The World According to Monsanto

May 11, 2009 8:14 PM

The World According to Monsanto- A full documentary on the agricultural giant. All sorts of previously.

Originally: "Le monde selon Monsanto"

posted by aniola (79 comments total)

I often used to bike past their world headquarters, a beautifully green campus in the richest suburb of Metro St. Louis, as a teenager, perhaps occasionally wearing the button "Better Living Through Chemistry." I had read the book Silent Spring, but had certainly not connected the dots.

Now, these silent nanodots are weaving a brave new world for us.
posted by kozad at 8:42 PM on May 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

The gigantic jive-talking plant behind me says Monsanto is just fine. Excuse me, he's hungry again.



*CHOP*
posted by The Whelk at 9:09 PM on May 11 [3 favorites has favorites]

at first blush it seems like an odd transition for the company from plastics and chemicals in general to GM crops.

I've heard that the oil shocks in the 70s had the side-effect of drastically shrinking the profit margins for plastics manufacturers (this is totally unsourced "a guy I know told me this"), and it makes me wonder if this played a role in Monsanto's move over to GM crops.
posted by selenized at 9:12 PM on May 11

If I had to define the word "sinister" in the worst possible way, it would be seeds that destroy themselves after several seasons, so that farmers are forced to buy more seeds. I think I first saw that on The Corporation, and something inside has stayed in rictus ever since.
posted by cashman at 9:13 PM on May 11 [8 favorites has favorites]

I used to love the Monsanto ride at Disneyland, back before I knew Monsanto was sinister and evil. Of course, that was also before I knew that the Disney corporation was also sinister and evil.
posted by OolooKitty at 9:18 PM on May 11 [14 favorites has favorites]

I only know a little about Monsanto, so hopefully someone here can answer this question that always bugs me after hearing about how evil they are:

If farmers don't like seeds they can't save or cultivate, why buy from Monsanto? If the negatives of dealing with a vicious corporation outweigh the benefits of genetic modification, it seems like the capitalist system has a pretty effective solution built in: buy other seeds.

I'm not defending the company, as their social and environmental practices are clearly nefarious, I'm honestly just curious why farmers don't ignore Monsanto.
posted by martens at 9:25 PM on May 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

seeds that destroy themselves after several seasons, so that farmers are forced to buy more seeds.

To be fair, Monsanto has never used that technology in commercial products and at least claims that if it ever made plans to do so that it would "do so in consultation with experts and stakeholders, including NGOs." [biased source]
posted by jedicus at 9:26 PM on May 11

i watched a few minutes to get a sense of the tone and it looks interesting. curious narrative technique, though, to watch the narrator search google and read wikipedia and tell us in dramatic and suspenseful tones what she finds.
posted by ioesf at 9:35 PM on May 11

If farmers don't like seeds they can't save or cultivate, why buy from Monsanto?

Monsanto isn't marketing its products to small farmers. It is marketing its products to agribusiness looking to maximize the return on its pesticide investment.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:44 PM on May 11 [4 favorites has favorites]

If I had to define the word "sinister" in the worst possible way, it would be seeds that destroy themselves after several seasons, so that farmers are forced to buy more seeds.

Really? You would think that anti-GM advocated would prefer this. There's no chance of 'contamination' of the outside world with these GM plants if they can only reproduce for a few generations.

And anyway, there have always been infertile hybrid seeds for sale. Where do you think seedless grapes and watermelons come from?
posted by delmoi at 9:52 PM on May 11

If farmers don't like seeds they can't save or cultivate, why buy from Monsanto?

Because "Roundup Ready" means "Roundup, which is what everyone sprays all over everything won't kill your crops"

It's either dead crops or ones that can deal with the herbicide.

Like if you ran a barber shop and intentionally messed up people's hair then owned a hat store right next door.
posted by Cyclopsis Raptor at 11:30 PM on May 11 [8 favorites has favorites]

seeds that destroy themselves after several seasons, so that farmers are forced to buy more seeds.

I don't think it's that the seeds destroy themselves, but that Monsanto aggressively prosecutes people who "re use" the seeds without a license. As in - if you buy Monsanto seeds you don't get to replant with seeds you grow on your own if they come from Monsanto engineered seeds.

They're so aggressive about it that they've successfully sued farmers who have never bought or planted Monsanto seeds, but just happened to be cross-pollinated from a nearby farm.*

All told - granting patents for plants is fucking dumb, ok? Thank you for playing with fire right smack in the middle of the breadbasket of the world, Monsanto.

