.
c) If someone knowingly uses a patented product without paying the patent holder, you're saying that they're not liable?
"Fuck Monsanto and everything that they stand for."
The argument "making food cheaper for the poor" doesn't give you a pass messing with nature and people's health. I can make food cheaper by killing half of the population since there's going to be more left for the rest of us! Does this justify my action?
Get real, food has grown and can grow naturally and there are natural ways to have healthy crops that don't need dangerous pesticides. Nature has been working in a balance since ever and they are messing with it. It's MY nature they are messing with. All they're doing is maximizing profits at the expense of everything and everybody else.
Get real. People can still grow food naturally as they always have. They can't use patented technology that took billions to develop and use it for free without approval of the patent holder.
Really? Ask for approval before planting a seed in the ground? You call that technology? Technology doesn't lock-in, it unlocks potential. Maybe ask for a commission then for the oxygen their GM plants produce. After all, it took billions to develop and I am breathing free air that originates from their patented plants.
Yes, really. It's a patented seed. It's a "special" seed. It needed billions of dollars in scientific research to engineer. It's not your seed. You're not free to use it because you didn't develop it and you didn't purchase a license to use it. You're free to use other seeds however, if you have the rights to it.
I think everyone on HN knows by now that the patent system is horribly broken, but that is not in any way exclusive to seeds. I can get in just as much trouble doing similar things with natural ore and carbons.
The reality is that, from a farmer's point of view, nothing changed. You still go to the same vendors, who supply seed same as they always did, and you plant them just like any other. It is not a practical issue, and never would have seen major use if it was.
The RR1 patent expires next year. That means we've been growing the stuff for almost 20 years now. The only problem I have heard of come as the result of the patent in all that time is the guy who got in trouble for spraying roundup on his "naturally occurring" roundup ready crop.
It most certainly can, but it hasn't for tens of thousands of years. People have been genetically modifying food and growing it in non-natural ways for as long as we have had agriculture.
If we could somehow turn to clocks back to a pre-agriculture food supply, do you feel that it would be viable to keep the current human population alive? Keep in mind that the crops we grow today didn't even exist back then, and only came to exist through thousands of years of genetic modifications.
No they didn't. Genetic modification is not the same thing as crossbreeding. And what they did always happened with regards and love for the environment. They produced crops that brought balance and harmony in nature so they always had fresh and healthy food. They didn't use artificial fertilizers or pesticides nor they messed with the DNA sequence manually for shady purposes.
Have you seen a goat or sheep eating its way through a field of weed? They eat and poop at the same time as they move around. That's an example of a natural fertilizer, cleansing and ploughing tool.
It's the obsession of first-world countries wanting meat every day on the table. That is unnatural. That is disturbing harmony and that is why we need chemical pesticides and genetic modifications and that is why these countries have an excess rate of cancer in comparison to those that still grow food in their yards naturally.
So stop calling natural agriculture genetic modification. That's an argument Monsanto and the likes brought to the table to mess with your mind and justify their cause and is completely invalid.
Okay, let's put it another way. The Dekalb company is 100 years old. They are in the business of crossbreeding, attempting to produce better traits each year in the same way famers did thousands of years ago. Do you feel that they do so with love?
If you answer no, at what point did agriculture lose that love, if more than 100 years ago?
> Have you seen a goat or sheep eating its way through a field of weed?
I have never seen a field of weed with or without animals in it. Such a field would be illegal in my country. (Sorry, I couldn't resist)
Its hard to beat the irony where a game development company, A company with the business model of producing entertainment, is voted as the Worst Company in the United States.
2 pop ups in 3 seconds. Monsanto is evil everyone gets it. Not to mention the recent political scandal... but I'm not reading the article. Pop-ups are equally evil.
If the pop-ups infect your computer and write spurious code into all your saved work thereby taking ownership of them and then sue your sorry arse into the ground for theft.. then yes, pop-ups are equally evil.
If pop ups increased the amount of data my hard drive could store they'd be equally good... Monsanto is an evil corporation but GMOs are pretty much the only reason there's going to be enough food for "your sorry arse" to eat in 10 years. The farmers have to pay for the seeds, yes, but their yield is much higher than without them. Sounds like the guy knew what he was doing when he bought the second hand seeds. Why don't you spend billions of dollars on a piece of software, sell it to me cheap and allow me to sell knock offs for 1/2 your asking price; lets see how you feel about it then...
First, my comment was facetiously poking fun at the idea of some benign first-world annoyance being evil.. lighten up eh?
Second, the argument about GMO (or any other high-tech way to increase farming yields) being a 'solution' to food supply shortages is thrown around a lot without any evidence.. nor, as far as I can see, any actual basis in fact.
The drive to increase yields is a drive to increase profit / hectare, which has only resulted in actually driving other farmers out of the business which reduces food production stability, and ultimately overall yield. In every objective measure, this process also produces inferior product.
Monsanto has been profiting from the large-scale destruction of many decades of careful seed adaptation in regional areas. They have driven seed sellers and savers out of business in order to monopolise the markets. They sue / threaten / cajole farmers into using their product or effectively run them out of business.
Third, if I spent billions creating a piece of software whose sole purpose was to replicate its source code and upload it randomly to surrounding networks (along with some by-product) and did this by only changing a couple of lines in an existing piece of open source code, so that no one could really tell the difference... and got pissed that people were using that code. Well, I would just be a bit of a dick now, wouldn't I.
Spending more money on something does not give you any more rights, just more risk.
At least the Supreme Court is hearing the case. Hope they take the right decision here.
