Originally Posted by ImStillMags

Monsanto will never get away with this – not for long, anyways. If
nothing else, not the karma from all the suicides of Indian farmers
who’ve been priced out of farming and the pain felt by others, their
hubris alone will bring them down.

Yes, Monsanto, there is a natural law that cannot be manipulated.




Should Monsanto, or any corporation, have rights to a self-replicating
natural product?

By George Kimbrell and Debbie Barker, LA Times, February 19, 2013

latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kimbrell-monsanto-supreme-
court-seed-20130219,0,1947225.story


On Tuesday, attorneys for the largest agrochemical corporation in the
world, Monsanto, will present arguments before the Supreme Court
asserting the company’s rights to the generations of seeds that
naturally reproduce from its genetically modified strains. Bowman vs.
Monsanto Co. will be decided based on the court’s interpretation of a
complex web of seed and plant patent law, but the case also reflects
something much more basic: Should anyone, or any corporation, control
a product of life?

The journey of a 75-year-old Indiana farmer to the highest court in
the country began rather uneventfully. Vernon Hugh Bowman purchased an
undifferentiated mix of soybean seeds from a grain elevator, planted
the seeds and then saved seed from the resulting harvest to replant
another crop. Finding that Bowman’s crops were largely the progeny of
its genetically engineered proprietary soybean seed, Monsanto sued the
farmer for patent infringement.

The case is a remarkable reflection on recent fundamental changes in
farming. In the 200-plus years since the founding of this country, and
for millenniums before that, seeds have been part of the public domain
— available for farmers to exchange, save, modify through plant
breeding and replant. Through this process, farmers developed a
diverse array of plants that could thrive in various geographies,
soils, climates and ecosystems. But today this history of seeds is
seemingly forgotten in light of a patent system that, since the
mid-1980s, has allowed corporations to own products of life.

One of Monsanto’s arguments is that when farmers save seed from a crop
grown from patented seed and then use that seed for another crop, they
are illegally replicating, or “making,” Monsanto’s proprietary seeds
instead of legally “using” the seeds by planting them only one time
and purchasing more seeds for each subsequent planting.
This logic is troubling to many who point out that it is the nature of
seeds and all living things, whether patented or not, to replicate.
Monsanto’s claim that it has rights over a self-replicating natural
product should raise concern. Seeds, unlike computer chips, for
example, are essential to life. If people are denied a computer chip,
they don’t go hungry. If people are denied seeds, the potential
consequences are much more threatening.

Although Monsanto and other agrochemical companies assert that they
need the current patent system to invent better seeds, the
counterargument is that splicing an already existing gene or other DNA
into a plant and thereby transferring a new trait to that plant is not
a novel invention. A soybean, for example, has more than 46,000 genes.
Properties of these genes are the product of centuries of plant
breeding and should not, many argue, become the product of a
corporation. Instead, these genes should remain in the public domain.

The seed industry also claims that if patents are made narrower in
scope, innovation, such as devising environmentally sustainable ways
to farm, would be stifled. However, evidence casts doubt on the
prevalent assumption that positive environmental impacts have resulted
from their seed technologies.
Take the example of the genetically engineered soybean in question.
Its innovative trait is that it is resistant to the herbicide Roundup,
whose primary ingredient is glyphosate. However, weeds are developing
a rapid resistance to glyphosate.

In January, Farm Industry News reported that the area of U.S. cropland
infested with glyphosate-resistant weeds expanded to 61.2 million
acres in 2012. These “super weeds” are gaining momentum, increasing
25% in 2011 and 51% in 2012.

In response, farmers resort to more soil-eroding tillage operations to
combat the weeds, and they turn to more toxic chemicals. Based on data
from the USDA, as much as 26% more pesticides per acre were used on
genetically engineered crops than on conventional crops.

And what is the industry’s response? Monsanto is planning to seek
approval for dicamba-resistant soybeans, corn and cotton. Dow
AgroSciences is seeking USDA approval of soybeans and corn resistant
to 2, 4-D, an active ingredient in Agent Orange. It is difficult to
understand how such innovation is enhancing the environment.

Finally, the agrochemical industry claims that its seed innovation has
provided farmers more choices. Yet the market concentration of 10
agrochemical companies owning about two-thirds of global commercial
seed for major crops has narrowed the choice of seeds for farmers and
resulted in higher seed prices. Over an 11-year period, the cost per
acre of planting soybeans has risen a dramatic 325%.

Our organizations interviewed hundreds of farmers across the nation
for a recent report, “Seed Giants vs. U.S. Farmers.” They explained
that the high adoption rate of genetically engineered seed is largely
because the companies have stopped offering conventional seed. One way
to recoup the high investment that Monsanto and others say is spent on
genetic engineering is to ensure that farmers have few other
purchasing options.

When arguments from both sides have been presented, the Supreme Court
justices will have to thoroughly consider the many complexities of
patent law as it pertains to self-replicating organisms. But taking a
few steps back from the microscope and the lawbooks, they may find
that there is a discussion to be had about a much deeper question: the
appropriate role of ownership and control over the very elements of
life.

George Kimbrell is the senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety
and Debbie Barker is the program director of Save Our Seeds and the
international director of the Center for Food