*So aggressive I'm including the following warning: I have no money, no job and no assets. If you sue me you'll get squat, and I will take such action as strong evidence that this world is totally fucking insane and that it's probably time for me to strap on a suicide bomber's vest and see how far into your labs I can get before setting it off. I've played Half Life and I own a crowbar, and I already have headcrabs.
posted by loquacious at 11:43 PM on May 11 [17 favorites has favorites]

Because "Roundup Ready" means "Roundup, which is what everyone sprays all over everything won't kill your crops"

Then why spray all your crops with Roundup?

It just seems like everyone is complaining about terms of a deal that were readily apparent before the deal was made. Yeah, Monsanto's policies bite, but it's not like they're some big secret. What prevents anyone, whether small farmer or big agribusiness, from just avoiding Monsanto altogether? Again, I'm just trying to understand the objections.

(Obviously, the stuff about blown seeds truly sucks and is indefensible. I'm just talking about people who willingly deal with the devil.)
posted by martens at 12:29 AM on May 12

If farmers don't like seeds they can't save or cultivate, why buy from Monsanto? If the negatives of dealing with a vicious corporation outweigh the benefits of genetic modification, it seems like the capitalist system has a pretty effective solution built in: buy other seeds.

Because "terminator gene" technology has never actually been commercialized. Monsanto doesn't sell any seeds that are sterile after the first year. It was just a research idea from the mid 1990s that never made it to market.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 1:22 AM on May 12

I'm not seeing a download link or an embedded player. Firefox 3, Windows 2003. What am I missing?
posted by flabdablet at 1:23 AM on May 12

delmoi: There's no chance of 'contamination' of the outside world with these GM plants if they can only reproduce for a few generations.

This is not true, the genes can escape the plants through mechanisms other than plant reproduction. Viruses, for instance.
posted by JHarris at 1:25 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

It just seems like everyone is complaining about terms of a deal that were readily apparent before the deal was made

The same could be said of indentured servitude, people selling their organs, miners who all die of cancer at age 40...
posted by crayz at 2:23 AM on May 12

Oops on the unclosed tag
posted by crayz at 2:23 AM on May 12

» "If farmers don't like seeds they can't save or cultivate, why buy from Monsanto? If the negatives of dealing with a vicious corporation outweigh the benefits of genetic modification, it seems like the capitalist system has a pretty effective solution built in: buy other seeds."

Monsanto sells their GM seeds (and roundup) to farmer A. A's fields are adjecent to farmer B's fields. GM seeds spread into B's fields (all while mutating B's natural seed used for generations into worse-yielding bastard variants), Monsanto sues B for infringement. Litigation bankrupts B or force them into shit business deals with Monsanto (until B goes out of business). B numbers in the tens of thousands.

High Plains Drifting: Wind-Blown Seeds and the Intellectual Property Implications of the GMO Revolution:

Percy Schmeiser is a resident of Saskatchewan, Canada who has been farming for over 55 years. Schmeiser discovered Roundup Ready® plants in his fields after some of his canola survived numerous sprayings of Roundup®. Despite the fact that he had never purchased the seed, Schmeiser took no action to contact Monsanto or remove plants he knew to be patented. Following an anonymous tip, Monsanto's investigators confirmed the presence of plants bearing the gene in Schmesier's fields. Monsanto then brought suit for infringement of its patented gene and sought an injunction, delivery of all infringing seeds or crops in Schmeiser's possession, plaintiff's costs, actual damages and punitive damages.

Monsanto does this (and more) on a massive massive massive scale in e.g. South America and India. Small farmers are taken out and multinational farming corps scoop up the fields, killing local small-business agriculture. From what little I know: it's an evil fucking company.
posted by Glee at 2:35 AM on May 12 [3 favorites has favorites]

Well, we will be needing them when them and Beyer have killed off the bees.
posted by mattoxic at 2:45 AM on May 12

Here's a link for what looks like the full video, but looks like the beginning may be clipped.

The World According to Monsanto google video search works nicely for enough clips to assemble the whole video.

I'm surprised this isn't a double post, actually. I guess I spend too much time on the net and take it for granted that most of the metafilter user base would have seen it already.

If you haven't seen it, watch it. It's worth it, if only for the stark view of what 'big business' often means.
posted by loquacious at 2:49 AM on May 12

Yeah, I saw this on a Norwegian TV channel a couple of years ago. And while it did make some good points, it also struck me as somewhat conspiracy theorish. (Not quite "loose change", but still.)

I could be wrong, it's been a while. I'll watch it again now.
posted by Dumsnill at 3:19 AM on May 12

Monsanto sells their GM seeds (and roundup) to farmer A. A's fields are adjecent to farmer B's fields. GM seeds spread into B's fields (all while mutating B's natural seed used for generations into worse-yielding bastard variants), Monsanto sues B for infringement. Litigation bankrupts B or force them into shit business deals with Monsanto (until B goes out of business). B numbers in the tens of thousands.