I can't understand how Monsanto can make these claims with a straight face. The guys didn't license the seeds from them.
If much, they could go after whoever sold the seeds to the grain elevator, but that's also quite a stretch.
Also, what happens if some other regular seed shipment is "contaminated" by Monsanto seeds in any way? Is a farmer/buyer supposed to have to pay them for not doing DNA analysis in all seeds? WTF?!
Monsanto made the roundup-ready soybeans, which took millions to develop. If the farmer doesn't want to be sued, he could use non-roundup-ready soybeans.
Or, presumably, he can wait till the original patent expires, then he can use the roundup-ready soybeans freely.
I'm all for calling out unethical companies and IP trolls, but unless companies get to protect real IP that they develop themselves, what's the point in developing anything.
This does seem to be a pretty decent area to provide intellectual property-based incentives for. The fundamental innovation here is intellectual -- it's the engineering of a new genetic code.
All of us are familiar with something similar -- engineering of new computer code.
It is often granted that computer code provides unique benefits worth protecting. I can certainly see why genetic engineering deserves similar protections.
That said, this is a fairly complicated piece of case law and I could definitely see how it could fall through the cracks in naively written legislation.
I assume you are referring to the fact that the traits can make their way into non-GMO seeds due to the way nature functions? However, Monsanto has only been able to successfully defend their patents when gross violations have occurred – i.e. the crop has also been sprayed with roundup. Someone who is honestly trying to grow non-RR seed is obviously not going to be doing that.
Monsanto has been so successful with this because, for 99% of the farmers out there, these patents have no effect on their business. It wasn't particularly common to grow your own seeds for a variety of reasons, even before the patents came into effect.
OK. Monsanto seems to have a unique interpretation of IP for themselves. They invented a genetic modification of existing crops. Now they claim the modified crops themselves as their IP, which is like HP claiming copyright on material printed with their printers. Not only that, they also claim rights on the following generations of these crops, which is just absurd.
If you want to patent your genetic modifications, so noone else can apply it, go ahead - sue people who apply the same modifications. But claiming IP rights on modified (with it) seeds is not reasonable.
Soybean seeds aren't finite like fossil fuels. They're specially grown. If you don't want to use patented seed, don't use it. Use organic seeds if you want (and many farmers do). Otherwise, pay the IP holder. Monsanto isn't a monopoly, and you have several other GM competitors to choose from.
Patent problems are no secret around here, but I'll reiterate one of the key points: Patents deal with possession of technology, not the implementation. In other words, if I violate someone else's patent in a product, and you buy it, you have become liable for the violation.
Now, with that said, you cannot possess GM seed without the necessary license agreements with Monsanto due to the above. Theoretically farmers, who have acquired the necessary licenses, could grow second generation seed, except those license terms provide additional clauses around the use of the second generation seed. You can disagree to those clauses, but then you will not be granted access to the patent rights.
So, the issue is that you cannot buy GM seeds in the first place without entering into a legal agreement, and that legal agreement dictates how you use future generations. There is no scenario where the second generation can be logically free of IP rights, because if you disagree, you cannot reach the point of growing a second generation.
Of course the real issue here is that the patent system needs to be fixed, and not just for seed and software.
I love the claims for calling this company "evil" with absolutely no scientific proof given. I thought we were supposed to be believers in science and due process.
This is one example, taken from the Food, Inc. documentary.
The parent topic asks, Monsanto made the roundup-ready soybeans, which took millions to develop. If the farmer doesn't want to be sued, he could use non-roundup-ready soybeans.
In the documentary, they profile a farmer who got sued by Monsanto for not paying their license. The farmer claimed he was not using Monsanto seeds. However, Monsanto's argument amounted to "We are the largest seller of these seeds in the world, therefor, it must be our seed. Even though you can prove it isn't, you must have "washed" the seed to make it seem like it isn't ours, or maybe some of your neighbor's Monsanto seed blew into your land and you owe us for that too."
The judge sided with Monsanto.
Yes, this shows our legal system is evil for letting them get away with this, but the fact that Monsanto is driving around & actively looking for farmers who aren't using their seed, extorting them for not & dragging them into a court battle they know will bankrupt them is evil too.
For further viewing, check the Monsanto Food Inc. clips. They are on YouTube. Mansanto has also responded on their website.
I didn't see anything in that article related to roundup ready crops, just concerns over the use of glyphosate, which has been used long before the advent of roundup ready seed.
One good reason to developing better farming techniques is that a large number of wealthy organization would profit, and such are more than willing to spend money on research. If I went to the military and said I had a method to produce biofuel at 50% the current price, would a likely response be: "No! If you don't have a patent, we are not going to give you any money for that. We are happy to spend loads of money on more expensive methods for fuel. We the army lives for patents!"
Lets take a hard look on something like corn. From chemical industry to food to fuel. I am sure not a single company would want to spend money on research into better production if there was no patents. Cheaper production and less risks be damned.
Or... and this is just a thought... Some research is like math. There is intrinsic benefit from improved technology. The army is not hurt because others can also produce cheaper fuel.
> unless companies get to protect real IP that they develop themselves, what's the point in developing anything.
To make money.
Companies (and people) have been developing new technology long before patents were introduced, and something tells me that they will continue to do so just fine even in the unlikely event of the patent system is abolished.
The millions spent give them the advantage of being the first to introduce this type of product in market. Nothing more.
on a personal note: I'd hate to think what would have happened if everyone throughout history thought of "IP" the same way people nowadays seem to think. We'd probably just started producing cars that need to be cranked to start.
> but unless companies get to protect real IP that they develop themselves, what's the point in developing anything.
