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[Citation needed] with regards to "then they buy a land around his, put their seeds on, wind blows them on the farmer land, then they sue him for stealing their
by sxp 14y ago
[Citation needed] with regards to "then they buy a land around his, put their seeds on, wind blows them on the farmer land, then they sue him for stealing their seeds"
If you are referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeis... then you are eliding the part where "[Schmeiser] had used Roundup herbicide to clear weeds around power poles and in ditches adjacent to a public road running beside one of his fields, and noticed that some of the canola which had been sprayed had survived. Schmeiser then performed a test by applying Roundup to an additional 3 acres (12,000 m2) to 4 acres (16,000 m2) of the same field. He found that 60% of the canola plants survived. At harvest time, Schmeiser instructed a farmhand to harvest the test field. That seed was stored separately from the rest of the harvest, and used the next year to seed approximately 1,000 acres (4 km²) of canola."
If there was a situation where Monsanto sued and won against a farmer operating in good faith after accidental contamination, please cite it. Monsanto may be an evil megacorp (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Company#1997_WTVT_news_story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Company#1997_WTVT_news...) but evil is not directly related to their GM work.
- talmand 14y agoI think the case you cited is the citation you are looking for. The problem with that case is in the definition of operating in good faith. If the farmer did not attempt to cause his crop to be cross pollinated with Monsanto seed then it's not his fault that was the result. He may have known what he was doing and took advantage of the situation, but that's irrelevant. Unless it could be proven that he somehow obtained the seed from outside his crop without going through proper channels then he did nothing wrong. He claimed to have replanted seed from his own crop and I don't see where Monsanto proved otherwise. Again, the case you cite is the citation you are looking for. Granted, I don't believe that Monsanto purchased the land around his farm with the intent to infect his crop with their seed, but the outcome is the same. The court gave Monsanto license to claim all crops cross-pollinated with their seed as being property of Monsanto. In this case, the court was wrong.
- r00fus 14y agoThere is targeted evil and aggregate evil. The slippery slope of the above defense in the case is that eventually farmers won't have a choice if they use GMO crops - through cross-pollination and wind, they will be "infected" at some point, and will have to pay despite what they actually planted.