A farmers stand against monsanto.

[wd9]

Probably bragged to his neighbors.

The neighbors that were pissed off because this loser was
stealing his RR beans while they had to pay for them.

Just a guess of course.

[bucket]

wd9

Are the other neighbors to stupid to do the same thing?

I understand that farmer's reasoning for using lower cost seed for double crop. It could be a waste of money, and he didn't want to spend big.

It also sounds like he supported Monsanto for the first crop.

[wilagro]

hedgehog: From what I hear...Monsanto has spies EVERYWHERE. They trespass on farmer's fields, they check with seed-cleaning plants to find out what you had cleaned. They enquire at your sales point. They check your seed drills. They checkout the gossip and check with your neighbours. Some call them the ENFORCERS a la the MAFIA.

[LWeber]

quote:

Unfortunately, second- and third-generation seeds are very hard to track, which may explain why Monsanto devotes $10 million a year and 75 staffers to investigating farmers for possible patent violations.

... the Obama administration is presenting their own defense of Monsanto, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was once a Monsanto lawyer (but will not recuse himself from Bowman’s case). Still, the same high court that enabled the current state of American agriculture in 1981 now finds itself in a position to check Monsanto’s power — or help them tighten their hold on the industry.

unquote

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/how-one-75-year-old-soybean-farmer-could-deal-a-blow-to-monsantos-empire-today.html#ixzz2LSmIMls3

[HappyFarmer]

A update.


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared
likely Feb. 19 to side with Monsanto Co.
in its claim that an Indiana farmer
violated the company’s patents on
soybean seeds that are resistant to its
weed-killer.

None of the justices in arguments at the
high court seemed ready to endorse
farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman’s argument
that cheap soybeans he bought from a
grain elevator are not covered by the
Monsanto patents, even though most of
them also were genetically modified to
resist the company’s Roundup herbicide.

Chief Justice John Roberts wondered “why
in the world would anybody” invest time
and money on seeds if it was so easy to
evade patent protection.

To protect its investment in their
development, Monsanto has a policy that
prohibits farmers from saving or reusing
the seeds once the crop is grown.
Farmers must buy new seeds every year.

The case is being closely watched by
researchers and businesses holding
patents on DNA molecules,
nanotechnologies and other self-
replicating technologies.

The issue for the court is how far the
patents held by the world’s largest seed
company extend. More than 90 percent of
American soybean farms use Monsanto’s
“Roundup Ready” seeds, which first came
on the market in 1996.

The 75-year-old Bowman bought the
expensive seeds for his main crop of
soybeans, but decided to look for
something cheaper for a risky, late-
season soybean planting.

He went to a grain elevator that held
soybeans it typically sells for feed,
milling and other uses, but not as seed.

Bowman reasoned that most of those
soybeans also would be resistant to weed
killers, as they initially came from
herbicide-resistant seeds too. He was
right, and he repeated the practice over
eight years. In 2007, Monsanto sued and
won an $84,456 judgment.

Across the court’s conservative-liberal
divide, justices expressed little
sympathy for Bowman’s actions.

Justice Stephen Breyer said Bowman could
make many uses of the soybeans he bought
from the grain elevator. “Feed it to the
animals. Feed it your family or make
tofu turkey,” Breyer said.

But patent law makes it illegal for
Bowman to plant them. “What it prohibits
here is making a copy of the patented
invention and that is what he did,”
Breyer said.

Mark Walters, Bowman’s Seattle-based
lawyer, tried to focus the court on the
claim that Monsanto has used patent law
to bully farmers.

“What they are asking for is for the
farmer to assume all the risk of
farming, but yet they can sit back and
control how that product is used,”
Walters said.

Monsanto lawyer Seth Waxman said the
company put 13 years and hundreds of
millions of dollars into developing
herbicide-resistant seeds.

“Without the ability to limit the
reproduction of soybeans containing this
patented trait, Monsanto could not have
commercialized its invention and never
would have produced what is now the most
popular patented technology” in farming,
Waxman said.

The Obama administration also is backing
the company.

Consumer groups and organic food
producers have fought Monsanto over
genetically engineered farm and food
issues in several settings. They lost a
campaign in California last year to
require labels on most genetically
engineered processed foods and produce.
Monsanto and other food and chemical
companies spent more than $40 million to
defeat the ballot measure.

A decision is expected by June.

[LWeber]

How to turn Democrats into "three minutes to Wapner" candidates ....

"Obama administration is presenting their own defense of Monsanto"

[wd9]

Bucket, because theft is against the
law. Maybe just save a step and just
steal someones' grain out of their bin.

Wilagro, all i can say is sheesh. I mean
really?

Larry, I love the articles written for
the uninformed to give them hope LOL.
Almost like listening to an episode of
Rutherford.

[bucket]

Sure, but he paid for the soybeans that he bought from the elevator.