So there was no progress in the world at all prior to the creation of patent law?
You could argue about whether or not patents cause more progress, but it is quite obviously not the case that companies not have any reason to develop anything without patents, given that companies did develop things without patent protection for a simple reason: If not, they'd get crushed by their competition.
Sure, they could copy things, but then they'd be stuck in perpetual catch-up mode figuring out all things they can't quickly glean from the copy, such as the optimal way of manufacturing the product. They'd also face substantial risk: What if a competitor comes up with something they're unable to figure out how to copy quickly?
And it is clear that there's plenty of profit to be had without being the "low cost generic" copycat even once the copycats enter the market.
E.g. Boots patent on Ibuprofen ran out a long time ago, yet Boots successfully created (and sold off) the Nurofen brand that still sells Ibuprofen (and other) products at 10-20 times retail price of generic products (including, amusingly, Boots own "generic" store brand).
let's not forget the farmer whose crops had monsanto mixed in, likely due to the windy conditions. Monsanto sued and took his farm because of a natural environmental occurence.
For things like that, they are a vicious and unethical fast moving train that will crush good people for their own profit. Don't just think you can avoid them and everything will be ok.
Are we really going to enter an era of "seed piracy"? And not because farmers everywhere would intentionally steal Monsanto's seeds, but because the laws would change in such a way that almost everyone else' seeds would be considered "pirated" versions of Monsanto's seeds.
Maybe we'll even get some kind of seed DMCA in the future. If Monsanto accuses someone of pirating, the government would just seize those crops. No trial necessary.
Why not? Their seeds and their competitors' are shown to be perfectly safe by the FDA, and the National Academy of Sciences and American Medical Association vouch for their seeds.
Edit to add: You can argue that this is a he said, she said. Since Mr. Schmeiser did not use Roundup I find his reasoning that he has no interest in the Monsanto seeds rather convincing.
Hey penny500 how does it feel being Mr. Nobody? There's a Greek word for you. You're a "Φερέφωνο" or if you'd like the latinified version, a pherephon. Φέρε=Bring Φώνο=Voice. Translation: The one who mindlessly brings the voice of others for their behalf.
It's not about safety, it's about ownership. This quote from the Judge: "Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?" - the part about "anyone could grow more and have as many seeds as they want" pretty much sums up farming as we've known it since agriculture began.
Edit: yes, I'm aware of that most farmers don't actually store their own seed for next year for efficiency of another farmer/company providing high-quality seeds yearly for them, however this is not justifying Monsanto's methods. There must be limits on food patents. I simply don't believe Monsanto cannot recover costs on the first-sale of seeds.
> Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed
There was a time when some people actually invented things to make the world a better place, or even to further their academic career. With the help of such judges, this era has apparently come to an end. We will never beat famine, we'll just help the plagued 3rd world become 100% dependent on the likes of Monsanto.
People are still doing that. Thousands of people around the world in fact, just in the very specific domain of improving crop traits to improve nutrition and food security in developing countries.
I see that as a separate endeavour to what companies generally do.
One do not need to look for altruistic motives. Investment into research happens as long it reduce cost and risk for businesses. Its true that a individual farmer might have a hard time to justify research investment, but those companies who is depended on grains as a form of resource has all the reasons in the world to invest in cheaper and more sustainable farming. Its the same business motive as why Microsoft sent in kernel patches as open source. No one doubt that the motive was for-profit.
Using the UN's defintion of famine as "at least 20 per cent of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope; acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 per cent; and the death rate exceeds two persons per day per 10,000 persons." [1]
Not including Somolia in 2011 (which the UN did declare a famine), "... famines have been declared previously in southern areas of Sudan in 2008; in Gode in the Somali region of Ethiopia in 2000; in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1996; in Somalia in 1991-1992, and Ethiopia in 1984-1985." [1]
By making their seeds more profitable, they are given an unfair advantage. People replace their natural seeds with GM that happen to depend on their pesticides and then forbid you to recultivating 2nd generation seeds. So they become dependent on GM seeds, which are scarce. That process can also be described as taking something that is naturally abundant and making it artificially scarce. Next question.
If I create a robot that makes more robots and sell you said robot... Should I get to claim ownership of all the robots said robot creates?
Update: So why would I Bother inventing and patenting said robot! To prevent others from creating and using said robot for commercial purposes. I'd then find a business model or revenue stream elsewhere. Said patent would be to protect my other revenue model. I just wouldn't sell any of my robots. Ad a non practicing entity is formed...
You can certainly plant non-GM seeds from Monsanto, but planting seeds that aren't from Monsanto or one of the other massive seed supply companies will get you into legal trouble because chances are they're contaminated with Roundup Ready soybeans.
I'm not lying. Don't call me a liar. Monsanto has the same claim on its website. You can read about the suits on Wikipedia. The suits are also public record. Sue them. Go for it. You'll rake in several hundreds of millions and billions of dollars if you can prove its supposedly blatantly misleading claim.
Actually, no it doesn't. Since the green revolution the vast majority of farming has relied on first-generation hybrids, taking advantage of the phenomenon of hybrid vigour, in which only the first generation show improved agronomic traits. That means it's economically more efficient for farmers to buy the seeds each year from a producer who focusses on breeding, while the farmer focusses on growing.
That's been the case since the early 20th century, and licensed GM seed continues the same practise of breeder-farmer relationship with licenses.
If this is the case it makes Monsanto's eagerness to sue even more ridiculous, as farmers who choose to buy second-generation seeds should be at a commercial disadvantage, preventing it from becoming a major threat to their market share.
