8 ms·

I hate Monsanto as much as everyone else but I agree with them in this case. If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds s

by pingou 14y ago

I hate Monsanto as much as everyone else but I agree with them in this case. If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ? I believe GM are a chance to humanity, with the potential to feed more and more people. But why develop it and spend millions on R&D if everybody can copy your product for free ? And as far as I know, these seeds allow farmers to use massive doses of roundup, if this guy used some roundup on his crops it's fair to say he perfectly knows these were gm seeds and that he wasn't allowed to use it for free. If you don't want to pay for it, don't use it and do like farmers always did, with standard seeds.

fla 14y ago
> But why develop it and spend millions on R&D if everybody can copy your product for free ? A very bad business model indeed.
- veemjeem 14y ago
  Wouldn't that apply to software & video media as well? AMC sells me a movie, then I copy it and send it to all my friends with no loss in quality for free. Companies then spend tons of money inventing DRM and copy protection techniques. Should Monsanto produce a modified seed that produces seedless fruit? Of course this wouldn't work for products where the seed is the consumable end result (soybean, corn). It seems like Monsanto's business model is no better than our's (software) when one can copy the product easily and distribute it. The only difference is that there are very few seed manufacturers so Monsanto stands alone at trial. Suppose in the future when seed genetic programmers are as common as indie software shops, should these genetic programmers have similar IP protections that software people take for granted?
  - fla 14y ago
    I don't know. My personal feeling is all this patent stuff sounds horribly wrong, be it software or living organisms.
  - agilord 14y ago
    Copy infringement of movies is your choice. You could just watch it and not redistribute it. Copy infringement of seeds is by design. You cannot plant, grow, sell or process your crop without the basic operation of replicating the original.
vidarh 14y ago
> If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ? Since when does people have a right to make a profit, even if their business plan is stupid? > But why develop it and spend millions on R&D if everybody can copy your product for free ? Because if you're not a totally evil bastard, you can still make a massive amount of money by creating a brand that ensures people trust you to always give them the best product? How many people do you know that buy brand name Ibuprofen, for example, despite the fact that Boots, who found the compound and commercialized it, has not held a patent on it for decades? In fact they sold off their own premium brand (Anadin) a while back and now competes with their former brand with cheap generics that often costs a tenth or less of what Anadin charges for the same chemical compound, and still makes money off it despite competition from dozens of manufacturers. It's possible some types of research would not pay without artificially jacked up prices like this, sure. Boots certainly would have made less from Ibuprofen without a patent initially. But if these Monsanto seeds are so effective, then this patent acts as a de-facto tax on a whole range of foods, as unlike Ibuprofen, if they are effective enough to affect competition, "everyone" will need them. If they're not, it doesn't really matter if the R&D hadn't happened. If it already acts like a tax, we might as well bring it under democratic control, and lose the competition distorting downsides of an artificial monopoly, by using already well established avenues for public funding of research to handle any shortfall in R&D funding from curtailing patent rights. The agriculture industry is one of the largest recipients of government subsidies in the world as it is - shifting even a small percentage of those subsidies into funding R&D to make advances in seeds available to farmers cheaper would probably pay off.
- pingou 14y ago
