12 ms·

Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

57 points by pdknsk 13y ago

api 13y ago
I really think there'd be less opposition to GMOs were it not for the fact that this one company -- a firm with a history of somewhat scummy and antagonistic behavior -- didn't control the entire industry.
- pod4369 13y ago
  They don't control the entire industry. Way to give in to blatant propaganda.
  - nas 13y ago
    No kidding. How about Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Pioneer, Dow Agro? There are many players in agriculture, it's a huge industry.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - arkades 13y ago
    http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp01103.pdf http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifprid... The data suggests that it is hyperbole to say that Monsanto owns the market, but judging by the CR4 and HHI - standard economics measures for concentration of market power - it's fair to say that the GMO market is very concentrated, and that Monsanto leads the pack by a significant margin.
- jrkelly 13y ago
  More big players than the mobile OS industry: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/625294/revealed_how_seed_market_is_controlled_by_monsanto_syngenta_bayer_dow_dupont.html http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/625294/reveal...
- pvnick 13y ago
  >didn't control the entire industry While this is obvious hyperbole, I agree with your general sentiment. In fact, GMOs, perhaps more-so than any other modern technology, have an unprecedented potential to save billions of lives. Golden Rice alone could save the lives of one million children every year. As a biochem major, GMOs are something I'm passionate about, and it really aggravates me when I see armchair scientists (read: people who watched a youtube video) decrying them as dangerous and calling for their banning. I would say these people are partially to blame for the regulatory nightmare that Golden Rice advocates are facing, meanwhile one million children go blind and die terrible deaths each year from vitamin A deficiency.
  - manmal 13y ago
    >unprecedented potential to save billions of lives Potential, yes; but not with massive financial interests behind it. In a world where shiploads of wheat are held back in order to game the wheat market, things need to change before GMOs can cure 3rd world hunger. I've read that GMOs have to be bought anew for every season because the harvested crops can't be used as seeds. Is that actually true?
    - qwertzlcoatl 13y ago
      > Potential, yes; but not with massive financial interests behind it. This is not necessarily true in every case. pvnick mentioned Golden Rice. The Co-inventor of the genetically engineered, vitamin-A-rich strain of rice Potrykus has spearheaded an effort to have golden rice distributed for free to poor farmers. This required several companies which had intellectual property rights to the results of Beyer's research to license it for free. In fact, Monsanto was one of the first companies to grant free licenses. If the substinence farmer doesn't make more than $10,000 per year, he is freed from paying any royalities. The farmers are even permitted to keep and replant the seeds. This is in the specific case of Golden Rice. Maybe somebody can jump in and tell a horrific Monsanto story.
    - CapitalistCartr 13y ago
      Yes, they're patented and copying them is a violation of the "user agreement". http://grist.org/news/supreme-court-hands-a-big-win-to-monsanto-on-gmo-seeds/ http://grist.org/news/supreme-court-hands-a-big-win-to-monsa...
- tptacek 13y ago
  That antagonistic behavior being what? I ask because there's a commonly-held belief about Monsanto that they, in effect, wait for the wind to blow IP-encumbered seeds onto fields and then sue the farmers who manage those fields for royalties. The reality is that Monsanto sues farmers when they take Roundup-Ready crops, plant them, and then use Roundup on those crops. You can't do that innocently; if you spray Roundup on non-Monsanto crops, you kill the crop. If there's a case where Monsanto sued a farmer simply for having Roundup-Ready seeds or plants on their farms, I haven't seen it, and I've (a) looked and (b) asked around a lot. If you just mean that patent enforcement is inherently scummy and antagonistic, well, I have no snappy response for that. Although again note that the problem with software patents is that you can implement some obvious piece of functionality and get sued by someone with a ridiculous patent. Like I said, nobody accidentally uses the whole Roundup system on a farm.
  - sigzero 13y ago
    I thought there was pretty much a whole movie (Food Inc) documenting that very thing (i.e. cross contamination). Please don't try and say that the hatred going towards Monsanto isn't deserved because it most assuredly is. http://www.damemagazine.com/2013/04/03/monsanto-six-truths-and-lie http://www.damemagazine.com/2013/04/03/monsanto-six-truths-a...
    - blhack 13y ago
      Link to it. There are lots of movies saying lots of things. I'll make you a documentary implying how ASU eats babies if you want me to. That doesn't make it correct. (ASU because it's across the street from my house)
      - cantos 13y ago