Perhaps I didn't explain clearly. With F1 hybrid seeds, farmers buying the second generation will lose the yield traits. But Monsanto's Bt crops are not necessarily F1 hybrids - the major beneficial trait is the engineered one, which is stable across generations. So with the Bt crops, they maintain the breeder-farmer relationship with licenses, because the biology doesn't require it anymore.
Power corrupts, profit corrupts, how transparent are these "consensus" really? Because everything I see points to the other direction. Are you ignorant or are you deliberately trying to convince me that Monsanto is good for me? Am I nine or something?
Prove that the National Academy of Sciences were paid for their conclusions.
"deliberately trying to convince me that Monsanto is good for me? Am I nine or something?"
No one is trying to convince you of anything. The National Academy of Sciences, the FDA, the World Health Organization, and the American Medical Association are on my side. Are you saying they're all paid and corrupted? If so, prove it.
Give me unrestricted access to all of their documents and I will. Since that ain't going to happen, I can use my logical abilities to make a deduction:
You seem to have a lot of pro-GM and pro-Monsanto information and came here ready to confront anyone and as it seems the vast majority do not share your opinion. You talk about your sources but don't provide any citation, instead you end all arguments with "prove I am wrong!". You use the phrasing "on my side" which implies involvement. When you're operating in the billion and trillion dollar scale you can buy yourself through anything and have any desired outcome, this is obvious, yet you want me to provide proof about how power and money corrupts.
I'm sorry you'll lose your job as a GM pherephon since you don't seem to be doing quite well right now. If you have any self-appreciation it's best that you admit your fault and ask for forgiveness.
This is funny. Anyone who sides with science on this matter is considered corrupted, evil, and paid. Anyone who believes in due process is a paid lobbyist.
1) You made a claim. You have no evidence. You have no case. Courts would laugh at you. Don't make claims if you have no evidence.
2) I'm actually a Silicon Valley engineer. Paul Graham is welcome to trace my account's IP to identify who I am. Go ask him if you want. Keep believing I'm in the GM industry if it makes you sleep at night, however.
Instead of watching King Corn and relying on bunk science, maybe you should converse with Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and scientists from any other top biotechnology school. And even better, talk to IP lawyers. If I can't convince you, maybe they will.
Monsanto is irrelevant to you, with respect to these issues, unless you are a farmer.
What is relevant is the products you choose to buy. If you choosing products raised from Monsanto GM seed, then you are giving incentive to the farmer to buy more seed from Monsanto and its licensees. You are defining the market, the farmer has to fulfill your demands.
On my farm, we stopped growing GM soybeans completely because people in several Asian countries have specifically asked us to fulfill non-GM products, and it is our business to comply. Assuming you do not come from one of the aforementioned Asian countries, and have not made market requests for non-GM products, why not? What is holding you back from defining a non-GM market in your country of origin?
As farmers we have to provide exactly what you, the consumer, are asking for, or we quickly go out of business. If GM crops remain in rotation, it is because people are asking farmers to grow it. Ask for something else, and they will quickly disappear. But are you willing to do that?
Actually, the first Google result with "National Academy of Sciences and Monsanto" is your link, so I'm not sure if you did your research thoroughly. Point me specifically to the source with the text you're referring to. The burden of proof is on you since you made the claim.
It's a 2004 report but it puts to rest the myth that GM crops are tested well enough by the FDA.
The fact is it's not in Monsanto's best interest to waste money on thorough testing.
All publicly held corporations in America (Monsanto is no exception) are legally charged with creating profit for the shareholders, even if it means screwing over consumers and the environment.
Monsanto has had this down to an art since the 1950s.
That's not a peer-reviewed paper, it's a book chapter.
I actually agree that the regulatory testing doesn't really operate as openly as it should. But there is a huge amount of independent testing done which is open, and it all (so far) supports the same conclusions as the regulatory testing. See for example the list of independently-funded studies at biofortified: http://www.biofortified.org/genera/studies-for-genera/indepe...
As for the actual individuals who did the peer-review you'll have to ask William Freese and David Schubert. The university only mentions that the papers were reviewed.
Even if I did call these guys up and inquire about the reviewers you'd no doubt move the goal posts and say "well those reviewers aren't accredited and don't have much experience yada yada..."
In any case the past record for Monsanto isn't a glowing one (Agent Orange, DDT) and there is no reason to assume it cares to change its ways any time soon.
I feel confident I'm on the right side of history.
jayfuerstenberg, that "book" is not recognized by any serious scientific body. I can't even find the authors' resumes through Google or any of their qualifications or the methodologies they used to prove their case.
Logical flaw and conclusion. I believe you mean the FDA hasn't found any studies to show they are not safe. My statement and your statement are very very different.
Firstly, Monsanto, Syngenta, and their ilk have dominated the world seed market since the 1950s. GM food is completely independent of them. Monsanto may be the largest US producer of GM seed today, but the next generation of GM plants that are being worked on are designed to solve a wide range of humanitarian problems. Please, don't make your mind up about a technology with myriad potentially life-saving uses based on one company's commercial implementation. They don't define plant science.
Secondly, the jury is emphatically not still out on the consequences. As with climat change, in the independent scientific literature there is an overwhelming consensus that the technology itself is fundamentally safe, that each new implementation must be assessed separately, and that the risks in general are lower than those for conventionally bred crops.
"Solve a wide range of humanitarian problems..." which also has the side effect of them monopolizing developing countries. Don't kid yourself. Their unethical corporate behavior is well documented. It's companies like them that if they start losing money to organics, then they worm their way in to change the meaning of organic on food labels. It's pathetic and they deserve all the criticism they get.
