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Comment by dhathorn | Hacker News Reader

Why is family farming worth protecting? What extra value do family farms provide to me, the person actually buying food? People lose their jobs because superior companies out-compete them all the time. Why should farmers be protected from this?

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The issue here is that farmers have been planting crops and saving some of the seed generated for the next season probably from Day 1 in agriculture. Monsanto seeks to insert themselves into this highly efficient process, blocking the replanting of seed and instead extracting for themselves a significant amount of money.

Farmers are free to enter into this relationship since the seeds do conver some advantages in reduced use of pesticides etc. but there is a significant problem with cross-contamination from neighboring crops and through the supply chain so Monsanto ends up suing farmers who never had any intention to use their products in order to get everyone to bow to their will and maintain the agri-business model.

The Monsanto seeds are only beneficial if used with Roundup Ready pesticide (or a generic equivalent). So let me ask you a hypothetical question: If Monsanto's policy was to only sue farmers whose fields had been cross-contaminated AND who used Roundup Ready pesticide, would that be a fair outcome? It would mean farmers could still use their traditional methods without worrying about cross-contamination as long as they didn't use the Monsanto pesticide.

As far as I know Roundup is a general use herbicide. If it was only licensed for use with Monsanto's GM products then I think Monsanto would have a case - assuming there were equivalent non-Monsanto herbicides freely available. I doubt Monsanto would be pretty happy about that however.

UPDATE: There was supposed to be some form of "terminator" gene included in the GM products to explicitly prevent generation two seeds from being replanted. I guess since we are talking about law-suits that did not really work as expected.

Actually, after a serious public kerfuffle, Monsanto pledged not to use this technology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technol...

Glyphosphate (Roundup) is a now off-patent general herbicide that will pretty much kill everything (even your crop) unless it is genetically modified a la Monsanto's RoundUp ready crops. This is often how Monsanto finds people to sue; people that buy Roundup without buying the seeds.

I'm curious to know what you mean by 'equivalent non-Monsanto herbicides'. Roundup is specifically designed kill everything except Monsanto's GM crops. Are you saying that farmers with contaminated fields should be able to use a non-Monsanto herbicide which is specifically designed to avoid killing Monsanto's GM crops?

I thought that was in fact Monsanto's strategy. It's certainly the fact pattern in this particular case.

This isn't a case of a farmer having cross-contamination outside of his control of his saved seedstock, he actively worked to create his own group of seedstock that had their patented gene AND told people he was doing this.

Because Monsanto is not competing - it is trying to use patent law to enforce its monopoly supply of the seeds

Also the area in which Monsanto operates is one where most people IMO would want the old ideals of scientific discovery and invention returned to the common to grow the whole wealth of mankind - not artificially inject a trap such that one company extracts profits at the expense of wider growth

Food is essential for society and it strikes me as a very bad idea to leave it all in the hands of a selfish mega corporation with an exceptionally poor track record.

Medicine is essential for society as well. Would you like to take it out of the hands of the mega corporations as well? Who exactly would be making the new drugs? And don't say the gov't. They gov't's track record of producing new drugs is negligible. Gov't funding contributing to new drugs? Yes, of course. But gov't funding playing a major role in putting a new drug in a patient? Minimal.

Notice how you yourself provide the solution to the fake dilemma you set up: Let them create the drugs, for public funds, but without patent protection for the resulting product, or with reduced protections.

The problem is not that there are mega corporations making GMO seeds or mega corporations creating new drugs. The problem is the extensive patent rights on the result.

One very good reason family farming should be protected, is that large scale monoculture is detrimental to our environment.

http://nature.berkeley.edu/~miguel-alt/modern_agriculture.ht...

Because your home garden is next on the hit list after all the family farms are gone. Most of the family farms do fine and produce well. Monsanto isn't competing, it is basically bullying everyone with "seed contamination" even if you don't want to buy their products.

Isn't it at least in everyone's best interest that OTHER seeds than Monsato's seeds are planted and grown as well? Otherwise it may end up like bananas (all bananas the same DNA and therefore very sensitive to diseases).

While Monsanto does sell seed under the Dekalb brand, they also license to the technology to other seed companies, so it is not simply a matter of buying Monsanto seeds.

Additionally, I don't have my contract with me at the moment, but I seem to recall the requirement of planting a percentage of non-GM crops as part of the agreement of using said seed. Planting RR crops year after year on the same ground doesn't work very well.

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