SCI/TECH: Monsanto Suing Farmers Over Piracy Issues

Monsanto is demanding that a farmer pay hundereds of thousands in reparations. His crime? He saved one seed and replanted it the next year, something that has been done for generations upon generations. This is problemactic because Monsanto's seeds, genetically engineered to resist pesticides and weed sprays, are only to be planted once. This therefore violated Monsanto's provisons. This is the 90th lawsuit Monsanto had put forth since 1997.



In my opinion, this is just silly.
Farmers should not have to worry about patents and licenses, they should be able to grow and not have to worry about paying for the seed for than once. Not only can the seed cause problems by cross pollinating with native seeds, as we see here, it can also cause problems with reuse of seeds with are not licensed.

[edit on 14-1-2005 by Banshee]

I will license my DNA to my children, so that when they start reroducing i get renewable income (no refund for miscariages)

Imho, this lawsuit would be the same as "insert your fav airco company" sueing a person because he/she turned of the airco system in his/her house to save energy and to limit wear and tear on the system and breathed air cleaned and conditioned by one of their airco's untill it was deemed to be "dirty" and to warm again by the house owner and then turns back on the airco, instead of leaving it on day and night.

In other words, these lawsuits by monsanto are just silly!!

The easy way around this is to not use modified and patented seeds.

Monsanto suing farmers is nothing new. In this case, there seem to be legal grounds (due to an agreement) but their lawsuits seem to be usually targeted against small farmers that can't fight back to protect their interests. This is done in my opinion as a scare tactic to manipulate the rest of them into submission.

Even if this one may have legal standing, check out the following one where they targeted a dairy farmer who did not use Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone, rBGH, and decided to let their consumers know it.

www.motherjones.com...

The farmers and the consumer are the big losers here when it comes to Monsanto products. First of all it is not required that the products we buy are labled to let us know they are from animals treated with growth hormone, but for them to try and prevent farmers who choose not to use their products from voluntarily letting the consumer know this is outrageous. Perhaps this explains why in my recent quest for products free of these substances, I have found that is very difficult to confirm at market that many products are. The labeling is just not clear enough to be sure. Yet I can come home and search the product brand and confirm yes in fact it meets my criteria. I really found this odd till I saw this lawsuit and now it makes perfect sense.

My biggest gripe in life at the moment is the adulteration of our food supply and the more I research it the more I see that Monsanto is almost single handedly responsible. Luckily, in the past year a lot more organic and natural products have become available in my area, but it requires shopping in multiple places to fully stock the fridge, taking a lot of time and of course the premium on the products to make sure all my dairy and meats are hormone free. Good thing I do not have a large family to feed.

I think at this point I have to go a step further and will review all my mutual funds this weekend to make sure I am not unknowlingly investing in this company that does everything in it's power to protect it's interests against small farmers and the consumers, always targeting the little guy. The next step will be to research all products made by Monsanto, no matter how benign, and make a concerted effort to keep them out of my home.

Well in Canada, I believe it was Alberta Monsanto sued a farm for patent infrigment when some of Monsantos crop showed up in this farm. The Catch? The Farm was an organic one and the farmer did not plant it as it would ruin his crop(which it did). It BLEW onto his land, so in all rigth the farmer should have sued Monsanto for ruining his lucrative Organic crops.

There is something really dark and creepy about this whole seed thing. I started kicking it around on the net and reading up on it, apparently this is a global issue. Take the recent similar events in Iraq, the new government is forcing farmers there to use these new seeds rather than their traditional crops, this is one example of many. Who the hell is at the root of this and what exactly are they trying to accomplish by driving the world's agricultures to using genetically modified seed banks. On the surface of course, they say these new crops produce more food, right beneath that surface of course is greedy patent owners, but my gut reaction to this is that there is something more to it than that...

twitchy, I am not a Conspiracy Theorist(most of the time ) and the only conspiracy I can see hear is the one that has to do with Corporate Greed.

Originally posted by sardion2000
Well in Canada, I believe it was Alberta Monsanto sued a farm for patent infrigment when some of Monsantos crop showed up in this farm. The Catch? The Farm was an organic one and the farmer did not plant it as it would ruin his crop(which it did). It BLEW onto his land, so in all rigth the farmer should have sued Monsanto for ruining his lucrative Organic crops.