Monsanto won't own the next generation of tech - it's being produced by governments, especially in Asia, and by academic and charitable organisations. Most that I know of are working towards free licensing arrangements, whereby they patent the tech and allow free use for individuals and small companies.
I'm not defending Monsanto - I'm saying GM is not Monsanto.
If Monsanto doesn't own the next generation of such tech I can assure you that they will sue the living bejeezus out of anybody who owns it, or uses it.
That doesn't make any sense. Monsanto owns patents in a very restricted area of plant transformation. They aren't going to just sue people owning a completely different technology, as they would have zero chance of winning, and a very high chance of pissing off the governments and (perhaps more scary) the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, who funded the next-gen tech.
> Monsanto owns patents in a very restricted area of plant transformation. They aren't going to just sue people owning a completely different technology
They are already suing people who are not applying any plant transformation, just using seeds. They are even suing people who never used their seeds, but got affected by cross-pollination (http://www.rodale.com/research-feed/organic-vs-monsanto-orga...). So who are you to say who they are or aren't going to sue next?
Specifically since the dude, or dudette, is extremely assertive and even aggressive in demanding sources, while at the same time has not even remotely a source to offer for his / her assertions.
The biggest kicker was to demand a source for an opinion I presented.
If I wouldn,t be against feeding trolls I would be happy to explain the difference between an assertion of fact and an opinion.
They sue people who they think infringed their patents. Farmers who deliberately select out the Roundup resistant crops for replanting and/or buy the seeds illegally in contravention of patent law. I've read a lot of Monsanto vs. farmer court summaries, and I've not yet seen one where the farmer was not deliberately infringing. The article you linked to didn't mention any evidence that they have sued farmers who were simply affected by cross-pollination.
...and Monsanto originally included a "TERMINATOR GENE" which would have solved this problem by making all seed sterile, but this caused a lot of problem among activists.
Patents on seeds and breeds have been around for many decades before Monsanto came to the party. Farmers tend not to replant seeds for a very long time now, not only to avoid patent disputes but also to ensure consistency of crops. It's only become viable now to DNA test seeds and breeds to protect these patents.
Can we identify the products on the shelves that are of Monsanto origin and have a list posted somewhere so we can boycott them? I don't really feel like ever buying anything originated from that company.
That's a good cause but will take ages before all nations adopt it, if they ever get everyone to agree. I was hoping for something I can start using right away.
"It would be near impossible to recoup your investments with that first sale, and so the more likely consequence is that research dollars would be put elsewhere,"
Great! Fuck Monsanto's investments and their fucking poison.
"Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?"
If the flaws in their business model are so obvious (i.e. farmers can reuse their product once they bought it), why don't they try to improve their business model instead of threatening farmers with lawsuits and trying to regulate the food industry?
If monsanto holds the patent on the pesticide, why do they need a patent on the seed as well? Isn't it in the best interest to proliferate the seed as much as possible to maximize the number of farmers who need the pesticide?
Mother Jones: All Articles Written by Us Are Belong to Us
I understand the impact on farmers and that Monsanto plays dirty, but this is their invention, you do not have to use their seeds. If you do, however, you must play by their rules. I understand that the lawsuit is different (planted someone else's seeds) but that person also violated his agreement.
"They want the farmers to take all the risks associated with farming, yet they want to control how they use those seeds all the way down the distribution chain,"
The point is that you do have to use their seeds. Previously you could get seeds from other sources or even replant your own seeds, but Monsanto have been suing seed cleaning firms and people who buy seeds elsewhere, which means that even if you don't want Roundup Ready seeds you have to buy them from Monsanto.
I live in Vietnam and almost every day I see the heartbreaking consequences of Monsanto's involvement in the dioxin poisoning of this country. As far as I'm concerned this company should be liquidated and the proceeds distributed to the people still suffering every day as a result.
Putting the future of agriculture in the hands of a company this immoral is simply insane.
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[ 0.16 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] threadNature and biology should not be restricted by anything. Ever.
Monsanto, on the other hand, are pure evil.
http://bestmeal.info/monsanto/company-history.shtml
The results for GMOs is mixed but is not looking good for Monsanto at the moment.
We don't need to fix the food system, it wasn't broken to begin with.
2) Ask the thousands of Indian farmers who committed suicide because their crops failed how helpful Monsanto was.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genoc...
"When crops failed in the past, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year.
But with GM seeds they cannot do this. That's because GM seeds contain so- called 'terminator technology', meaning that they have been genetically modified so that the resulting crops do not produce viable seeds of their own.
As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices. For some, that means the difference between life and death."
3) Monsant's entire argument rests on taking farmers' rights away. From TFA:
"Monsanto contends that the patent violation is Bowman's fault because he took the grains and used them to create new versions of Monsanto's patented soybeans that Monsanto, the patent holder, hadn't sold him."
Monsanto wants planting a seed to be patent violation. They want to stop you buying something and putting it into the ground.
Fuck Monsanto and everything that they stand for.
a) False. "However, a 2008 report by the International Food Policy Research Institute showed that there was no evidence for an increased suicide rate following the 2002 introduction of Bt cotton, but instead that the rate had been consistent since 1997."
b) If a farmer buys seeds with the condition that they not replant those seeds, what happens if they do replant? Aren't they violating the terms of their purchase? It's like me buying a software license for 1-year, and not renewing but continuing to use the software beyond the expiration.
c) If someone knowingly uses a patented product without paying the patent holder, you're saying that they're not liable?
"Fuck Monsanto and everything that they stand for."
Edgy.
