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Can you dig up any cases where this has actually happened, where the farmer hadn't previously signed a contract with Monsanto WRT to those very seeds? Last tim
by hga 12y ago
Can you dig up any cases where this has actually happened, where the farmer hadn't previously signed a contract with Monsanto WRT to those very seeds?
Last time I saw a discussion about this on HN, perhaps a year or more ago, no one could. Per Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#As_plaintiff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#As_plaintiff):
While many lawsuits involve breach of Monsanto's Technology Agreement, farmers who have not signed this type of contract, but do use the patented seed, can also be found liable for violating Monsanto's patent. That said, Monsanto has stated it will not "exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented seed or traits are present in farmer's fields as a result of inadvertent means." The Federal Circuit found that this assurance is binding on Monsanto, so that farmers who do not harvest more than a trace amount of Monsanto's patented crops "lack an essential element of standing" to challenge Monsanto's patents.
The closest you can come to that is Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser in Canada of course; in this case he selected for Roundup Ready plants, like we discussed in the recent antibiotic resistance discussion (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852487) which is not an innocent accident. The end of the Wikipedia Monsanto article notes:
"The court record shows, however, that it was not just a few seeds from a passing truck, but that Mr Schmeiser was growing a crop of 95–98% pure Roundup Ready plants, a commercial level of purity far higher than one would expect from inadvertent or accidental presence. The judge could not account for how a few wayward seeds or pollen grains could come to dominate hundreds of acres without Mr Schmeiser’s active participation, saying ‘...none of the suggested sources could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality evident from the results of tests on Schmeiser’s crop’" – in other words, the original presence of Monsanto seed on his land in 1997 was indeed inadvertent, but the crop in 1998 was entirely purposeful.
- jacquesm 12y agoLet's for the moment assume that Monsanto sticks to its promise and will not sue farmers that have 'slight' (however that is defined) presence of the GMO within their otherwise normal crop. If they use roundup (which farmers tend to do, roundup use preceded roundup ready crops by decades) and the GMO is more resistant to roundup than the regular crop it stands to reason that if the farmer simply saves seed from each crop and replants the next year that after a few cycles the percentage of GMO within that population will no longer be slight. Seems like a long term problem to me.
- skosuri 12y agoWhat? Why would a farmer spray roundup on their crop that's mostly not Roundup resistant? That makes no sense; it makes even less sense to do this season after season.
- hga 12y agoIt would, in fact, result in so few survivors, unless of course started out in low concentrations, that it would be evidence of mens rea. As long as Monsanto is restricting their legal actions to those with "the intending mind", I'm not worried.
- jacquesm 12y agoRoundup resistant crops are much more recent than widespread use of roundup.
- jacquesm 12y agoFarmers have been using roundup long before roundup resistant crops came along. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
- skosuri 12y agoYes I know, but not to do what you are implying. Specifically, why would farmers spray their non-GMO corn, soybean, canola, etc with Roundup? It would kill most of their crop/harvest.
- jacquesm 12y ago> Specifically, why would farmers spray their non-GMO corn, soybean, canola, etc with Roundup? Because it works even with non-GMO crops (always has). > It would kill most of their crop/harvest. No it would not. Not sure where you got that idea, but with Roundup-ready crops you can use more roundup without affecting the crops in a negative way. Roundup can - and routinely is - diluted before application. Crops will naturally tolerate some roundup, the pests it is working against can tolerate less (or so you hope). As pests become more resistant you need more roundup, so at some point roundup resistant crops will see a larger benefit.