There was a class action lawsuit filed by 800 organic farmers in Canada, against Monsanto. Perhaps this suit may be a result of Monsanto sueing organic farmers.

www.hopedance.org...


www.organicconsumers.org...

Try this :

1. The reason for ensuring products are not labelled is that the modified crops can be incorporated into all foods and no-one will be able to avoid it.
2. The reason for ensuring seeds cannot be carried over one year to the next is to ensure that that latest batch of modified seeds is used.
3. The reason for doing open air "trials" (jesus!) is to kill off all Organic crops.
4. checkmate.

Checkmate ? well in year "x" you introduce the latest modified seeds which everyone has to use due to number 2 and 3 and the harvested crops will be in all foods unknowingly due to number 1 (organic labelling meaningless due to 3) and its checkmate since the modification DOPES us all into being controlled.

Happy eating !

Is genetic engineering evolution?

I'm curious as to this. Is Monsanto (and others) just promoting evolution?

Originally posted by JoeDoaks
Is genetic engineering evolution?

I'm curious as to this. Is Monsanto (and others) just promoting evolution?

No they aren't promoting evolution.

They develop crops that are resistant to an herbicide they sell which is known to the public as Round-Up.
It allows farmers to spray herbicide over an entire field and only the weeds will die, not the crops which are resistant to the chemicals.

It will serve no purpose in the future.

We must have some farmers on here who can answer a question for me -- is he supposed to have saved a bag of seed that he bought and planted it the following year or did he harvest seed from the crop grown from the Monsanto seed to plant the next year.

Not that I think either makes a difference -- I would think if you buy seed it is yours to plant this year or next -- knowing that next year it might not have a guarantee to grow being a year old.

But then again I am naive -- I always thought that if you bought a piece of artwork it was yours to do with what you would -- but the artist maintains control over the piece even though you paid for it -- so I guess this is something along that line

jm

Not being a expert in evolution I have read quite a bit about how evolution is controled by need to change because of environment and about 50 other factors that would fit in to the same catagory of what monsanto is doing. The process of altering genetics in crops has gone on since the beginning of farming it has just gotten more advanced and occurs faster.

Mendel would be appalled. Genetics are supposed to be used to cure diseases and end famine, not to patent and exploit!

Kriz_4, You're right, the easiest way around is to avoid using the seeds altogether, but unfortunately some farmers are attracted to the seeds due to the modifications that are made in them.

sardion2000, that's a perfect example of the seeds invading. Do you know about the results of the lawsuit? I find it hard to believe it would carry any weight that an organic farmer would purposely violate their patents.

Relentless, I agree. There are definitely legal grounds because he broke the contract. But I just disagree with the use of GM seeds in general and the whole patenting of the seeds is something I find very bothersome. Eventually there's not going to be any natural, unmodified sources of food left and I find that prospect frightening.

Originally posted by parrhesia
But I just disagree with the use of GM seeds in general and the whole patenting of the seeds is something I find very bothersome. Eventually there's not going to be any natural, unmodified sources of food left and I find that prospect frightening.

Well, if what AceOfBase says is the reason the crops are being modified this is as bad as it gets. I am aware of a huge controversy regarding the use of RoundUp on our crops but I wasn't taking it too seriously because it didn't make sense that too many crops could withstand the stuff. I am more terrified of ingesting products saturated with that stuff than the fact that the crops were modified in the first place (and I am not thrilled at all over ingesting modified crops).

As I said earlier, one of my biggest gripes is the adulteration of our food supply and the picture just gets worse every day. The more one learns, the more it seems obvious there is one giant corporation almost entirely responsible for all of it. They have a huge grip and influence on the industry supplying our food (at this point every piece of the food pyramid) and obviously the FDA, USDA, etc. It seems they will strong arm the industry with incentives, then if that doesn't work, with lawsuits to protect their control. Who is going to be able to take them on at this point? I would suggest that if anyone attempted to promote a ban/protest of their products/practices they would immediately be ruined in court.

Is there no way to stop this?