        Here's a transcript http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/food-inc-script-transcript.html http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/food-inc-script... Several people in the farm industry are interviewed. Their statements are not questioned or further investigated by the filmmakers.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ihsw 13y ago
The problem isn't GMO plants in Europe, it's the IP system surrounding them that's the problem. The massive upwelling of opposition to GMO's on the part of national governments isn't opposition to GMO, but instead it's opposition to Monsanto and the legal risks surrounding Monsanto's plants. Monsanto is predatory to the point of absurdity, and that is where opposition to GMO comes from. They throw lawyers at you until you comply with their demands, and then you pay a tithe to them. It's a modern form of feudalism that centers around abusing the legislative and justice systems.
- marknutter 13y ago
  The problem, though, is that people are incorrectly assuming the opposition to GMO is related to health concerns.
  - Anonazon 13y ago
    The problem with this statement is it is assuming that there are no health concerns.
    - jjm 13y ago
      +1 For me I just want choice (at the super-market). Choice to not choose GMO, until there is more than enough evidence and discussion around the topic. Maybe you feel there is enough evidence, but I want more. I do not want said firm to 'force' me into eating their product just yet. This is my due diligence on the one life I live.
      - smsm42 13y ago
        Why not go full scale and demand choice of not using the fruits of scary science at all? Demand every store to carry the products made of wild plants and hunted down wild animals only, with no products of selection (aka "genetically modified") at all? Why would mega-corporations force you to eat modern wheat, whose yields and chemical composition was completely modified by the corporate puppetmasters and whose production requires to use herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, fertilizers and a variety of modern chemicals and technologies that very well might be accepted? Why not do the due diligence and eat the healthy diet that allowed our cavemen ancestors to live long and healthy lives? And if you can not feed 7 billion people with caveman technologies - too bad for them, you only have one life and you can't spend it worrying about such things.
mtgx 13y ago
Too bad they are getting a free ride with the patent system in US.
chm 13y ago
This is a great "precedent" in both agricultural and patent law. Even if it wasn't a ruling, it sends a positive message. No matter how you look at it, the Americas are a huge agricultural laboratory, and we're the guinea pigs. Monsanto should disseminate knowledge about the science behind its products. Their current effort(http://www.monsanto.com/products/Pages/monsanto-science-and-research.aspx http://www.monsanto.com/products/Pages/monsanto-science-and-...) is too shallow and simple. Give me hard data, not PR stuff.
- smsm42 13y ago
  It would be nice but useless as 99.999% of people protesting against GMO couldn't care less about science. They don't know the first thing about what GMO are and where they come from, all the know it's some scary stuff that "contains genes" and since it comes from the large corporation it would kill us all unless we march on the streets with slogans. More science helps when there's no information, when there's no interest in information more science would not do a thing.
  - chm 13y ago
    This does accurately describes the status quo, but I think it is Monsanto's (and others') duty to change it. The tremendous advances that have been made in science in the past century haven't percolated down to the populace yet. It takes time and sustained effort, but the level of scientific literacy could increase. Actually, I think we're at the stage where people know a lot of new terms, but don't really understand the concepts behind them. Like genes.
maeon3 13y ago
Imagine if a nation who had a significantly worse obesity epidemic going on that was way worse than in the US. And they were pushing to sell seeds to us. It's kind of like a hobo who is next to death trying to sell you some health pills while insisting that his poor health is not caused by the health pills he has been taking all the time.
- vanderZwan 13y ago
  I'm very skeptical of Monsanto and their business practices, but that reasoning does not hold water.
- freehunter 13y ago
  My grandmother gave me some advice years ago: "Never trust a skinny chef". If you're buying food to keep people from starving to death, wouldn't you trust the fat salesman to have good product?
smsm42 13y ago
Good. If EU wants to have inferior crops, let them have it. Actually, I wonder why won't they go the full scale and sow original, unmodified plants - like wild emmer - and also eschew use of pesticides and herbicides. Of course, there's no chance they could feed the Europe population then, but I'm sure US would be able to sell them all the crops they need, while they enjoy that nice fuzzy feeling of not being contaminated by the nasty modern science.
contingencies 13y ago
Curve-ball: Europe vs. USA. Greater population density, greater decentralization of agricultural production, greater variety and cultural attachment to regional culinary preferences, greater (dare I say it) social concern. Purely on the basis of these base environmental factors, GM monocultures in Europe were never a winning proposition.

