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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Monsanto versus Farmers
  • Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:43:41 -0600


Monsanto versus Farmers
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/MonsantovsFarmers.php
ISIS Press Release 28/04/05
*******************

The world’s biggest genetically engineered seed owner
destroys time-honoured traditions of seed saving and drives
American farmers to destitution and bankruptcy. Sam Burcher

Odds stacked against farmers

Feudalism has returned to farming in the US and Canada,
according to the US Center for Food Safety’s report
detailing the domination over American staple crops by the
corporations and their ruthless prosecution of farmers.

Once the ink is dried on the "technology agreements" signed
by the farmers buying genetically modified (GM) seed, they
enter into contracts that effectively relinquish to Monsanto
their right to plant, harvest and sell the GM seed. From
that moment on, they are also vulnerable to harassment such
as having their property investigated, litigations and out
of court settlements that are part and parcel of licensing a
Monsanto patented product.

No grower is safe from this onslaught as third generation
Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser discovered when he lost to
Monsanto in court for failing to pay royalties on GM canola
seed that had contaminated his non-GM canola crop. "The
corporations are becoming the barons and lords, which are
what my grandparents thought they had escaped." Schmeiser
said.

To-date, Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits against American
farmers; and 147 farmers and 39 small businesses or farm
companies have had to fight for their lives to avoid paying
additional court costs, attorneys’ fees, and in some cases,
costs incurred by Monsanto while investigating them

The Center for Food Safety estimates that Monsanto has been
awarded over $15 million for judgments granted in their
favour. The largest recorded single payment received from
one farmer was US$3 052 800 (Farmer Anderson, Case no. 4:01:
CV-01 749).

Monsanto controls US staple crops by licence

For the first time in history, one company has unprecedented
control of the sale and use of crop seed. They have
accomplished this in three main ways: control of germplasm
through ownership of seed companies; domination of genetic
technology and seeds through patent acquisitions; and
breaking age-old farming tradition by forcing farmers to buy
new seed each year rather than saving and re-planting seed.

Buying or merging with most of the major seed companies,
including their recent acquisition of the giant fruit and
vegetable seed company Seminis, has made Monsanto’s the
largest GM seed vendor in the world, providing 90% of the GM
seed sown globally. It has also cornered most of the soybean
market and 50% of the corn germplasm market in the US. And
if Monsanto doesn’t actually own the seed purchasing
companies, it has been known to impose the condition that a
minimum of 70% (reduced from 90% by government regulators)
of its patented seeds are sold by subsidiary companies. This
ensures that its seeds are the most readily available to
farmers.

American farmers are hard pushed to find high quality,
conventional varieties of corn, soy and cottonseed.
Anecdotal evidence supports this. Troy Roush, an Indiana
soybean farmer says, "You can’t even purchase them in this
market. They are not available." Similar reports come from
the corn and cotton farmers who say, "There are not too many
seeds available that are not genetically altered in some
way."

Over the last 10 000 years, diverse genetic pools have been
created and preserved by plant breeders. Monsanto has put
these diverse gene pools at risk by contaminating certified
and traditional seed stocks, and by not permitting farmers
to save seeds. A feudal system of seed ownership destroys
perhaps the key privilege of a farmer as the guardian of
societies’ crop heritage. And it has turned agriculture into
an industry where the corporations consolidate their hold
over costly seeds and chemicals that increase farmers
spending on inputs. Meanwhile monopolies are created in
corporate manipulated markets that include fewer buyers who
demand the lowest possible prices for the outputs produced
by farmers, forcing them into a debt spiral. In 2003
Monsanto made $3.1 billion in pesticide sales and $1.6
billion in seed sales.

Farmers are under pressure to confirm their identity as
modern agriculturalists, particularly in developing
countries. But replacing the traditional strategy of saving
and replanting seeds from diverse varieties by a patented
seed with all its restrictions threatens food security at
household and global levels.

Patents place the burden on farmers

Over the past twenty years, Monsanto has voraciously
accumulated collected patents on engineered plants, seeds
and genetic engineering techniques, perhaps most
importantly, the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S
promoter, the commonest component in the genetic engineer’s
toolbox. Along with CaMV35S, which other biotech companies
pay exorbitant fees to license, Monsanto owns 647 plant
biotech patents and a 29% share of all biotech research and
development.

Patents have changed the face of farming because the farmer
has lost control of seeds. Once farmers paid royalties on
seed to the US Plant Variety Protection Act or Canada Plant
Breeders Rights Act licensees who allowed seed saving. Since
the 1980s, the US Patent and Trademark Office began issuing
patents for GM organisms and seeds and have granted more
than 2 000 since 1985. Professor Lawrence Busch of Michigan
State University estimates the saving of soybean seed
dropped from 31% in 1991 to just 10% in 2001 after the
introduction of the GM soybean; this translates into an
additional $374 million in seed industry profits in 2001.

Robert Schubert, the author of Farming’s New Feudalism
believes than an important strategy in saving independent
farmers is to remove agriculture, food and water from the
control of the WTO. His message is no "free" trade where
farming is concerned and no patents.

When Monsanto suspects that saved seed containing a
"Monsanto genetic trait," have been grown, documentation is
requested from the farmers to confirm that the crop was
planted from newly purchased seed. If proof is not
forthcoming, then all of the growers’ fields may be tested
and inspected to determine if saved seed was used. Even
after the farmer has extricated himself from Monsanto
technology agreements, if volunteer plants sprout up in his
fields from transgenic seeds purchased and sown from
previous years, he is still vulnerable to allegations of
patent infringement.

