Monsanto: All Your Seeds Are Belong to Us
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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.
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.
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)
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.
Nature and biology should not be restricted by anything. Ever.
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.
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.
Putting the future of agriculture in the hands of a company this immoral is simply insane.
The last Roundup-related patent expired, according to Wikipedia, in 2000. Even the Roundup Ready 1 modified seed patent expires next year.
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?
By the way, I believe that US and Canada are the only developed nations that don't already require GMO labeling.
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.
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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.