Get real, food has grown and can grow naturally and there are natural ways to have healthy crops that don't need dangerous pesticides. Nature has been working in a balance since ever and they are messing with it. It's MY nature they are messing with. All they're doing is maximizing profits at the expense of everything and everybody else.
The reality is that, from a farmer's point of view, nothing changed. You still go to the same vendors, who supply seed same as they always did, and you plant them just like any other. It is not a practical issue, and never would have seen major use if it was.
The RR1 patent expires next year. That means we've been growing the stuff for almost 20 years now. The only problem I have heard of come as the result of the patent in all that time is the guy who got in trouble for spraying roundup on his "naturally occurring" roundup ready crop.
It most certainly can, but it hasn't for tens of thousands of years. People have been genetically modifying food and growing it in non-natural ways for as long as we have had agriculture.
If we could somehow turn to clocks back to a pre-agriculture food supply, do you feel that it would be viable to keep the current human population alive? Keep in mind that the crops we grow today didn't even exist back then, and only came to exist through thousands of years of genetic modifications.
Have you seen a goat or sheep eating its way through a field of weed? They eat and poop at the same time as they move around. That's an example of a natural fertilizer, cleansing and ploughing tool.
It's the obsession of first-world countries wanting meat every day on the table. That is unnatural. That is disturbing harmony and that is why we need chemical pesticides and genetic modifications and that is why these countries have an excess rate of cancer in comparison to those that still grow food in their yards naturally.
So stop calling natural agriculture genetic modification. That's an argument Monsanto and the likes brought to the table to mess with your mind and justify their cause and is completely invalid.
If you answer no, at what point did agriculture lose that love, if more than 100 years ago?
> Have you seen a goat or sheep eating its way through a field of weed?
I have never seen a field of weed with or without animals in it. Such a field would be illegal in my country. (Sorry, I couldn't resist)
Second, the argument about GMO (or any other high-tech way to increase farming yields) being a 'solution' to food supply shortages is thrown around a lot without any evidence.. nor, as far as I can see, any actual basis in fact.
The drive to increase yields is a drive to increase profit / hectare, which has only resulted in actually driving other farmers out of the business which reduces food production stability, and ultimately overall yield. In every objective measure, this process also produces inferior product.
Monsanto has been profiting from the large-scale destruction of many decades of careful seed adaptation in regional areas. They have driven seed sellers and savers out of business in order to monopolise the markets. They sue / threaten / cajole farmers into using their product or effectively run them out of business.
Third, if I spent billions creating a piece of software whose sole purpose was to replicate its source code and upload it randomly to surrounding networks (along with some by-product) and did this by only changing a couple of lines in an existing piece of open source code, so that no one could really tell the difference... and got pissed that people were using that code. Well, I would just be a bit of a dick now, wouldn't I.
Spending more money on something does not give you any more rights, just more risk.
I can't understand how Monsanto can make these claims with a straight face. The guys didn't license the seeds from them. If much, they could go after whoever sold the seeds to the grain elevator, but that's also quite a stretch.
Also, what happens if some other regular seed shipment is "contaminated" by Monsanto seeds in any way? Is a farmer/buyer supposed to have to pay them for not doing DNA analysis in all seeds? WTF?!
Monsanto and the FDA are a revolving door for each other and Clarence used to work for Monsanto.
Or, presumably, he can wait till the original patent expires, then he can use the roundup-ready soybeans freely.
I'm all for calling out unethical companies and IP trolls, but unless companies get to protect real IP that they develop themselves, what's the point in developing anything.
All of us are familiar with something similar -- engineering of new computer code.
It is often granted that computer code provides unique benefits worth protecting. I can certainly see why genetic engineering deserves similar protections.
That said, this is a fairly complicated piece of case law and I could definitely see how it could fall through the cracks in naively written legislation.
Monsanto has been so successful with this because, for 99% of the farmers out there, these patents have no effect on their business. It wasn't particularly common to grow your own seeds for a variety of reasons, even before the patents came into effect.
In terms of unethical Monsanto is in the absolute top league. This is a company, which positively can be described as evil.
I suggest you do some reading up about this company.
How about addressing his point?
OK. Monsanto seems to have a unique interpretation of IP for themselves. They invented a genetic modification of existing crops. Now they claim the modified crops themselves as their IP, which is like HP claiming copyright on material printed with their printers. Not only that, they also claim rights on the following generations of these crops, which is just absurd.
If you want to patent your genetic modifications, so noone else can apply it, go ahead - sue people who apply the same modifications. But claiming IP rights on modified (with it) seeds is not reasonable.
Now, with that said, you cannot possess GM seed without the necessary license agreements with Monsanto due to the above. Theoretically farmers, who have acquired the necessary licenses, could grow second generation seed, except those license terms provide additional clauses around the use of the second generation seed. You can disagree to those clauses, but then you will not be granted access to the patent rights.
So, the issue is that you cannot buy GM seeds in the first place without entering into a legal agreement, and that legal agreement dictates how you use future generations. There is no scenario where the second generation can be logically free of IP rights, because if you disagree, you cannot reach the point of growing a second generation.
Of course the real issue here is that the patent system needs to be fixed, and not just for seed and software.
The parent topic asks, Monsanto made the roundup-ready soybeans, which took millions to develop. If the farmer doesn't want to be sued, he could use non-roundup-ready soybeans.
In the documentary, they profile a farmer who got sued by Monsanto for not paying their license. The farmer claimed he was not using Monsanto seeds. However, Monsanto's argument amounted to "We are the largest seller of these seeds in the world, therefor, it must be our seed. Even though you can prove it isn't, you must have "washed" the seed to make it seem like it isn't ours, or maybe some of your neighbor's Monsanto seed blew into your land and you owe us for that too."