Farmers intimidated by Monsanto

Here’s what typically happens to US farmers who fall under
suspicion of planting saved seed. Private investigators from
the Pinkerton agency hired by Monsanto arrive on the farm
without warning, sometimes accompanied by local police. They
then proceed to take samples and photographs over the course
of a few hours to a few weeks, without the farmer being
present.

One Mississippi farmer who runs a farm shop from his
farmhouse was subjected to constant surveillance by Monsanto
investigators who watched the family coming and going,
warned off customers, and even rented an empty lot across
the street from where to position their cameras.

Monsanto used entrapment to file a lawsuit against another
farmer, when one of their investigators begged seeds from
him to help solve an erosion problem too late in the season
to plant crops. If personal intimidation fails, Monsanto
resorts to another violation of privacy by sending a
registered letter threatening to "tie the farmer up in court
for years" if he refuses to settle out of court for patent
infringement. One farmer who challenged this intimidation
had his name blacklisted on thousands of seed dealers’
lists. He concedes, "It is easier to give into them than it
is to fight them."

A further example is seed dealers who sell seeds in plain
brown bags so farmers sow them unknowingly. This happened to
Farmer Thomason who was harassed into court by Monsanto and
sued for over a million dollars. He had no choice but to
file for bankruptcy despite never intending to plant Bt
cotton.

In 1999, The Washington Post reported that the number of
farmers under investigation in US and Canada was 525. A
later report confirmed that Monsanto was investigating 500
farmers in 2004 "as they do every year." Once a farmer
agrees to settle out of court he may be forced to present
all documents relating to farm activity within 24 hours of
request, purchase a specific quantity of company product and
disclose the names of other people that have saved company
seed.

Contamination of conventional seed stock

Researchers at the University of Manitoba, Canada tested 33
samples of certified canola (oilseed rape) seed stock and 32
were contaminated with GM. The Union of Concerned Scientists
tested traditional US seed stocks of corn, soy and canola
and found 50% corn, 50% soy and 83% canola contaminated by
GM.

One hundred percent purity is no longer achievable, and even
if non-contaminated seed could be purchased, some
contamination can take place in the field either by transfer
of seed by wind, animals or via farm equipment.

Monsanto dominates the sale of seed stocks yet puts the onus
of finding markets for crops on the farmer. Within their
contract is the "Technology Use Guide" which gives
directions on how to find grain handlers willing to accept
crops not approved for use in the EU. While Monsanto
acknowledges that pollen flow and seed movement are
sufficient to contaminate neighbouring non-GM fields their
implicit rule is that "the growers of the non-GM crops must
assume responsibility and receive the benefit for ensuring
that their crops meet specifications for purity."

Monsanto profits from lawsuits against farmers

Outcomes of lawsuits brought by Monsanto against farmers are
mostly kept under wraps. If farmers are tempted to breach
confidentiality they can face fines greater than the
settlements. But where judgments have been publicly
recorded, sizeable payments benefit not only Monsanto, but
also partner companies.

Combined financial penalties have forced many farmers into
bankruptcy and off their land. Agriculture is suffering
losses all around because of the disappearance of foreign
markets. The US Farm Bureau estimates that farmers lose over
$300 million a year because European markets refuse GM corn.
The US State Department says that as much as $4 billion
could be lost in agricultural exports due to EU labelling
and traceability requirements. Organic and conventional
farmers alike have lost their premium markets through having
no choice but to sell their contaminated crops into GM crop
streams.

Monsanto denies making profits from the misery of farmers
and claims that proceeds go to agricultural school
programmes, which some does, but by no means all. An annual
budget of $10 million is set aside each year to run a
department of 75 staff dedicated to prosecuting farmers.

What Monsanto did next

Monsanto has another way of controlling patented genes. So
called "terminator technology" are seeds that become
infertile after one life cycle. The international moratorium
on terminator ended when New Zealand and Australia announced
it would support the technology’s introduction on a case-by-
case basis at a 2005 meeting in Canada. The US
Administration in Iraq has already enforced the non-
replanting of seeds by farmers, under Order 81. Both GURTS
(Genetic Use Restriction Technologies) and "technology
agreements," used as weapons against farmers when they
purchase GM seed, have not been legally challenged. It’s
high time that patent laws on living organisms that are
encouraged by legislators, regulators and the courts alike,
come under public scrutiny.

Amending the Patent Act so that sexually reproducing plants
are not patentable and amending the Plant Variety Protection
Act (PVPA) to exclude such plants from protection under the
PVPA are two policy options suggested by the Center for Food
Safety to defend farmers from Monsanto. This would minimise
the damage done to farmers and agriculture in the long term.
Drastic policy changes are needed at state and federal
levels to address the hounding of farmers, their families
and small agricultural companies by the aggressive tactics
of a big corporation determined to destroy traditional
farming practices and rights that go back thousands of
years.

Farmers facing lawsuits or threats from Monsanto can call
this toll-free hotline for guidance and referrals: 1-888-
FARMHLP

Sources

Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers, 2005. A report by the Center for
Food Safety © 2004, Center for Food Safety
www.centerforfoodsafety.org. Robert Schubert. Farming’s New
Feudalism, World Watch 2005. © Worldwatch Institute.


=========================
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This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/MonsantovsFarmers.php





  • [Livingontheland] Monsanto versus Farmers, Tradingpost, 04/28/2005

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