  > Since when does people have a right to make a profit, even if their business plan is stupid? As long as it provides value for the society. If you allow farmers to replant seeds then Monsanto doesn't exist anymore. Do you think it's better for the society? Well Monsanto isn't probably the best example because it's the worst company I can think of, but you get my point. That's the same with vaccines, it costs a lot of money to develop, if you allow everyone to copy it then there's no market and no vaccines. I see gm crops like a software license limited in time, it's not because we agree that you can use my software for a year that you have the right to use it for as long as you want. Don't like this business model ? Then don't use it. > But if these Monsanto seeds are so effective, then this patent acts as a de-facto tax on a whole range of foods, as unlike Ibuprofen, if they are effective enough to affect competition, "everyone" will need them So what? If a company build a harvester that improves harvest by 20%, am I entitled to steal it because it distorts the market? I agree with you these technologies should be public and subsidized by the taxpayers because it benefits everyone. But people don't want to pay for it, and that's their right, so we use private companies that sell it to people willing to pay.
dexen 14y ago
> If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ? I'm not a biologist, but I assume it is possible to make 1G grains edible but infertile -- incapable of sprouting a new plant and/or growing 2G grains. That would render 1G grains useless for sewing, and still usable for anything else. Much like cross of horse and donkey is a viable, but infertile mule. The way I imagine it, Monsanto have to grow two strains of grain, each giving viable grains when pollinated within the strain, but giving only infertile 1G seeds when cross-pollinated. Of course that would generate extra costs for Monsanto: additional research, maintaining two separate strains and cross-pollinating them.
- veemjeem 14y ago
  It's probably possible to do that with fruit (making seedless fruit), but probably not possible with edible seeds like soybean or corn. If we were playing God here, why didn't Monsanto just invent a plant that would produce all different kinds of fruit on one plant so that we didn't have to plant a bunch of different crops? It would be even better if the plant could position the fruit at known intervals on a branch to increase the speed of harvesting machinery. So obviously some things aren't quite possible. Your suggestion is nice, but I don't think it's as easy as doing a few years of research.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    I believe there is a variety of rice that is an infertile hybrid. I recall seeing it on some PBS show,l or similar, but don't have a reference at the moment.
    - veemjeem 14y ago
      Well, all I'm saying is if it were easy to do, Monsanto probably would have done it already to protect their business model. Unfortunately modifying DNA is not quite as easy as setting compiler flags.
- dchest 14y ago
  From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Technology Because some stakeholders expressed concerns that this technology might lead to dependence for small farmers, Monsanto Company, an agricultural products company and the world's biggest seed supplier, pledged not to commercialize the technology in 1999.[2] Customers who buy patented transgenic seeds from Monsanto must sign a contract not to save or sell the seeds from their harvest,[3] which preempts the need for a "terminator gene".
dade_ 14y ago
Monsanto makes money selling chemical pesticide (roundup, etc) that kills everything except their modified seed. So they can still make plenty of money selling the chemicals. Though this perpetuation of ever more toxic pesticides/herbicides in a war against evolution is eventually going to end badly.
randomdata 14y ago
> If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ? There are a number of reasons why a farmer would want to buy from a seed company over producing their own. Monsanto's Dekalb seed division is more than 100 years old, which long predates these patent issues.