The judge sided with Monsanto.
Yes, this shows our legal system is evil for letting them get away with this, but the fact that Monsanto is driving around & actively looking for farmers who aren't using their seed, extorting them for not & dragging them into a court battle they know will bankrupt them is evil too.
For further viewing, check the Monsanto Food Inc. clips. They are on YouTube. Mansanto has also responded on their website.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_23430.cfm
One good reason to developing better farming techniques is that a large number of wealthy organization would profit, and such are more than willing to spend money on research. If I went to the military and said I had a method to produce biofuel at 50% the current price, would a likely response be: "No! If you don't have a patent, we are not going to give you any money for that. We are happy to spend loads of money on more expensive methods for fuel. We the army lives for patents!"
Lets take a hard look on something like corn. From chemical industry to food to fuel. I am sure not a single company would want to spend money on research into better production if there was no patents. Cheaper production and less risks be damned.
Or... and this is just a thought... Some research is like math. There is intrinsic benefit from improved technology. The army is not hurt because others can also produce cheaper fuel.
To make money.
Companies (and people) have been developing new technology long before patents were introduced, and something tells me that they will continue to do so just fine even in the unlikely event of the patent system is abolished.
The millions spent give them the advantage of being the first to introduce this type of product in market. Nothing more.
on a personal note: I'd hate to think what would have happened if everyone throughout history thought of "IP" the same way people nowadays seem to think. We'd probably just started producing cars that need to be cranked to start.
So there was no progress in the world at all prior to the creation of patent law?
You could argue about whether or not patents cause more progress, but it is quite obviously not the case that companies not have any reason to develop anything without patents, given that companies did develop things without patent protection for a simple reason: If not, they'd get crushed by their competition.
Sure, they could copy things, but then they'd be stuck in perpetual catch-up mode figuring out all things they can't quickly glean from the copy, such as the optimal way of manufacturing the product. They'd also face substantial risk: What if a competitor comes up with something they're unable to figure out how to copy quickly?
And it is clear that there's plenty of profit to be had without being the "low cost generic" copycat even once the copycats enter the market.
E.g. Boots patent on Ibuprofen ran out a long time ago, yet Boots successfully created (and sold off) the Nurofen brand that still sells Ibuprofen (and other) products at 10-20 times retail price of generic products (including, amusingly, Boots own "generic" store brand).
For things like that, they are a vicious and unethical fast moving train that will crush good people for their own profit. Don't just think you can avoid them and everything will be ok.
Maybe we'll even get some kind of seed DMCA in the future. If Monsanto accuses someone of pirating, the government would just seize those crops. No trial necessary.
It's not that I'm scared about the consequences (the jury's still out on that).
But, do you really want to hand the keys for our nutrition to the likes of Monsanto, Syngenta and their ilk?
My concerns are not about the safety, but about the patent ability of our food supply by private companies.
Edit to add: You can argue that this is a he said, she said. Since Mr. Schmeiser did not use Roundup I find his reasoning that he has no interest in the Monsanto seeds rather convincing.
"the court only considered the GM canola in Schmeiser's 1998 fields, which Schmeiser had intentionally concentrated and planted from his 1997 harvest"
Edit: yes, I'm aware of that most farmers don't actually store their own seed for next year for efficiency of another farmer/company providing high-quality seeds yearly for them, however this is not justifying Monsanto's methods. There must be limits on food patents. I simply don't believe Monsanto cannot recover costs on the first-sale of seeds.
There was a time when some people actually invented things to make the world a better place, or even to further their academic career. With the help of such judges, this era has apparently come to an end. We will never beat famine, we'll just help the plagued 3rd world become 100% dependent on the likes of Monsanto.
I see that as a separate endeavour to what companies generally do.
Not including Somolia in 2011 (which the UN did declare a famine), "... famines have been declared previously in southern areas of Sudan in 2008; in Gode in the Somali region of Ethiopia in 2000; in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1996; in Somalia in 1991-1992, and Ethiopia in 1984-1985." [1]
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39113#.UWW2dKtA...
2) You're free to plant non-Monsanto soybean seeds.
Taking anything that is naturally abundant and making it artificially scarce is perverse and evil.
I said "plant life" was.
Update: So why would I Bother inventing and patenting said robot! To prevent others from creating and using said robot for commercial purposes. I'd then find a business model or revenue stream elsewhere. Said patent would be to protect my other revenue model. I just wouldn't sell any of my robots. Ad a non practicing entity is formed...
Mixed seeds are still partially owned by Monsanto.
This is why we should never be able to patent life.
That's been the case since the early 20th century, and licensed GM seed continues the same practise of breeder-farmer relationship with licenses.
Prove that the National Academy of Sciences were paid for their conclusions.
"deliberately trying to convince me that Monsanto is good for me? Am I nine or something?"
No one is trying to convince you of anything. The National Academy of Sciences, the FDA, the World Health Organization, and the American Medical Association are on my side. Are you saying they're all paid and corrupted? If so, prove it.
You seem to have a lot of pro-GM and pro-Monsanto information and came here ready to confront anyone and as it seems the vast majority do not share your opinion. You talk about your sources but don't provide any citation, instead you end all arguments with "prove I am wrong!". You use the phrasing "on my side" which implies involvement. When you're operating in the billion and trillion dollar scale you can buy yourself through anything and have any desired outcome, this is obvious, yet you want me to provide proof about how power and money corrupts.
