MONSANTO GOES AFTER FARMERS FOR ACTING LIKE FARMERS
DONALD L. BARLETT AND JAMES B. STEELE, VANITY FAIR -
As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the 'seed police' and use words such as 'Gestapo' and 'Mafia' to describe their tactics.
When asked about these practices, Monsanto declined to comment specifically, other than to say that the company is simply protecting its patents. 'Monsanto spends more than $2 million a day in research to identify, test, develop and bring to market innovative new seeds and technologies that benefit farmers,' Monsanto spokesman Darren Wallis wrote in an e-mailed letter to Vanity Fair. 'One tool in protecting this investment is patenting our discoveries and, if necessary, legally defending those patents against those who might choose to infringe upon them.' Wallis said that, while the vast majority of farmers and seed dealers follow the licensing agreements, 'a tiny fraction' do not, and that Monsanto is obligated to those who do abide by its rules to enforce its patent rights on those who 'reap the benefits of the technology without paying for its use.' He said only a small number of cases ever go to trial.
Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.
For centuries-millennia-farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head.
Monsanto developed G.M. seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, offering farmers a convenient way to spray fields with weed killer without affecting crops. Monsanto then patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. 'It's not like describing a widget,' says Joseph Mendelson III, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which has tracked Monsanto's activities in rural
Indeed not. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world's food supply. In its decision, the court extended patent law to cover 'a live human-made microorganism.' In this case, the organism wasn't even a seed. Rather, it was a Pseudomonas bacterium developed by a General Electric scientist to clean up oil spills. But the precedent was set, and Monsanto took advantage of it. Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
Farmers who buy Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto.
3 Comments:
Monsanto's terrible practices aside, being able to patent genetic organisms itself is not such a bad decision. I can understand why it's controversial, but I'll give just one example to explain why it's beneficial to not only the patent holders but society in general (sometimes). The majority of insulin that diabetics take to regulate their blood sugar levels is now recombinant. This means that a bacterium was modified genetically to produce insulin. Previously the insulin was obtained from pigs. The insulin supply is now much purer, safer, and reliable than when we depended on obtaining it from pigs. That to me is a benefit. It's up to the courts and our government to prevent feckless harassment of our farmers of this issue. Too often though patent and copyright holders are the only people considered in these cases.
The farmers who are using GM seeds are being scammed. Recent studies make it very clear that GM crops have lower yields than un-modified crops. There is no advantage whatsoever to using Monsanto's Frankenseeds and, as the article above demonstrates, there are definite disadvantages.
To Lars: Recombinant insulin is indeed an illustrative example. The most comprehensive medical assessment of animal versus recombinant insulin found "no relevant differences in efficacy and adverse effects between human and purified animal (mainly porcine) insulin." Furthermore, "Many important patient-oriented outcomes like health-related quality of life and effects on diabetic complications and mortality were never investigated. Human insulin was introduced into the market without scientific proof of advantage over existing purified animal insulins, especially porcine insulin."
GE insulin has helped Eli Lilly's profit margin far more than it has helped diabetics. Meanwhile a minority of diabetics do not tolerate GE insulin and can no longer obtain pig insulin in the U.S. (because Lilly, the largest supplier of animal insulin, phased out animal insulin years ago) There is a parallel in the seed world; as Monsanto buys up seed companies they phase out the good conventional varieties, leaving farmers to "choose" between patented GE varieties.
The good does not outweigh the bad in the case of patents on life.
Richter B, Neises G. 'Human' insulin versus animal insulin in people with diabetes mellitus. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2002
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