Monsanto has to Accept Full Responsibility for Genetic Contamination

Originally posted by starcraft
Roundup Ready (RR) crops have greatly increased crop yields worldwide. Weed competition can greatly reduce yields, and this very safe chemical (glyphosate) is effective at controlling any weedy plant that does not have a woody stem. It's probably the single largest innovation in agriculture since the advent of 2,4-D and the Green Revolution. "Better living through chemistry"

The LD-50 of Roundup is higher than table salt....you could literally drink it without being harmed.

I'll send you some ice cubes, knock yourself out!

"It is interesting to note....that increasing crop yields was cited by over half the farmers as the reason for planting GMO soybeans, yet yields were actually lower", reported researchers at the Leopold Centre.

Source: (numerous studies)

Low yeilds

reply to post by Maxmars



Interesting article, thanks for that. Yes, original hopes for huge yields did not prove to be true. The plants were selected for Roundup resistence, not yield. "All that glitters is not golden". I would point out though that these studies you refer to were from 2000 and earlier. From then til now is a lifetime in plant genetics. RR soybeans are now selected for yield among many other traits.

Very good news thank you for posting this a Flag and star for you mate

Monsanto's push to sue people whose crops have been contaminated with Monsanto's GMs is madness. Not only does it do untold damage to farmer's livelihood it also does massive damage to the world's stores of heirloom varieties. I am glad to see this corporation put in its place, I hope too that it is only the first of many blows that puts this monster on it's ass.

why do we need an irrational poster who's trumpeting the harmlessness of glyphosphate? (roundup)

it's immaterial to the discussion and it's truely irrelevant because human beings aren't the only lifeforms on this planet. it harms plants and soil fauna and flora, which leads to increased soil depletion. civilisations last roughly as long as their topsoils. any conclusions drawn from these factoids will be preemptively classified.....



anyways, the law scarcety and one of its minions, Monsanto, suffered a setback today. may they repeat the experience until oblivion


PS: maybe there's hope left Earth can avoid the impending worldwide famine after all.

Originally posted by Long Lance
why do we need an irrational poster who's trumpeting the harmlessness of glyphosphate? (roundup)

Disinformation runs rampant on this site. Luckily, those posters are so easy to spot, it's like they're running around with big red targets on their chest.

Hopefully that giant Monsanto hits the ground hard when it falls.

Really good news indeed.

I can't wait to see the company that tries to get a patent to "life itself" go down.

reply to post by starcraft

I'm going to go out on a limb here and accuse you of being a Troll and a shill for Monsanto (look at the profile, seems set-up to respond to this thread). It is an established fact that they have numerous PR people, both in company and hired firms, to do exactly this.

For an indepth look at Monsanto PLEASE watch the documentary below; it was aired in France a couple of months ago, was posted on YourTube and Google vid, started to go viral and was then PULLED for 2 1/2 months before slowly being reintroduced in 10 minute segments recently. I implore anyone who cares at all about this issue to take the time to see this. Then please, please pass this along. This is one of the biggest issues of our time and most folks have no idea what's going on for lack of information. Sending light and love to all, even the Troll.

Originally posted by starcraft
Chemophobia....The IRRATIONAL fear of chemicals.

I'm a soil scientist...careful with the broad, irrational statements based on ignorance. Chemophobia with its' basis in misinformation and paranoia is not treatable with knowledge and common sense unfortunately. I won't respond any more. Arguing with these folks is quite unfair, they're not equipped.

FYI...you can't "kill" soil....LOL. You can destroy soil structure, through mismanagement, but chemicals have nothing to do with it.

Whole and entirely truthful, I have starred all your posts in this thread.

These people are no better than the religious zealots who refuse medical treatment for their children.

No zealot is a good zealot.

This post's headline is actually very misleading. If you'd dig a little deeper, you'd find the story is much more complicated and in fact the whole issue was started as an intellectual property case. It was Monsanto that originally sued Schmeiser.

(From a yahoo search)
Monsanto v. Schmeiser: A “Classic David and Goliath” Story?

by Clark Wolf, Director of Bioethics


Percy Schmeiser has become a folk hero of sorts. His story has quite literally become the stuff of legend and song, and he has been honored with awards from several groups that see him as a champion who stood up to a large multi-national corporation. Schmeiser is a Canadian farmer who was sued by Monsanto for violation of their intellectual property rights in the Roundup Ready™ canola he raised in his fields. Schmeiser didn’t purchase the Roundup Ready canola that was found growing on his land. Apparently the parent stock blew in from the road or from a neighboring field. When Schmeiser collected seed and saved it to plant in the following year, Monsanto’s gene was present in the saved seed and was thus present in Schmeiser’s canola. Tests identified the presence of Monsanto’s intellectual property in Schmeiser’s crop, and since he had not purchased the seed from Monsanto and had no license to use their patented Roundup Ready technology, Monsanto brought suit against Schmeiser in the Canadian court system. On appeal, the case rose all the way to Canada’s Supreme Court, which delivered its ruling on May 21, 2004. In spite of the fact that Monsanto’s patented genes had apparently drifted onto Schmeiser’s field, the court found in favor of Monsanto. In a five to four decision, they ruled that Percy Schmeiser violated Monsanto’s intellectual property rights by growing Roundup Ready canola without a license. For this reason, Monsanto v. Schmeiser has been represented as implying that farmers can be held liable for the unintentional and adventitious presence of patented material in their fields. In this case, since Schmeiser never used Roundup® to clear the weeds in his field, the court found that no damages were due to Monsanto. Both sides in the legal battle declared victory and retreated to their respective corners to nurse their wounds.

The article the OP links, other than being very poorly written and hard to understand, is very slanted.