I'm sorry you'll lose your job as a GM pherephon since you don't seem to be doing quite well right now. If you have any self-appreciation it's best that you admit your fault and ask for forgiveness.
1) You made a claim. You have no evidence. You have no case. Courts would laugh at you. Don't make claims if you have no evidence.
2) I'm actually a Silicon Valley engineer. Paul Graham is welcome to trace my account's IP to identify who I am. Go ask him if you want. Keep believing I'm in the GM industry if it makes you sleep at night, however.
Instead of watching King Corn and relying on bunk science, maybe you should converse with Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and scientists from any other top biotechnology school. And even better, talk to IP lawyers. If I can't convince you, maybe they will.
I do enjoy your ad hominem insults however.
"Η φύσις μηδέν μήτε ατελές ποιεί μήτε μάτην." -- Αριστοτέλης
"Nature produces nothing imperfect nor in vain." -- Aristotle
What is relevant is the products you choose to buy. If you choosing products raised from Monsanto GM seed, then you are giving incentive to the farmer to buy more seed from Monsanto and its licensees. You are defining the market, the farmer has to fulfill your demands.
On my farm, we stopped growing GM soybeans completely because people in several Asian countries have specifically asked us to fulfill non-GM products, and it is our business to comply. Assuming you do not come from one of the aforementioned Asian countries, and have not made market requests for non-GM products, why not? What is holding you back from defining a non-GM market in your country of origin?
As farmers we have to provide exactly what you, the consumer, are asking for, or we quickly go out of business. If GM crops remain in rotation, it is because people are asking farmers to grow it. Ask for something else, and they will quickly disappear. But are you willing to do that?
http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/monsanto.html
http://rense.com/general33/fd.htm
The tests the FDA conducts have come under criticism for not being long enough for any bad effects to be noticed, among other flaws.
http://rense.com/general59/cchm.htm
The data contained within can be verified/corroborated by other sources.
Sorry I didn't do your homework for you. It won't happen again.
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ncmh/BGER/pdf/Volume%2021/BGER21...
It's a 2004 report but it puts to rest the myth that GM crops are tested well enough by the FDA.
The fact is it's not in Monsanto's best interest to waste money on thorough testing.
All publicly held corporations in America (Monsanto is no exception) are legally charged with creating profit for the shareholders, even if it means screwing over consumers and the environment.
Monsanto has had this down to an art since the 1950s.
I actually agree that the regulatory testing doesn't really operate as openly as it should. But there is a huge amount of independent testing done which is open, and it all (so far) supports the same conclusions as the regulatory testing. See for example the list of independently-funded studies at biofortified: http://www.biofortified.org/genera/studies-for-genera/indepe...
Who reviewed it?
The paper was submitted as part of a book, yes. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ncmh/BGER/volume-21.html
As for the actual individuals who did the peer-review you'll have to ask William Freese and David Schubert. The university only mentions that the papers were reviewed.
You could perform this on me if you wish, I don't really care... https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy
Even if I did call these guys up and inquire about the reviewers you'd no doubt move the goal posts and say "well those reviewers aren't accredited and don't have much experience yada yada..."
In any case the past record for Monsanto isn't a glowing one (Agent Orange, DDT) and there is no reason to assume it cares to change its ways any time soon.
I feel confident I'm on the right side of history.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/Biotechnology/uc...
Firstly, Monsanto, Syngenta, and their ilk have dominated the world seed market since the 1950s. GM food is completely independent of them. Monsanto may be the largest US producer of GM seed today, but the next generation of GM plants that are being worked on are designed to solve a wide range of humanitarian problems. Please, don't make your mind up about a technology with myriad potentially life-saving uses based on one company's commercial implementation. They don't define plant science.
Secondly, the jury is emphatically not still out on the consequences. As with climat change, in the independent scientific literature there is an overwhelming consensus that the technology itself is fundamentally safe, that each new implementation must be assessed separately, and that the risks in general are lower than those for conventionally bred crops.
I'm not defending Monsanto - I'm saying GM is not Monsanto.
It's part of their corporate DNA.
They are already suing people who are not applying any plant transformation, just using seeds. They are even suing people who never used their seeds, but got affected by cross-pollination (http://www.rodale.com/research-feed/organic-vs-monsanto-orga...). So who are you to say who they are or aren't going to sue next?
Specifically since the dude, or dudette, is extremely assertive and even aggressive in demanding sources, while at the same time has not even remotely a source to offer for his / her assertions.
The biggest kicker was to demand a source for an opinion I presented.
If I wouldn,t be against feeding trolls I would be happy to explain the difference between an assertion of fact and an opinion.
If you care about the health of everybody's food and the environment in general please sign it.
By the way, I believe that US and Canada are the only developed nations that don't already require GMO labeling.
Great! Fuck Monsanto's investments and their fucking poison.
"Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?"
If the flaws in their business model are so obvious (i.e. farmers can reuse their product once they bought it), why don't they try to improve their business model instead of threatening farmers with lawsuits and trying to regulate the food industry?
The last Roundup-related patent expired, according to Wikipedia, in 2000. Even the Roundup Ready 1 modified seed patent expires next year.
Mother Jones: All Articles Written by Us Are Belong to Us
I understand the impact on farmers and that Monsanto plays dirty, but this is their invention, you do not have to use their seeds. If you do, however, you must play by their rules. I understand that the lawsuit is different (planted someone else's seeds) but that person also violated his agreement.
"They want the farmers to take all the risks associated with farming, yet they want to control how they use those seeds all the way down the distribution chain,"
So it's an unfair agreement. Don't enter it.
Putting the future of agriculture in the hands of a company this immoral is simply insane.