Edit: Okay, the statement made by AceofBase is not only true, but it is now a concern worldwide. I had thought that only the US was being too lax about these Monsanto products, but here is recent news about approval in Europe regarding Roundup resistant crops. Let's face it, there is no reason to want these crops, except to be able to saturate them with poison.

www.monsanto.com...

[edit on 1/15/2005 by Relentless]

Monsanto vs Schmeiser

Take a look at this link. Talks about a case vs a Saskatechwam conventional farmer whos crop was contaminated by the GM crop very similiar to the Alberta Case(still can't find it,maybe it was this case I was thinking of), his wife was the Organic Farmer element in this case and she only had a Garden in which got contaminated too. Good site, take a look.

I find it hard to believe it would carry any weight that an organic farmer would purposely violate their patents.

EXACTLY! Unfortunetly the case I was not too accurate in describing the case from memory and I just found a site above that appears to be the defendants personal website. His wife was the organic farmer who in is own words was only a garden and as i said above it too got contaminated.

[edit on 15-1-2005 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by twitchy
There is something really dark and creepy about this whole seed thing. I started kicking it around on the net and reading up on it, apparently this is a global issue. Take the recent similar events in Iraq, the new government is forcing farmers there to use these new seeds rather than their traditional crops, this is one example of many. Who the hell is at the root of this and what exactly are they trying to accomplish by driving the world's agricultures to using genetically modified seed banks. On the surface of course, they say these new crops produce more food, right beneath that surface of course is greedy patent owners, but my gut reaction to this is that there is something more to it than that...

couldnt agree more...its beyond greed...
like the movie total recall...they owned the air system on mars...so to have mars produce its own air would have taken away the power they had over the people...
...do that to people with food, and you have the same scenerio.

(...and they could not buy or sale without the mark of the beast - paraphrase from revelation...
so what about growing your own stuff to survive...you cant, they own the world supply, and all natural strain have virtually "died out/disappeared".

come on...monsanto is the same people who brought us agent orange...lets eat their food.
(pretty web-site, it says they care...yes so they must not be evil...)

anyway...the fact that they sued an organic farmer because one of their seeds blew onto his field and grew is ridiculous and shows you something is wrong...the mere fact that they can do this is wierd.
As it was mentioned, the farmer should have the right to sue them for messing up his organic crop.

whatever...life is as it is, no use in getting wrankled up about it

Gods peace all

dAlen

Originally posted by justme1640

But then again I am naive -- I always thought that if you bought a piece of artwork it was yours to do with what you would -- but the artist maintains control over the piece even though you paid for it -- so I guess this is something along that line

jm

The farmer signs an agreement about how the seed will be used.

The thing is, there is a lot of unmentioned factors on both sides.

-GM seed is usually outrageously expensive. Unless it was tailored for your personal microclimate issues, it's generally not worth the effort.

-The seeds that are popular GM products are usually corn. Corn pollen is extremely heavy, and doesn't blow more than a couple of miles in a fertile form. So if it shows up a hundred miles from the nearest customer, something must be up.

-I have worked with Ciba/Giegy products, and La Roche. Their stuff was GM corn. The corn had an enzyme that converts a popular herbacide into fertilizer. This means that if you have a problem with a particular weed, say Johnson grass, you can continue to plant corn, and use a pesticide that would otherwise force you to grow a less $ crop that year, say wheat. A farmer who is using that stuff is making an economic decision. It's hard to say, "oh if farmed and look what popped up." If you had a problem with johnson grass, and didn't think you were using GM seed, you wouldn't have planted corn there in the first place, you'd have planted wheat or something, so you could spray the johnson grass without risking your crop.

-One of the biggest problems with GM products (my experience is with corn and sorghum) is that the plants are genetically identical. To pay for the licensing you have to grow a lot of it; then all of the sudden, it turns out that European corn borers love the product, or it is succeptible to tobbaco mosaic, or some other thing, and you have got dead plants from fence to fence.

GM works best in high $ cash crops like corn or soybeans. Wheat is so hardy, and you can save your own seed for a number of years, that there is no incentive to buy GM wheat, which has been around for 15 years but no one wants. It's not like people are being starved or farmers are being forced out of business for not buying.

I don't like the idea of altered foods, but on the other hand, there are two sides to every coin.