Feel free to correct me on this, as I'm likely to be wrong.
Loosely, the way Monsanto's GMO crop system works is, their crops are designed to resist a specific herbicide, which Monsanto also sells. Farmers pay a per-acre licensing fee to use the system, meaning they plant the GMO crops and then bomb their fields with the herbicide to kill everything but the crop, which improves yield.
The fact pattern in these Monsanto lawsuits seems to be that farmers are doing three things: (1) planting Monsanto's GMO crops (intentionally or not), (2) using Monsanto's herbicide to take advantage of the improved yield made possible with the crop, and (3) not paying Monsanto.
It is obviously possible for Monsanto GMO crops to end up in an unsuspecting farmer's field. But it's not possible for a farmer to accidentally use Roundup as an herbicide in that field. If they do that without paying Monsanto, they are trying to get something for nothing. That, to my understanding, is what's motivating the lawsuits.
1) Their seeds spread contaminating other farmer's fields. Once GMO is out in the wild, nothing can be pristine anymore. I wouldn't be surprised to find Monsanto genetics having made its way into humans in 20 years.
2) By "bombing their fields" with herbicide (biocide, you can't make something that only poisons one class of organism like this) AND genetically modifying the crops to be resistent to the biocide you are creating a perfect storm to quickly develop resistent parasites. Now everyone has to use your system, because there is no other way to have a crop survive due to super-bugs.
This is a direct parallel of the SUV insanity. Vast numbers of people drive SUVs because they don't want to be in a car hit by an SUV.
I'm well aware of horizontal gene transfer, but thanks for linking it anyways for the people who don't know.
Edit: My response was lacking, apologies. AFAIK, there's never been a horizontal gene transfer from a prokaryote/eukaryote/any other kingdom to a mammal or animal. The last time may be when we got mitocondria.
Isn't that because it's sometimes useful to kill everything?
I'm no expert, but my understanding of the problem is that if you attempt to kill everything, you'll end up with a few super-resistant [things] (organisms, bacteria etc.) who'll only increase the problem:
Going off on a slight tangent, my personal worry is where we'll be after another 10 years of antibac hand wash use. I'm open to being corrected, but my current understanding is that we should be very, very worried.
I was being pretty imprecise there; the point is that Roundup is (again, imprecisely) potent and broad-spectrum. You couldn't just spray it over a normal crop; it would kill the crop along with the weeds.
It is obviously possible for Monsanto GMO crops to end up in an unsuspecting farmer's field. But it's not possible for a farmer to accidentally use Roundup as an herbicide in that field. If they do that without paying Monsanto, they are trying to get something for nothing. That, to my understanding, is what's motivating the lawsuits.
It's not necessary that the farmer derive any benefit from mis-use of Monsanto's IP for them to be in violation of their contract with the company. They buy the seeds on the condition that they will not reuse them. Full stop. However, it's the case that Monsanto modifies crops in other ways, too (to be resistant to drought, for example [0]), so Roundup use is definitely not the only motivating factor.
Nationwide review found that Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits targeting 147 farmers & 39 small businesses since '97. Article from '05, assuming research was done up until then.
Probably the sole one to go to trial & get significant bouts of attention.
You're not replying to my comment so much as you're using it as a coat rack to hang more random news stories about Monsanto on.
Obviously, the practice of suing farmers for (ostensibly) abusing licensed seed is controversial. Obviously you're going to find a lot of stories with a lot of angry farmers and angry farmers' advocates.
But you're not actually making a point with those citations, unless I'm missing it. Help me understand what this has to do with whether Monsanto is right or not?
Schmeisser, by the way, is a uniquely bad example: he didn't just make unauthorized copies (accidentally or not) of Roundup-ready seeds; he also used Roundup to control weeds on the Roundup-ready crops.
"The ruling did increase the protection available to biotechnology companies in Canada, a situation which had been left open with the Harvard mouse decision, where it was determined that a "higher lifeform", such as an animal, or by extension a plant, cannot be patented. This put Canada at odds with the other G8 countries where the patent had been granted. In Monsanto vs. Schmeiser, it was determined that protection of a patented gene or cell extends to its presence in a whole plant, even while the plant itself, as a higher lifeform, cannot be patented. This majority view, based on the precedent of mechanical devices, was central to the Supreme Court's decision, and put the onus on the Canadian Parliament to make distinctions between machines and lifeforms as it saw fit."
Sure sounds like a win in comparison to the alternative.
"Schmeiser won a partial victory, where the court held that he did not have to pay Monsanto his profits from his 1998 crop, since the presence of the gene in his crops had not afforded him any advantage and he had made no profits on the crop that were attributable to the invention. The amount of profits at stake was relatively small, C$19,832, however by not having to pay damages, Schmeiser was also saved from having to pay Monsanto's legal bills, which amounted to several hundred thousand dollars and exceeded his own."
That's more or less true, but irrelevant. From the Wikipedia article linked elsewhere in this conversation:
Schmeiser's principal defense at trial was that as he had not applied Roundup herbicide to his canola he had not used the invention. This argument was rejected; the court said that the patent granted for the invention did not specify the use of Roundup as part of the invention, and thus there was no basis for introducing the requirement that Roundup had to be used in order for the invention to be used. That is, a patent prohibits unauthorized use of an invention in any manner, not merely unauthorized use for its intended purpose.
Wait a minute. I just read the Canadian court opinion from which this tiny snippet was extracted. The context you've discarded includes:
* Schmeiser was a former Roundup-ready licensee
* Schmeiser admittedly used Roundup (the herbicide) in numerous circumstances after ceasing to pay licensing fees, which is part of the pattern of circumstances that led Monsanto to sue him
* Schmeiser actually verified, with Roundup, that his "volunteer" Roundup-ready crop was Roundup-ready, and then saved the seeds anyways
* Monsanto had at the time been removing volunteer Roundup-ready canola plants at their own expense from fields where farmers noticed it growing
The context of this specific paragraph also concerns Schmeiser's argument that Monsanto's patent did not apply except in cases where the unauthorized user sprayed crops with Roundup; he wasn't merely trying to exculpate himself, but was also attempting to overturn part of the patent.
Loosely, the way Monsanto's GMO crop system works is, their crops are designed to resist a specific herbicide, which Monsanto also sells. Farmers pay a per-acre licensing fee to use the system, meaning they plant the GMO crops and then bomb their fields with the herbicide to kill everything but the crop, which improves yield.
The fact pattern in these Monsanto lawsuits seems to be that farmers are doing three things: (1) planting Monsanto's GMO crops (intentionally or not), (2) using Monsanto's herbicide to take advantage of the improved yield made possible with the crop, and (3) not paying Monsanto.
It is obviously possible for Monsanto GMO crops to end up in an unsuspecting farmer's field. But it's not possible for a farmer to accidentally use Roundup as an herbicide in that field. If they do that without paying Monsanto, they are trying to get something for nothing. That, to my understanding, is what's motivating the lawsuits.
Where am I wrong on this?