Supreme Court hands Monsanto victory over farmers on GMO patents!

[Peter Lemkin]

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Supreme Court hands Monsanto victory over farmers on GMO seed patents, ability to sue

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[TD="width: 40%"] 1/13/14[/TD]
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The US Supreme Court upheld biotech giant Monsanto's claims on genetically-engineered seed patents and the company's ability to sue farmers whose fields are inadvertently contaminated with Monsanto materials.

The high court left intact Monday a federal appeals court decision that threw out a 2011 lawsuit from the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and over 80 other plaintiffs against Monsanto that sought to challenge the agrochemical company's aggressive claims on patents of genetically-modified seeds. The suit also aimed to curb Monsanto from suing anyone whose field is contaminated by such seeds.
The group of plaintiffs, which included many individual American and Canadian family farmers, independent seed companies and agricultural organizations, were seeking preemptive protections against Monsanto's patents. The biotech leviathan has filed over 140 lawsuits against farmers for planting the company's genetically-engineered seeds without permission, while settling around 700 other cases without suing.
None of the plaintiffs are customers of Monsanto and none have licensing agreements with the company. The group argued that they do not want Monsanto's genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and want legal protection in case of inadvertent contact with the company's products.
The appeals court decision was based on Monsanto's supposed promise not to sue farmers whose crops -- including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and others -- contained traces of the company's biotechnology products.
In a June 2013 ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC said it was inevitable, as the farmers' argued, that contamination from Monsanto's products would occur. Yet the appeals panel also said the plaintiffs do not have standing to prohibit Monsanto from suing them should the company's genetic traits end up on their holdings "because Monsanto has made binding assurances that it will not 'take legal action against growers whose crops might inadvertently contain traces of Monsanto biotech genes (because, for example, some transgenic seed or pollen blew onto the grower's land).'"

The panel's reference to "traces" of Monsanto's patented genes means farms that are affected by less than 1 percent.
The plaintiffs asked Monsanto to pledge not to sue, but the company rebuffed the request, saying, "A blanket covenant not to sue any present or future member of petitioners' organizations would enable virtually anyone to commit intentional infringement."
Monsanto's GMO seeds are designed to withstand the company's own ubiquitous herbicide, Roundup. Recently, questions have begun to arise from the bioengineered seed's resistance to pestilence, which has caused some farmers to increase their use of traditional pesticides.
"Monsanto never has and has committed it never will sue if our patented seed or traits are found in a farmer's field as a result of inadvertent means," said Kyle McClain, the Monsanto's chief litigation counsel, according to Reuters.
"The lower courts agreed there was no controversy between the parties," McClain added, "and the Supreme Court's decision not to review the case brings closure on this matter."
Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association President Jim Gerritsen expressed disappointment that the Supreme Court reaffirmed the previous ruling, refusing to hear the case.
"The Supreme Court failed to grasp the extreme predicament family farmers find themselves in," said Gerritsen, an organic seed farmer in Maine. "The Court of Appeals agreed our case had merit. However ... safeguards they ordered are insufficient to protect our farms and our families."
In addition to Monday's news and the appeals court decision against them, the plaintiffs -- many of them non-GMO farmers and who make up over 25 percent of North America's certified organic farmers -- also lost a district court case.
"If Monsanto can patent seeds for financial gain, they should be forced to pay for contaminating a farmer's field, not be allowed to sue them," said Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, in a statement "Once again, America's farmers have been denied justice, while Monsanto's reign of intimidation is allowed to continue in rural America."
"Monsanto has effectively gotten away with stealing the world's seed heritage and abusing farmers for the flawed nature of their patented seed technology," said Murphy. "This is an outrage of historic proportions and will not stand."

[David Guyatt]

I have a marriage relative, a really nice, genuine and gentle (and highly intelligent) guy who is an agronomist and who spent his working life in some of the poorest places in the world trying to help local, small farmers develop practises that would benefit them.

I posted this story along with one of my vitrilolic rants about Monsanto's greed, and this is what he said in response:

Calm down! Terminator genes stop genetically modified plants cross pollinating with non-GM plants so the GM component stays where it is and does not proliferate. This protects the considerable investment that breeders have made in developing GM crops AND it satisfies one of the key objections of the anti-GM lobby, that of contamination. Any farmer who has grown hybrid crops such as hybrid maize for the past 60 years has accepted that the seed would not breed true and so could not be used for a second crop. This is a fundamental feature of crop improvement by hubridisation because the process involves maintaining at least two completely separate populations of parents the offspring of which yield better than their parents due to what is known as hybrid vigour. This is a natural phenomenon and commercial farmers have been prepared to accept the restriction since at least the 1940s. Seed of some crops such as wheat and as far as I am aware, rice cannot be economically produced by hybridisation so other breeding methods have to be used. These are not GM crops either. Farmers have been able to continue using the seed from this kind of crop and have traditionally done so but they have to take care to avoid contamination of their seed by seed from different varieties. Breeders do not like the seed they spend a fortune on developing from being grown on but there was not a lot they could do about it. You, for example could plant "Rooster" potatoes from the supermarket in your garden and they would grow once the effect of the sprouting inhibitor that is sprayed on potatoes for food had worn off. Sorry, I rant!

This changes the complexion of this argument considerably.

I still don't fucking trust Monsanto, though....

[Peter Lemkin]

I have a marriage relative, a really nice, genuine and gentle (and highly intelligent) guy who is an agronomist and who spent his working life in some of the poorest places in the world trying to help local, small farmers develop practises that would benefit them.

