Monsanto's case against Indiana farmer goes to Supreme Court

[wagyu52]

You have got to be kidding. So a man can't use all his land to plant crops because of something someone else does?

I find that both hard to believe and anti-American.

No, that is not what I am saying at all. You cannot stop nature, corn produces way more pollen then it uses and it will get airborne. If you raise a specialty corn crop like seed corn, non GMO, White corn for tortilla chips, ect. You plant a border to keep contaminate pollen out. It is common sense, buyers of these products demand and expect it.
This border is not wasted, it is usually harvested separate and sold as regular field corn. These practices have been done long before GMO was ever even a thought.

 

[Light]

The Documentary "FOOD Inc." if you haven't seen it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ_QchB7iLg

 

[Light]

Due to pollination it is almost impossible to get non-GMO corn seed. Monsanto and the government wants to control our food production...look at the bills about backyard gardens that came up a couple years ago.

According to Food Inc. in 1996, of all the soybeans i the US only 2% were GMO. In 2008 it was estimated to be 90%.

 

[steveh_131]

You do understand that his example is wrong, soybeans are self pollinated. A soybean plant has to purposefully pollinated with pollen other than its own to be cross pollinated.

I wasn't talking exclusively about soybeans.

Your example is also false, a plant growing in the field cannot be just transformed into a GMO plant. In field corn its progeny can be cross pollinated, this problem is nothing new, it's been around for almost 100 yrs. The only way one can prevent your corn from being pollinated by foreign pollen is with a preventive border. Pollen can travel many miles but gets used up within the first few feet of a field. Seed corn growers usually only leave a border of around 40 ft or so to maintain purity between hybrids.

The fact that it is 'not new' does not make it false. Over a few generations, you can easily end up with Monsanto GMO garbage in your fields. Patented garbage, that can get you sued. Whether it's seed drift or cross pollination, it happens.

 

[wagyu52]

I wasn't talking exclusively about soybeans.



The fact that it is 'not new' does not make it false. Over a few generations, you can easily end up with Monsanto GMO garbage in your fields. Patented garbage, that can get you sued. Whether it's seed drift or cross pollination, it happens.

Can you be more specific about, "Over a few generations, you can easily end up with Monsanto GMO garbage in your fields." In a standard corn/bean rotation that is almost impossible.

Here's a bulletin from Ohio State that pretty much backs up what I said about how to best control cross pollination in corn. http://ohioline.osu.edu/agf-fact/0153.html
Pollen drift has been a problem since 1926 when Hybrid seed was invented, no one has found a way to totally eliminate it, yet. If you have any ideas on how to eliminate it I'm sure you could make yourself very rich.

 

[level.eleven]

Can you be more specific about, "Over a few generations, you can easily end up with Monsanto GMO garbage in your fields." In a standard corn/bean rotation that is almost impossible.

Here's a bulletin from Ohio State that pretty much backs up what I said about how to best control cross pollination in corn. http://ohioline.osu.edu/agf-fact/0153.html
Pollen drift has been a problem since 1926 when Hybrid seed was invented, no one has found a way to totally eliminate it, yet. If you have any ideas on how to eliminate it I'm sure you could make yourself very rich.

No way, man. If steve developed that tech it would belong to the people. He wouldn't want a reward. Patents are totally bogus legal fictions put in place by big farma. Wake up! Just google search "Monsanto evil", man.

 

[steveh_131]

Can you be more specific about, "Over a few generations, you can easily end up with Monsanto GMO garbage in your fields." In a standard corn/bean rotation that is almost impossible.

Here's a bulletin from Ohio State that pretty much backs up what I said about how to best control cross pollination in corn. Managing "Pollen Drift" to Minimize Contamination of Non-GMO Corn, AGF-153
Pollen drift has been a problem since 1926 when Hybrid seed was invented, no one has found a way to totally eliminate it, yet. If you have any ideas on how to eliminate it I'm sure you could make yourself very rich.

So you accept pollen drift as fact...what's the issue here? If they replant the seeds...how can they prove they didn't plant the patented seeds when they're sued by monsanto?

No way, man. If steve developed that tech it would belong to the people. He wouldn't want a reward. Patents are totally bogus legal fictions put in place by big farma. Wake up! Just google search "Monsanto evil", man.

I have developed in the open source software world. And yes, it belongs to the people.

My profession exists in a world of copyrights and patents, so I have no choice but to play by the same rules as everybody else. I'd rather see them abolished.

Patents are a totally bogus legal fiction. I'll agree with you there.

 

[steveh_131]

From the pdf that I posted:

The most famous of all the Monsanto patent infringement cases involves
Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser.

Monsanto’s genetically engineered canola was found on Schmeiser’s land, but it is undisputed that he neither purchased nor planted the company’s seed. For seven years
Schmeiser fought to prove that the seed arrived on his land through genetic drift or from trucks carrying seed to grain elevators. Unfortunately, the lower courts were not concerned as to how the seed wound up on the land, only that Schmeiser knew he possessed Monsanto’s intellectual property and had not paid for it.

As Schmeiser’s attorney Terry Zakreski, explained: “Monsanto has a problem. It’s trying to own a piece of Mother Nature that naturally spreads itself around.”

Even the vice president for Monsanto Canada, Ray Mowling, concurs: “[Monsanto] acknowledges that some cross-pollination occurs, and acknowledges the awkwardness of prosecuting farmers who may be inadvertently growing Monsanto seed through cross-pollination or via innocent trades with patent-violating neighbors.”

If you think Monsanto operates ethically....wow. Just wow. GMO produce has been linked to all sorts of health problems. Where is the FDA? Too busy raiding raw milk farms? You really think there is no corruption going on here?

