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Monsanto has been suing farmers for years over alleged theft of GMO--it's nice to see them sued in return. I get the impression Monsanto's legal team is as over
by JosephHatfield 15y ago
Monsanto has been suing farmers for years over alleged theft of GMO--it's nice to see them sued in return. I get the impression Monsanto's legal team is as over-reaching as that of the RIAA.
- ahelwer 15y agoI am involved in the agricultural community, and this sort of crowdsourced assertion has been bouncing around in the internet echo chamber for years. It started with Percy Schmeiser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeis... You can read that yourself and draw your own conclusions (hint: you can't seed upwards of 90% of your field by driving past it with a truck). This has since then snowballed into the story of Monsanto employing a vast legal team to oppress the poor 'simple farmers'. This is patronizing - farmers (outside of communities that explicitly shun technology) are generally a very well-informed and technologically adept crowd, well used to hacking together electronics packages to make their lives easier (a cool example http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1254445743 http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1254445743). The whole motherhood and apple pie callback to the days of yore definitely doesn't hurt the message though, so it stays around. Anyway, take a look at the material on both sides of this topic.