Disclaimer: I used to work for Fisher Controls, which was
then owned by
Monsanto. Monsanto guts every company they
buy, to make money to pay the
purchase price.This is one of
the many drawbacks of mergers and acquisitions.
The economy
loses on every one. One last word(s) before I comment on the
current article: Love Canal.
With his mere 300 acres of
soybeans, corn and
wheat, Vernon Hugh Bowman said, “I’m not even big enough to
be called a farmer.”
When I was a kid, 300 acres was more than
the average farm
size. Now my 200 acres of pasture (out of a 280 acre farm)
is
rented to a farmer who owns 2000 and rents another 1500.
That used to be a
dozen farmers and their families, trading
at retail stores in small towns
across the country. And my
renter is smaller than three other corporate farmers
who are
my immediate neighbors.
Such a ruling would “devastate
innovation in
biotechnology,” the company wrote in its brief. “Investors
are
unlikely to make such investments if they cannot prevent
purchasers of living
organisms containing their invention
from using them to produce unlimited
copies.”
Monsanto has made the mistake of investing is an area
where
there are no controls on replication. Sounds like the **AAs,
doesn't it?
Now they want the government to fix their stupid
mistake.
Soybeans breed
true, for the most part. There are hybrids,
also, but it isn't necessary. Corn
is a "promiscuous
pollinator", but is almost 100% hybrid, meaning that it
doesn't breed true. You will never see a lawsuit like this
involving corn. If
you replant corn kernels, you will get a
field of sickly-looking, stunted
stalks with small ears.
Rapeseed (canola) is like soybeans. It breeds true from
seed
and is not hybridized. All three are almost entirely GM
crops.
Mr. Bowman said that for his main soybean crop,
he
honored Monsanto’s agreement, buying new seeds each year
containing the Roundup
Ready gene, which makes the plants
immune to the herbicide Roundup. That
technology is hugely
popular, used in more than 90 percent of the nation’s
soybeans, because it allows farmers to spray fields to kill
weeds without
hurting the crop.
First, the soybeans from the elevator aren't
low quality
from a feed standpoint - they are low quality for
replanting.
Their germination rates are lower than certified
seed. They aren't as
uniform.
But look at the last statement. Monsanto makes Roundup.
Monsanto
makes Roundup-ready seed, used in 90% of the crop.
Why isn't this an antitrust
case? Antitrust enforcement has
been gutted - Republican and Democrat - since
1980. The AT&T
case finished, and the Microsoft case happened. But after
that - basically nothing.
Monsanto says that a victory for Mr.
Bowman
would allow farmers to essentially save seeds from one
year’s crop to
plant the next year, eviscerating patent
protection.
In other
words, Monsanto wants the government to continue to
radically change the
nature and structure (like SSO?) of the
agricultural industry.
To put this
in perspective, let's take a look at one of the
more successful seed saving
organizations - Seed Savers
Exchange
in Decorah, Iowa. Their catalog has a lot of
different heirloom and
open-pollinated varieties. They also
have a member's
catalog.
Seed
Savers Exchange Yearbook, an encyclopedic
volume which, in 2013 offers
12,495 unique varieties (and
19,888 total listings) to members from members,
making it
one of the greatest sources of heirloom varieties in the
world. The
yearbook is a meeting place where gardeners share
what they have grown, and
learn from others with similar
interests. It is mailed in late
January.
Consider this - if Monsanto wins this lawsuit, then
every
additional crop that gets a GM variety will effectively shut
down part
of this catalog, and take out an age-old means of
selecting and spreading new
and improved varieties of seed.
Here's another implication. There is an
article listed on
the Seed Saver's home page entitled
"Seed Savers Exchange
Ships Two More Crates to the Svalbard Global Seed
Vault"
.
This also will be shut down, made irrelevant or useless, if
this
lawsuit goes the wrong way.
“As one of 1400 seed banks in the
world, Seed
Savers Exchange is proud to deposit an additional 366
varieties in
the Svalbard Global Seed Bank in Norway,
bringing our total deposits to more
than 2,000 varieties.
The global seed bank, with 725,000 total deposits,
represents man’s best efforts to ensure that today’s seed
varieties are
available for future generations.” – John
Torgimson, Seed Savers Exchange
president.
I make no bones about Monsanto being evil. They make
Microsoft, Oracle and tSCOg look angelic. None of those last
companies kill
people. But they all want the economy to be
reshaped to suit their own desires.
As we say around here,
"Get a job!"
---
Userfriendly on WGA server
outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ? [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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