Originally posted by TheWayISeeIt
reply to post by starcraft

 

For an indepth look at Monsanto PLEASE watch the documentary below; it was aired in France a couple of months ago, was posted on YourTube and Google vid, started to go viral and was then PULLED for 2 1/2 months before slowly being reintroduced in 10 minute segments recently. I implore anyone who cares at all about this issue to take the time to see this.

Even Google does not "pull" videos for no reason. There must have been in the best case, copyright infringement, or in the worst case slander and libel.

Going with the track record of enviro-activists, I would place my bets firmly in the bold category.

This really seems to be good news for a change. I'm sorry if this has already been answered, but does this reverse the decisions already made against farmers? The ones who inadvertantly were growing Monsanto GM crops and got sued for it?

I find Monsanto's case to be bordering on moronic. How can a farmer be sued for cross polinating of plants??? Just how is any farmer going to stop bees and animals from dragging polen into the fields they live in? How does Monsanto expect to stop they're product from doing the same to other strains of the same crop? Mosanto has done some amazing things to make farming easier and more productive, but this is ludicrous. They are ignoring the very nature they presume to advance!


Zindo

Unfortunately, I doubt that much can be done about the heirloom seed lines that Monsanto has been able to get destroyed after their 'genetics' were found in farmers plots. Because the farmers did not have permission from Monsanto they were able to get the courts to force the farmers to incinerate entire crops because of possible contamination.

Hopefully Percy, and the other farmers like him who have been affected, hid away some of their heirloom seeds. I doubt you can quantify the loss in monetary damages, but when a blight hits the uniform genetics of Monsanto products, we will be screwed if we don't have something else to plant.

It warms my heart to hear this news.
DocMoreau

Originally posted by marg6043

But this thread is actually on the Genetic contamination and is impact on other farmers fields, be purposely or just negligent.

I think the most important issue of all concerning Monsanto's Round-up Ready GMO crops is the fact that these seeds, in effect have a TERMINATOR gene within. This means if the crop does NOT receive it's required Round-up spray; it will not develop to fruitation whatsoever.

This is the real evil of Monsanto's global food control plan. They are currently buying up en mass every seed company on the planet. When these seeds are introduced to the Terminator gene, the real repercussions will being.

Natural farmers, indigenous farmers, organic farmers, peasant farmers, anyone who didn't sign a contract with Monsanto; will all be at risk of having their crops eradicated via Monsanto's cross pollination.

Once being successfully cross pollinated, these crops will REQUIRE the farmer to buy Round-up spray, thus becoming dependent and ultimately indebted.

I can't stress enough the importance of the Terminator gene factor. Whether the lawsuit was won or not may have little longstanding implication on the AMAZING seed company buy-up Monsanto is engaging..

reply to post by forsakenwayfarer

How do you know "videos are never pulled from Google" unless there is lawsuit/copyright issues? You have no way of knowing why that video was taken down. Do you work for Google?

Not to take this thread off topic, but I will add that Google has deals with the multiple U.S. government and even created a special division to accomdate various government agencies, NASA (where their building as we post 1.2 million sq ft. office space) DARPA, CIA, etc. There are many posts on this site discussing that, but you have hard timne finding them using the Goggle powered ATS search. I forwarded one comprehensive thread to someone via email a mnonth or so ago. If you'd like to read it U2U me and I will find it and send it to you -- this goes for anyone.

As to the documentary by Marie-Monique Robin that I posted above it was aired nationally by ARTE France and there are no lawsuits by Monsanto that dispute any of the facts that she assiduously researched. It is utterly damning AND also gets into the fact that Monsanto has purchased a preponderance of the world's seed supply companies in the last decade. They are ever closer to total control of the world's food supply. And that is just a small part of what she exposed.

Monsanto wouldn’t address these issues on camera for Robin, instead referring to the "Monsanto Pledge" posted on their website and which Greenpeace dunked here www.greenpeace.org...

So why don't you do yourself a favor and just watch the doc before you take positons about Monsanto and the good they are doing the world as it is patently clear you really have no information on the topic.

I know the Supreme Court is now citing legal precedent in law outside of the US, but I was wondering if a Canadian case like this would could be used in an American legal proceding as a cited precedent?

If anyone can shed light on that, it would be great to know.

reply to post by SystemiK


They won't accept any responsibility for it as long as there is a PROFIT MARGIN in it to be made.

Starcraft, just face the reality of the big picture. For anyone that wants to live in a natural, healthy and abundant world, corporations like monsanto, and especially monsanto, have to be destroyed. I'm sorry if that puts you out of a job, but it's for the greater good.

And there is nothing irational about fearing chemical contamination of our foodstocks or for not trusting a scientist. Scientists are often wrong and almost always short sighted and unable to think through all the complex correlations in nature, which usually results in an elephant in a china shop solution to a problem.

The quality of our global food supply is decreasing and the main reason is industrialized agriculture based on chemical fertilization and sterilization. Biological agriculture, even if done in industrial structures, could pick up the slack and we would be able to easily feed the world.

reply to post by starcraft


Starcraft, the article you pasted above was published in May of 2005. The article in the OP is referring to a settlement which was reached in March of this year. This case has actually been unfolding since 1997. You seem to insinuate that your 3 year old news item is representative of the current outcome which is actually quite misleading. What exactly is your agenda here?

If anyone is interested in a brief overview,this article details the timeline and events of the case.

JackintheBox: Since the case was settled out of court, I would imagine that other similar cases will still stand as decided by the courts. However, this case does illustrate to other farmers that they need not bow down to Monsanto in future cases of alleged infringement. Above all, Percy has shown that Monsanto can be beaten at their own game. No doubt there will be a lot more farmers willing to take cases to court and eventually one of them will recieve a favorable decision. Once that happens, I believe that previous cases will be more open to appeal.

[edit on 6-7-2008 by SystemiK]