I posted this story along with one of my vitrilolic rants about Monsanto's greed, and this is what he said in response:

Calm down! Terminator genes stop genetically modified plants cross pollinating with non-GM plants so the GM component stays where it is and does not proliferate. This protects the considerable investment that breeders have made in developing GM crops AND it satisfies one of the key objections of the anti-GM lobby, that of contamination. Any farmer who has grown hybrid crops such as hybrid maize for the past 60 years has accepted that the seed would not breed true and so could not be used for a second crop. This is a fundamental feature of crop improvement by hubridisation because the process involves maintaining at least two completely separate populations of parents the offspring of which yield better than their parents due to what is known as hybrid vigour. This is a natural phenomenon and commercial farmers have been prepared to accept the restriction since at least the 1940s. Seed of some crops such as wheat and as far as I am aware, rice cannot be economically produced by hybridisation so other breeding methods have to be used. These are not GM crops either. Farmers have been able to continue using the seed from this kind of crop and have traditionally done so but they have to take care to avoid contamination of their seed by seed from different varieties. Breeders do not like the seed they spend a fortune on developing from being grown on but there was not a lot they could do about it. You, for example could plant "Rooster" potatoes from the supermarket in your garden and they would grow once the effect of the sprouting inhibitor that is sprayed on potatoes for food had worn off. Sorry, I rant!

This changes the complexion of this argument considerably.

I still don't fucking trust Monsanto, though....

I'll have to think about his argument; but off the top of my head...not all GM crops have 'terminator genes' - only some. There have already been cases of unintended hybrids and GM crops blowing in the wind or carried by birds etc. to non-GM farms [and growing!]. The other problem is that Montsanto has been given the 'green light' to sue farmers who are victims of Montsanto - not thieves of their products!!! Most non-Monsanto farmers want NOTHING to do with the poison seeds Montsanto sells - and their proprietary pesticides that go along with them [yet another contamination problem from proximity!]. Perhaps the largest problem is not specifically mentioned here, and that is the chemical products and genetic Frankenstein genes set afoot when the Montsanto products move around the world and into the food stream, as well as into the environment. Even insects and birds that feed on the Frankenstein products have been effected - and certainly there have been recorded consequences and many more fears of them down the line with these new chemicals and genes in the environment and food supply to animals, plants, fungi and humans. Its not a good idea to f*** with Mother Nature!

[David Guyatt]

You know how poor I am at technical arguments of this nature. Science is not my strong suit.

So, would an analysis of this conflicting argument be that there is a genuine need, in some cases, for terminator seeds - as outlined by my relative -
in that the science is good and understandable, but that the science can also be abused and applied to other seeds/crops that don't need the meddling of science... they do pretty damned well as nature intended -- but Monsanto and others see the possibility of taking copyright control of all seeds/crops to propagate their fucking awful business interests?

It's a case of the surgeon's scalpel, it can be used to heal or harm. The choice comes down to who uses it and what their motivations are?

Would that be a fair summing up?

[Peter Lemkin]

Your relative, if I read it correctly, was not making an argument [I hope] for any 'good' in terminator seeds - he was only saying that since they only grow one crop and then die, they negate the problem of hybrids. This is not correct on many levels. 1] not all GM seeds are 'terminator seeds'. 2] even that ONE year's crop can put Frankenstein genes and their chemical products into the ecosphere. 3] There are already known hybrids between GM pollen and natural crops. 4] this doesn't address, at all, the issue of Monstanto and other GM companies being allowed to sue the victims of their own perfidy and crimes. I can see NO benefit of terminator genes other than being able for the first time in all of the history of life to have to pay someone for a crop to grow a second+ season. I can see numerous negatives to the practice from both a business [sic] and environmental point of view. What possible good, other than to Monstanto et al. are seeds that grow plants with sterile seeds. For all of history plants by themselves or humans have replanted seeds and the plants have lived on. These are zombie seeds that produce zombie chemicals from their altered genes [chemicals not in nature before!]. They also pollute the fields of those who do not want those seeds and chemicals and effects....and not only that...these poor souls who prefer Natural Methods get dragged into Court and sued out of business for the 'crime' of the wind or some pollinator having brought the Monstanto seeds or pollen via wind or pollinators. The health effects on the environment have already been recorded from these Frankenseeds and their co-pesticides and chemicals that turn off the terminator gene, etc....in the environment, in our foods, in the bodies of animals, plants and humans.....to my mind it is all a negative. Most of the chemicals that are sold WITH the GM seeds [its a package that must be repurchased EVERY year] are carcinogens and worse. I see NO upside at all.....except in Montsanto pockets. If, for example, Montsanto uses it or convinces some farmer[s] to use it, all farmers in the area - in an EVER widening circle are forced to deal with the legal and chemical/biological consequences. It is agricultural and environmental warfare! [economic as well] IMO.

[David Guyatt]

Thanks Pete, I'll put this to him and post his response here in due course.

[Peter Lemkin]

See these threads too:
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...s-amp-More

https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...-Montsanto!

https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...estruction

https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...s-ex-chief

and DO watch on internet the fabulous French video 'The World According To Montsanto'! [in English]

[David Guyatt]

Continuing:

He absolutely agrees with your first point, doesn't "agree with Monsanto or anyone else suing a neighbouring farmer on the basis that he detected a gene in his fields unless it can be proved he stole it", but has "no problems whatsoever with the chemical glyphosate which Monsanto invented in the 1960's and which replaced a lot of very noxious herbicides". A few other lesser points, but his general position reflects mine that big corporations and transnationals are not to be trusted; lack ethics, morals etc.