 

[wagyu52]

So you accept pollen drift as fact...what's the issue here? If they replant the seeds...how can they prove they didn't plant the patented seeds when they're sued by monsanto?

Are you serious.... I never said that corn pollen didn't drift, I said the exact opposite and explained to you how farmers control drift. Replant the seed from Hybrid corn.... You need to get you information from a source that actually knows basic agronomy, and that is not Vanity fair or the leftist CBS news.
A farmer that replants the seed harvested from a hybrid doesn't need to be sued by Monsanto to go broke, he will be after his first year. Hybrid corn is an F1 cross. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F1_hybrid If you replant the seed from an F1 cross you get an F2 plant, most likely sterile or a greatly reduced yield.

All of these anti Monsanto organizations are quick to point out all of the evil that is done by Monsanto but are unwilling to give farmers a viable option to not do business with Monsanto. The truth is that if Monsanto were gone it would move to evil Dow, Dupont, BASF or whatever agrochemical rises to the top next. They are anti herbicide, insecticide, commercial fertilizer and modern agriculture.

 

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[Sticks]

I would like to know when Monsanto product are in my food - unfortunately they keep blocking all efforts to require GMO info be added to food labels. The big 4 ag companies control 90% of our food supply. Support your local small farmers when possible!

 

[steveh_131]

Are you serious.... I never said that corn pollen didn't drift, I said the exact opposite and explained to you how farmers control drift. Replant the seed from Hybrid corn.... You need to get you information from a source that actually knows basic agronomy, and that is not Vanity fair or the leftist CBS news.
A farmer that replants the seed harvested from a hybrid doesn't need to be sued by Monsanto to go broke, he will be after his first year. Hybrid corn is an F1 cross. F1 hybrid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia If you replant the seed from an F1 cross you get an F2 plant, most likely sterile or a greatly reduced yield.

So...you still have a patented plant growing in your fields, right? And you didn't put it there, right?

 

[steveh_131]

I would like to know when Monsanto product are in my food - unfortunately they keep blocking all efforts to require GMO info be added to food labels. The big 4 ag companies control 90% of our food supply. Support your local small farmers when possible!

So the FDA allows them to sell their garbage without even a basic product label, but a milk farmer gets a swat team through his front door if he even tries to sell raw milk that is properly labeled as such?

We call this capitalism, now?

 

[wagyu52]

So...you still have a patented plant growing in your fields, right? And you didn't put it there, right?

No, not in the way you are insinuating. a plant cannot be magically changed from non GMO to GMO by a simple exchange of pollen.

 

[rambone]

 

[steveh_131]

No, not in the way you are insinuating. a plant cannot be magically changed from non GMO to GMO by a simple exchange of pollen.

Ok, maybe I'm misunderstanding this.

A portion of a farmer's crop is pollinated by a neighboring GMO plant. It produces seed. That seed will contain the genetic material of the GMO plant, right? So if it is replanted...you have a GMO plant?

Or if GMO seed spills into a farmer's field or is carried by an animal, then a GMO plant can grow in your field as a result. Right?

 

[wagyu52]

So...you still have a patented plant growing in your fields, right? And you didn't put it there, right?

As a farmer please tell me what my alternative to Monsanto is? They have over 90% of their product in the hybrid seed corn produced today. Anti Monsanto groups have offered no option to this, all they have done is demonize Monsanto and farmers that have really no recourse but to use Monsanto products. There tactics have actually resulted in the opposite of what they say they are trying to accomplish. Monsanto has acquired even more control and the result of lawsuits like the one in the this thread will result in even more GMO products, like sterilized one time use soybean seed and self pollenating corn.

 

[steveh_131]

As a farmer please tell me what my alternative to Monsanto is? They have over 90% of their product in the hybrid seed corn produced today. Anti Monsanto groups have offered no option to this, all they have done is demonize Monsanto and farmers that have really no recourse but to use Monsanto products. There tactics have actually resulted in the opposite of what they say they are trying to accomplish. Monsanto has acquired even more control and the result of lawsuits like the one in the this thread will result in even more GMO products, like sterilized one time use soybean seed and self pollenating corn.

You don't have much alternative. That's the problem, and has been my complaint all along. I'm certainly not criticizing you for using their products...you farm for a living, make your living as best you can.

I'm criticizing the corruption throughout our government and legal system, especially in the FDA, that is creating this vast monopoly that you're forced to fight through.

 

[wagyu52]

Ok, maybe I'm misunderstanding this.

A portion of a farmer's crop is pollinated by a neighboring GMO plant. It produces seed. That seed will contain the genetic material of the GMO plant, right? So if it is replanted...you have a GMO plant?

Or if GMO seed spills into a farmer's field or is carried by an animal, then a GMO plant can grow in your field as a result. Right?

Anything is possible. A Monsanto agent could covertly parachute into your field and plant it with GMO products only to accuse you later of stealing their product. I could walk outside my house and a cow could fall from the sky and kill me. What you are digging for has so many variables and What if's it would take years for me to explain to you because you are unwilling to understand basic agronomy. All you seem to want to understand is that GMO is evil. However, you really don't know what that "evil" is in real life, only what you have read on the internet.

 

[steveh_131]

Anything is possible. A Monsanto agent could covertly parachute into your field and plant it with GMO products only to accuse you later of stealing their product. I could walk outside my house and a cow could fall from the sky and kill me. What you are digging for has so many variables and What if's it would take years for me to explain to you because you are unwilling to understand basic agronomy. All you seem to want to understand is that GMO is evil. However, you really don't know what that "evil" is in real life, only what you have read on the internet.

This is real life....this has happened. Farmers are being sued all over the nation.

Do you enjoy having only one option for purchasing the things you need? Or would you rather have some competition? Maybe an actual free market?

This is why there isn't a free market.