by pingou 14y ago

fla 14y ago

> But why develop it and spend millions on R&D if everybody can copy your product for free ? A very bad business model indeed.

veemjeem 14y ago
Wouldn't that apply to software & video media as well? AMC sells me a movie, then I copy it and send it to all my friends with no loss in quality for free. Companies then spend tons of money inventing DRM and copy protection techniques. Should Monsanto produce a modified seed that produces seedless fruit? Of course this wouldn't work for products where the seed is the consumable end result (soybean, corn). It seems like Monsanto's business model is no better than our's (software) when one can copy the product easily and distribute it. The only difference is that there are very few seed manufacturers so Monsanto stands alone at trial. Suppose in the future when seed genetic programmers are as common as indie software shops, should these genetic programmers have similar IP protections that software people take for granted?
- fla 14y ago
  I don't know. My personal feeling is all this patent stuff sounds horribly wrong, be it software or living organisms.
- agilord 14y ago
  Copy infringement of movies is your choice. You could just watch it and not redistribute it. Copy infringement of seeds is by design. You cannot plant, grow, sell or process your crop without the basic operation of replicating the original.

vidarh 14y ago

> If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ? Since when does people have a right to make a profit, even if their business plan is stupid? > But why develop it and spend millions on R&D if everybody can copy your product for free ? Because if you're not a totally evil bastard, you can still make a massive amount of money by creating a brand that ensures people trust you to always give them the best product? How many people do you know that buy brand name Ibuprofen, for example, despite the fact that Boots, who found the compound and commercialized it, has not held a patent on it for decades? In fact they sold off their own premium brand (Anadin) a while back and now competes with their former brand with cheap generics that often costs a tenth or less of what Anadin charges for the same chemical compound, and still makes money off it despite competition from dozens of manufacturers. It's possible some types of research would not pay without artificially jacked up prices like this, sure. Boots certainly would have made less from Ibuprofen without a patent initially. But if these Monsanto seeds are so effective, then this patent acts as a de-facto tax on a whole range of foods, as unlike Ibuprofen, if they are effective enough to affect competition, "everyone" will need them. If they're not, it doesn't really matter if the R&D hadn't happened. If it already acts like a tax, we might as well bring it under democratic control, and lose the competition distorting downsides of an artificial monopoly, by using already well established avenues for public funding of research to handle any shortfall in R&D funding from curtailing patent rights. The agriculture industry is one of the largest recipients of government subsidies in the world as it is - shifting even a small percentage of those subsidies into funding R&D to make advances in seeds available to farmers cheaper would probably pay off.

pingou 14y ago
> Since when does people have a right to make a profit, even if their business plan is stupid? As long as it provides value for the society. If you allow farmers to replant seeds then Monsanto doesn't exist anymore. Do you think it's better for the society? Well Monsanto isn't probably the best example because it's the worst company I can think of, but you get my point. That's the same with vaccines, it costs a lot of money to develop, if you allow everyone to copy it then there's no market and no vaccines. I see gm crops like a software license limited in time, it's not because we agree that you can use my software for a year that you have the right to use it for as long as you want. Don't like this business model ? Then don't use it. > But if these Monsanto seeds are so effective, then this patent acts as a de-facto tax on a whole range of foods, as unlike Ibuprofen, if they are effective enough to affect competition, "everyone" will need them So what? If a company build a harvester that improves harvest by 20%, am I entitled to steal it because it distorts the market? I agree with you these technologies should be public and subsidized by the taxpayers because it benefits everyone. But people don't want to pay for it, and that's their right, so we use private companies that sell it to people willing to pay.

dexen 14y ago

> If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ? I'm not a biologist, but I assume it is possible to make 1G grains edible but infertile -- incapable of sprouting a new plant and/or growing 2G grains. That would render 1G grains useless for sewing, and still usable for anything else. Much like cross of horse and donkey is a viable, but infertile mule. The way I imagine it, Monsanto have to grow two strains of grain, each giving viable grains when pollinated within the strain, but giving only infertile 1G seeds when cross-pollinated. Of course that would generate extra costs for Monsanto: additional research, maintaining two separate strains and cross-pollinating them.

veemjeem 14y ago
It's probably possible to do that with fruit (making seedless fruit), but probably not possible with edible seeds like soybean or corn. If we were playing God here, why didn't Monsanto just invent a plant that would produce all different kinds of fruit on one plant so that we didn't have to plant a bunch of different crops? It would be even better if the plant could position the fruit at known intervals on a branch to increase the speed of harvesting machinery. So obviously some things aren't quite possible. Your suggestion is nice, but I don't think it's as easy as doing a few years of research.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  I believe there is a variety of rice that is an infertile hybrid. I recall seeing it on some PBS show,l or similar, but don't have a reference at the moment.
  - veemjeem 14y ago
    Well, all I'm saying is if it were easy to do, Monsanto probably would have done it already to protect their business model. Unfortunately modifying DNA is not quite as easy as setting compiler flags.
dchest 14y ago
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Technology Because some stakeholders expressed concerns that this technology might lead to dependence for small farmers, Monsanto Company, an agricultural products company and the world's biggest seed supplier, pledged not to commercialize the technology in 1999.[2] Customers who buy patented transgenic seeds from Monsanto must sign a contract not to save or sell the seeds from their harvest,[3] which preempts the need for a "terminator gene".

dade_ 14y ago

Monsanto makes money selling chemical pesticide (roundup, etc) that kills everything except their modified seed. So they can still make plenty of money selling the chemicals. Though this perpetuation of ever more toxic pesticides/herbicides in a war against evolution is eventually going to end badly.

randomdata 14y ago

> If farmers are permitted to replant seeds then how are companies making the seeds supposed to make money ? There are a number of reasons why a farmer would want to buy from a seed company over producing their own. Monsanto's Dekalb seed division is more than 100 years old, which long predates these patent issues.