Poldano - 03 January 2011 06:23 PM
isocratic infidel - 03 January 2011 03:49 AM
Poldano: I know what organizations like Monsanto have done, armed with patents on engineered hybrid life forms and the rubber-stamp of a favorable Supreme Court.
Do tell Poldano, what have organizations like Monsanto done?
euc, Whether I get into a another design debate or not, I shall never forget Dufflugia… well, at least not unless or until the ol’ hippocampus fails. 
My specific information comes from a television documentary about Monsanto’s genetically-engineered pesticide-resistant soybeans, and the effects that their efforts at protecting their patent has on farmers and small businesspeople who are not their customers.
It has been accepted agricultural practice, for as long as agriculture has been practiced, for farmers to select portions from their crops to use as seed for the next generation of crops. When applied to cereals, this is the “seed corn” of many adages. In modern times, there is machinery for separating seeds from other debris, used for both seeds intended for sale or consumption and seeds intended for planting. Seeds intented for replanting, as I understand it, must be separated from other debris, for the planting machinery to work well and to ensure optimum coverage during planting.
As part of its agreement with its patented seed customers, Monsanto requires the customers to forego seed-sorting, so as to preserve its patent monopoly on the seeds. As far as this goes, there is no problem, and Monsanto is acting fairly. The problem is that the patented genes get into the crops of farmers who are not Monsanto customers, by way of the reproductive processes of soybeans; the gene-engineered products are cross-fertile with non-patented soybeans. Monsanto has won the right to challenge all occurrences of its patented genomes as patent infringements. Its enforcement policy aimed at farmers who are not its customers forces those farmers to prove that they have never been Monsanto customers. Its enforcement policy toward the seed-sorter merchants forces those merchants to prove that they have never sorted seeds for customers who cannot prove that they have not used Monsanto seeds. With sufficient record-keeping, the farmers and merchants would, in principle, be able to prove that they were operating in respect of Monsanto’s patents.
Monsanto’s actual enforcement policy, however, is the typical one of intimidation by lawsuit. Since a patent violation can in principle occur with any growing season, farmers and merchants who are not Monsanto customers need to maintain records of all seeds used in planting, all plantings, and all customers. Moreover, since the proceedings are civil (as opposed to criminal), and since it is easily shown to be to the advantage of farmers and customers to withhold information, the defendants in the suit need to present a preponderance of evidence that they could not have done otherwise than respect Monsanto’s patents. This is akin the classic problem of proving a nonexistence. In practice, Monsanto’s attorneys can and do present challenges to all the evidence.
The effect is that the defendants give up the contest to avoid impoverishing themselves. The farmers become Monsanto’s customers because if they have to buy seed, they might as well buy the seed that is most profitable for them. In addition to the seed, the farmers need to buy the pesticides produced by Monsanto to make their seed investment pay off. The seed-sorter merchants just go out of business, which suits Monsanto just fine because it wants to be the exclusive source of seeds.
That’s the story as I understand it. I have not verified that all the assertions I presented are factual. I believe it because it makes sense in terms of other things I know. If you are an employee of Monsanto or a corporation that behaves in similar ways, or if you are an apologist for capitalism that asserts that it is entirely benevolent, I’m sure you will find a great deal to disagree with.
The issue is not with Monsanto protecting its patents. The issue is that of Monsanto using its technologically unrestrictable genes to force traditional agriculture practitioners into its customer fold, regardless of the eventually deleterious effect on agriculturable sustainability, and to eliminate independent small businessmen and entrepreneurs who pose an additional challenge to the future Monsanto customer base when the existing pesticide eventually ceases to be effective.
Thanks Poldano.
It’s one thing to invent a product that corners a market in the feeble imaginations of people. i.e. the iphone. It’s quite another to monopolize an agricultural ecosystem. The worst part is that we lose our diversity to monoculture that is dependent on the petrochemical feedstocks to produce the pesticides and herbicides to which the engineered strain is resistant. It is a sick scheme, without doubt.