57 points by pdknsk 13y ago

api 13y ago

I really think there'd be less opposition to GMOs were it not for the fact that this one company -- a firm with a history of somewhat scummy and antagonistic behavior -- didn't control the entire industry.

pod4369 13y ago
They don't control the entire industry. Way to give in to blatant propaganda.
- nas 13y ago
  No kidding. How about Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Pioneer, Dow Agro? There are many players in agriculture, it's a huge industry.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- arkades 13y ago
  http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp01103.pdf http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifprid... The data suggests that it is hyperbole to say that Monsanto owns the market, but judging by the CR4 and HHI - standard economics measures for concentration of market power - it's fair to say that the GMO market is very concentrated, and that Monsanto leads the pack by a significant margin.
jrkelly 13y ago
More big players than the mobile OS industry: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/625294/revealed_how_seed_market_is_controlled_by_monsanto_syngenta_bayer_dow_dupont.html http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/625294/reveal...
pvnick 13y ago
>didn't control the entire industry While this is obvious hyperbole, I agree with your general sentiment. In fact, GMOs, perhaps more-so than any other modern technology, have an unprecedented potential to save billions of lives. Golden Rice alone could save the lives of one million children every year. As a biochem major, GMOs are something I'm passionate about, and it really aggravates me when I see armchair scientists (read: people who watched a youtube video) decrying them as dangerous and calling for their banning. I would say these people are partially to blame for the regulatory nightmare that Golden Rice advocates are facing, meanwhile one million children go blind and die terrible deaths each year from vitamin A deficiency.
- manmal 13y ago
  >unprecedented potential to save billions of lives Potential, yes; but not with massive financial interests behind it. In a world where shiploads of wheat are held back in order to game the wheat market, things need to change before GMOs can cure 3rd world hunger. I've read that GMOs have to be bought anew for every season because the harvested crops can't be used as seeds. Is that actually true?
  - qwertzlcoatl 13y ago
    > Potential, yes; but not with massive financial interests behind it. This is not necessarily true in every case. pvnick mentioned Golden Rice. The Co-inventor of the genetically engineered, vitamin-A-rich strain of rice Potrykus has spearheaded an effort to have golden rice distributed for free to poor farmers. This required several companies which had intellectual property rights to the results of Beyer's research to license it for free. In fact, Monsanto was one of the first companies to grant free licenses. If the substinence farmer doesn't make more than $10,000 per year, he is freed from paying any royalities. The farmers are even permitted to keep and replant the seeds. This is in the specific case of Golden Rice. Maybe somebody can jump in and tell a horrific Monsanto story.
  - CapitalistCartr 13y ago
    Yes, they're patented and copying them is a violation of the "user agreement". http://grist.org/news/supreme-court-hands-a-big-win-to-monsanto-on-gmo-seeds/ http://grist.org/news/supreme-court-hands-a-big-win-to-monsa...
tptacek 13y ago
That antagonistic behavior being what? I ask because there's a commonly-held belief about Monsanto that they, in effect, wait for the wind to blow IP-encumbered seeds onto fields and then sue the farmers who manage those fields for royalties. The reality is that Monsanto sues farmers when they take Roundup-Ready crops, plant them, and then use Roundup on those crops. You can't do that innocently; if you spray Roundup on non-Monsanto crops, you kill the crop. If there's a case where Monsanto sued a farmer simply for having Roundup-Ready seeds or plants on their farms, I haven't seen it, and I've (a) looked and (b) asked around a lot. If you just mean that patent enforcement is inherently scummy and antagonistic, well, I have no snappy response for that. Although again note that the problem with software patents is that you can implement some obvious piece of functionality and get sued by someone with a ridiculous patent. Like I said, nobody accidentally uses the whole Roundup system on a farm.
- sigzero 13y ago
  I thought there was pretty much a whole movie (Food Inc) documenting that very thing (i.e. cross contamination). Please don't try and say that the hatred going towards Monsanto isn't deserved because it most assuredly is. http://www.damemagazine.com/2013/04/03/monsanto-six-truths-and-lie http://www.damemagazine.com/2013/04/03/monsanto-six-truths-a...
  - blhack 13y ago
    Link to it. There are lots of movies saying lots of things. I'll make you a documentary implying how ASU eats babies if you want me to. That doesn't make it correct. (ASU because it's across the street from my house)
    - cantos 13y ago
      Here's a transcript http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/food-inc-script-transcript.html http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/food-inc-script... Several people in the farm industry are interviewed. Their statements are not questioned or further investigated by the filmmakers.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ihsw 13y ago

