Comment by dogman144 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dogman144 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Haha very important disclaimer there, because reading your post sounds a lot like a person who works for big ag.

The other reason these laws exist is a long history by Big Ag (Monsanto, Cargill) doing the following, and has been done in the states for a while:

1) gmo/patented seeds in field on the left, community non-big ag seeds on the right field.

2) Cross-pollination occurs because we’re talking crops. Variations on this.

3) Monsanto sues Farmer John and Jane into the ground next season for stealing tech via the crops he’s growing.

Add in a little bit of fear (encryption backdoors for the children, laws to prevent dangerous counterfeit seeds!), and you have monopoly on farming run by big corps.

Also, US corps have a long history of POC’ing underhanded approaches in Africa.

What could be going on here!?

Edit - Man, rereading, “forced to plant [dangerous] saved seeds,” guess it’s Big Ag + tech startups now pushing this. Maybe… those farmers just want to control their “IP” (saved seeds) so they don’t have to buy them from a cartel of seed providers? This is such a well known problem in the states, is this marketing really working in Africa?

Final edit on the soapbox - other reason why this matters is genetic diversity. Crop blight is a thing. There is no way the natural “herd immunity” of a basket of seed variants in a community is outstripped in effectiveness by a growing monoculture of owned hybrid seeds that stay in front of the blights each season. Coffee rust already jumped the Atlantic from Africa to SA. Often feels like I’ve read this sci-fi novel already (there is a good one - Windup Girl).

From what I've read, the articles about Monsanto suing innocent farmers is misleading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co.

“ The usual Monsanto claim involves patent infringement by intentionally replanting patented seed”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases

Edit - Can’t reply again looks like but to the response below, yes many view this approach as effectively leading to enforcing what you state. Which is why it is so horribly underhanded to me, and seeing supporting narratives in hackernews was striking.

Doesn't this mean that farmers will no longer be able to reuse their own seeds then, if a neighbor has GMO seeds?

No, it doesn't. From their "commitment" [1] which was affirmed by the courts as binding in a 2010s court case (Organic Seed Growers & Trade Ass'n v. Monsanto):

> We do not exercise our patent rights where trace amounts of our patented seeds or traits are present in a farmer’s fields as a result of inadvertent means.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20101023123618/http://www.monsan...

> where trace amounts of our patented seeds or traits are present in a farmer’s fields as a result of inadvertent means.

That sounds like a very hollow commitment to me. Who defines what "trace" is. Monsanto?

And what is the normal cross pollination rate from doing nothing. 1% 5%? It sounds like it just means we won't sue you the first year, we'll wait until the second year then sue you.

The practice needs to be banned. It's Monsanto seeds that are spreading their genetics in the wind. If they don't want that, then make crops that can't. If they're unable to, then tough.

Saying nobody within pollination range can grow their own crops anymore once someone nearby purchases Monsanto seeds is absurd.

That's all aside from the fact that patenting things that reproduce still is somewhat of a weak concept to begin with.

Putting an absurd tech spin on it. If you made a robot/machinr that could replicate itself sure patent it. If you made a robot that sent out radio waves and every machine within receiving distance could/would suddenly replicate, you can't sue those owners for "stealing your technology".

The proof is in the pudding. To my knowledge Monsanto has never sued anyone over inadvertent cross contamination regardless of the percentages. The cases where they have sued were farmers who explicitly went out and got Roundup resistant seeds to use with Roundup from unlicensed vendors or in violation of a license they themselves signed with Monsanto.

It has never made any sense for them to enforce it against cross contamination because farmers don't want the seeds if they're not already nuking everything with glyphosate. They either buy F1 seeds every year for the extra yield hybrid vigor gives them or they save seed that's somewhat optimized for their growing conditions.

> Saying nobody within pollination range can grow their own crops anymore once someone nearby purchases Monsanto seeds is absurd.

This is a fantasy you have concocted, not the reality.

Meaning it didn’t happen, or the farmers aren’t as innocent as the word innocent legally implies?

Comment could be considered misleading…

There have been court cases, but in most cases, they weren't simply "innocent farmer happened to grow IP-infringing crop simply due to being near a farm that used GMO crops and cross-pollinating by accident".

To use the example provided by the anti-Monsanto upthread poster as a example of Monsanto being underhanded:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co

1. Bowman buys Monsanto soybeans as seeds agreeing to not replant the soybean harvest.

2. Bowman sells the soybean harvest to a food wholesaler who sells to retailers who sells to consumers for consumption.

3. Bowman buys soybeans back from that same food wholesaler (who normally only sells for consumption) intending to replant those food soybeans (which is abnormal).

4. Bowman then tests the seeds he bought to verify which ones were the ones he sold which had the Monsanto modifications (or his neighbors who were also using Monsanto seeds with the same contract) and which he was not allowed to replant as per the contract in 1.

5. Bowman then only replants the ones with the modifications and uses Roundup in those fields.

6. Bowman then repeatedly saves and replants seeds from that crop to amplify their quantity of modified crop and purchases more seeds from the food wholesaler.

It was about as premeditated and intentional a contract violation as you can get.

What's the example on the other end of the spectrum?

Hello, are you still there?

How does that suing pass muster is any court of law?

Good question

Does it need to? Unfortunately, a threat of a lawsuit by a large company is weapon enough to make people buckle.

More expensive lawyers.

Read "confessions of an economic hitman", you'll get the gist

Reply on news.ycombinator.com