That's not theft.

If the elevator never told him that they were RR soybeans, he was taking his chances that he could spray them with Roundup.

I am not convinced that the patent on this should be perpetual.

Besides if weeds can build resistance to chemicals naturally, then so could soybeans, right?

[Burbert]

Monsantoe has a finkline, 1-800-Fu-kyer
Framing neighbours. It's like
Crimetoppers, pays a reward for f'n the
neighbours, very ingenious. I understand
that their phone recordin system is
constantly jammed wit reward seekers,
hence nobody, gets away wit nuttin when
dealing with Monstantoe. They learned
from the KGB, how to appeal to the seedier
side of framing, eh!

[wd9]

Pretty much every bean in the US is RR.
He knew or ought to have known.
Ignorance is not a winnable legal
position.

They aren't perpetual, in 2914 its all
over for Monsanto and this present
trait.

No matter how you argue it, intellectual
property is protected from being used
for free (stolen) and this applies to
technology in seeds too.

A question for you Bucket, why do you
think you should be able to use
technology developed and paid for and
owned by someone else? As in growing RR
seed and spraying it with roundup, and
not paying for the use of that
technology.

And please don't say that Monsanto has
enough money already.

[samhill]

Pretty much a waste of time and of course $ to fight
Monsanto. However, I question "intellectual
property" because they didn't invent or create the
gene. The process to use it they may have, but at
any rate they own that process. The rest of the
process of isolating and growing out the seed is
used in almost every modern item that we all
purchase. So for how long do they own the process.
Other's would have eventually and obviously have
done it with different genes, innovations,
microchips, whatever. I don't agree it is their's
forever.

[wd9]

They don't own it forever. Its over in
2014. you can do whatever you want with
it at that point.

They do however own the process within
the seed to allow you to use roundup
until then. And they will protect it
like every other company. The gene,
RT73, is registered in the 7 top canola
exporting countries.

Patents are in place to allow the
inventor who came up with a unique, 'non
obvious' and 'novel' idea sufficient
time to recoup and have an advantage
over all competitors preventing them
from copying the idea and selling it as
their own.

Patents are 20 years in the US. There is
some allowance when it comes to
registration of especially things like
sprays that extend the patent to include
the years of testing for registration
and safety. ie herbicides.

Many examples exist of a unique process,
device, whatever, that is utilized with
another common process, device, seed, on
and on.

Patents occur in every aspect of our
lives in products, services, software,
business, advertising, EVERYTHING!

But it continually and absolutely
baffles me that farmers think the rules
don't apply to them because the
patentable idea is within a seed! You
can try, but you are gonna lose in court
cuz stealing is against the law.

There are 3 ways in the real world to
deal with patents:

1. Steal it and be big enough to tie up
the patent holder in court till they go
broke and use it as your own.

2. Make the patentable process
ridiculously complex and expensive that
it is self protecting - Liberty
herbicide is a good example, also
Lontrel.

3. Pay the holder of the patent a
licensing fee. ie the TUA.

4. Either wait for the patent to expire,
or create your own novel idea. You are
free to use patentable material to
create new ideas.

[grassfarmer]

You work hard on behalf of "the company" w9 I
hope they pay you well.
I don't grow RR crops so I'll use cattle to illustrate
this scenario as I see it. I have a strain of purebred
cattle that are unique in the marketplace developed
using my money and intellect. I haven't patented
the line or claimed "intellectual property rights"
over it although I know one breeder who does
something along those lines.
I sell bulls to other cattlemen and they are free to
use them as they wish. If I operated the same way
as Monsanto I would go after my second generation
customer - the feedlot buying my customer's calves
and demand that they pay me for using "my"
genetics. At the same time if the bull I sold to my
customer broke in with his neighbour's purebred
herd of another breed and caused him financial
duress for which he wanted compensated I would in
no way be responsible for that.
Bottom line - you can't have it both ways. You
either take on all the responsibility for the genes
that you created or you take on none.

[bucket]

grassfarmer

I agree. You buy RR canola or soybeans for the season. Then, if it volunteers its your problem as a weed its your problem, if it makes a crop it becomes monsanto's crop.

Monsanto wants the petent but not the responsibilty of cleaning up what isn't supposed to be there.

But if they were held accountable, I think the terminator gene would soon be introduced.

[bucket]

wd9

I think the problem is the patent should be off on canola already but monsanto has found a loophole to extend it. They really are doing nothing new, just insert the gene into a CDC unnamed variety, multiply it and call it new.

No different than the usual breeding techniques other than an extra step that has been paid for 1000's of times over.

Not to be argumentative, I have no problem paying a fee, I understand that.
But the first RR canola I bought was only 1.99 a lb plus the 15 dollar an acre TUA. Total cost of seed per acre was around 25 bucks. Now its running close to 3 times that.