The problem isn't GMO plants in Europe, it's the IP system surrounding them that's the problem. The massive upwelling of opposition to GMO's on the part of national governments isn't opposition to GMO, but instead it's opposition to Monsanto and the legal risks surrounding Monsanto's plants. Monsanto is predatory to the point of absurdity, and that is where opposition to GMO comes from. They throw lawyers at you until you comply with their demands, and then you pay a tithe to them. It's a modern form of feudalism that centers around abusing the legislative and justice systems.

marknutter 13y ago
The problem, though, is that people are incorrectly assuming the opposition to GMO is related to health concerns.
- Anonazon 13y ago
  The problem with this statement is it is assuming that there are no health concerns.
  - jjm 13y ago
    +1 For me I just want choice (at the super-market). Choice to not choose GMO, until there is more than enough evidence and discussion around the topic. Maybe you feel there is enough evidence, but I want more. I do not want said firm to 'force' me into eating their product just yet. This is my due diligence on the one life I live.
    - smsm42 13y ago
      Why not go full scale and demand choice of not using the fruits of scary science at all? Demand every store to carry the products made of wild plants and hunted down wild animals only, with no products of selection (aka "genetically modified") at all? Why would mega-corporations force you to eat modern wheat, whose yields and chemical composition was completely modified by the corporate puppetmasters and whose production requires to use herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, fertilizers and a variety of modern chemicals and technologies that very well might be accepted? Why not do the due diligence and eat the healthy diet that allowed our cavemen ancestors to live long and healthy lives? And if you can not feed 7 billion people with caveman technologies - too bad for them, you only have one life and you can't spend it worrying about such things.

mtgx 13y ago

Too bad they are getting a free ride with the patent system in US.

chm 13y ago

This is a great "precedent" in both agricultural and patent law. Even if it wasn't a ruling, it sends a positive message. No matter how you look at it, the Americas are a huge agricultural laboratory, and we're the guinea pigs. Monsanto should disseminate knowledge about the science behind its products. Their current effort(http://www.monsanto.com/products/Pages/monsanto-science-and-research.aspx http://www.monsanto.com/products/Pages/monsanto-science-and-...) is too shallow and simple. Give me hard data, not PR stuff.

smsm42 13y ago
It would be nice but useless as 99.999% of people protesting against GMO couldn't care less about science. They don't know the first thing about what GMO are and where they come from, all the know it's some scary stuff that "contains genes" and since it comes from the large corporation it would kill us all unless we march on the streets with slogans. More science helps when there's no information, when there's no interest in information more science would not do a thing.
- chm 13y ago
  This does accurately describes the status quo, but I think it is Monsanto's (and others') duty to change it. The tremendous advances that have been made in science in the past century haven't percolated down to the populace yet. It takes time and sustained effort, but the level of scientific literacy could increase. Actually, I think we're at the stage where people know a lot of new terms, but don't really understand the concepts behind them. Like genes.

maeon3 13y ago

Imagine if a nation who had a significantly worse obesity epidemic going on that was way worse than in the US. And they were pushing to sell seeds to us. It's kind of like a hobo who is next to death trying to sell you some health pills while insisting that his poor health is not caused by the health pills he has been taking all the time.

vanderZwan 13y ago
I'm very skeptical of Monsanto and their business practices, but that reasoning does not hold water.
freehunter 13y ago
My grandmother gave me some advice years ago: "Never trust a skinny chef". If you're buying food to keep people from starving to death, wouldn't you trust the fat salesman to have good product?

smsm42 13y ago

Good. If EU wants to have inferior crops, let them have it. Actually, I wonder why won't they go the full scale and sow original, unmodified plants - like wild emmer - and also eschew use of pesticides and herbicides. Of course, there's no chance they could feed the Europe population then, but I'm sure US would be able to sell them all the crops they need, while they enjoy that nice fuzzy feeling of not being contaminated by the nasty modern science.

contingencies 13y ago

Curve-ball: Europe vs. USA. Greater population density, greater decentralization of agricultural production, greater variety and cultural attachment to regional culinary preferences, greater (dare I say it) social concern. Purely on the basis of these base environmental factors, GM monocultures in Europe were never a winning proposition.