Now, I agree that Monsanto is evil, but the only case I know of this happening is one that you linked. We covered it in one of my science classes, and what happened (I'm 90% sure it's the case that you linked) was that the guy very obviously planted the GM seeds intentionally, as all of the GM crops were in neat rows (not mixed in with his normal plants, as it would be in wind borne fertilization).
posted by fermezporte at 4:45 AM on May 12 [2 favorites has favorites]

Brawndo's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave.
posted by not_on_display at 4:49 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

JHarris: "This is not true, the genes can escape the plants through mechanisms other than plant reproduction. Viruses, for instance."

And GM genes have escaped already, it's unpreventable, it's already in our food supply in ways that were not never intended.

Monsanto then brought suit for infringement of its patented gene and sought an injunction, delivery of all infringing seeds or crops in Schmeiser's possession, plaintiff's costs, actual damages and punitive damages.

Better living through litigation. Like the SCO-Linux case, or the RIAA suing everyone, except even worse because it's not a product of culture but nature which is impossible to control.
posted by stbalbach at 5:04 AM on May 12

If farmers don't like seeds they can't save or cultivate, why buy from Monsanto?

The movie King Corn will help answer that . For the big crops, after taxes, fuel, interest on loans, (blah blah blah) the only way to end up with the profit is to take the government crop payments. Monsanto and other 'crop protection' companies exist because of that barely profitable arrangement.

And, like any good protection racket - if you buy the seeds from Monsanto they don't sue you. One of my goals if I were to ever win the lottery would be to rent land next to GM crops, plant non GM crops of the same material, then sue when my seeds (which would have been patented also) get contaminated with 'their' intellectual property. What a hell of a way to blow through the lottery money!

Schmeiser pleased with victory over Monsanto
In an out of court settlement finalized on March 19, 2008, Percy Schmeiser has settled his lawsuit with Monsanto. Monsanto has agreed to pay all the clean-up costs of the Roundup Ready canola that contaminated Schmeiser's fields. Also part of the agreement was that there was no gag-order on the settlement and that Monsanto could be sued again if further contamination occurred.

(and for extra fun - watch this thread and see if you can spot the $5 new signups in the next few days who jump to the defense of Monsanto)
posted by rough ashlar at 5:31 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

loquacious: "All told - granting patents for plants is fucking dumb, ok? Thank you for playing with fire right smack in the middle of the breadbasket of the world, Monsanto."

That.

As someone rhetorically asked: Does a patented lifeform infringe the patent by reproducing?
posted by Joe Beese at 5:32 AM on May 12

it would be seeds that destroy themselves
Really? You would think that anti-GM advocated would prefer this.

Nope. Pollen tends to move about on the wind and the worry is that the termination trait would move to other plants.

Humanity came close to doing a gene-splice-kill-all-the-plants move once. When one reads such - what answer do you have to "Can you trust the Corporations?"
posted by rough ashlar at 5:36 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

it also struck me as somewhat conspiracy theorish.

Do you prefer conspiracy fact when talking about agribusiness?

And if government with laws influenced by business lobbying allowing the businesses to obtain more influence to get more laws move towards a goal - is that a 'conspiracy'?
posted by rough ashlar at 5:41 AM on May 12

I'm more concerned with the crap that Mosanto adds to cow feed, you know the one that makes cows produce more milk, but the mammaries also become enflamed and pustulent and that pus gets in the milk and makes kids sick but no one cares. Ya, that scares me.
posted by Vindaloo at 5:43 AM on May 12

Schmeiser won his suit, let's not forget that.

Monsanto is not any more evil than any other big company trying to make money while protecting their intellectual property (in this case, Roundup ready crops). They have no choice but to sue those who intentionally keep and re-plant their seeds. Otherwise everyone would do it and they would lose money. There are plenty of kinds of corn to grow other than that sold by Monsanto...

I tend to agree that most companies veer towards evil as they get too big to care about anything but profit, but don't get sucked into tinfoil territory by thinking they are actively trying to kill small farms. Small farms benefit from the reduced costs of herbicide spraying when using Monsanto's seeds the same way big farms do, and their money spends just the same.
posted by Patapsco Mike at 5:55 AM on May 12

Do you prefer conspiracy fact when talking about agribusiness?

I do, yes. Interesting link.
posted by Dumsnill at 6:02 AM on May 12

» I'll take your word for it. I didn't analyze the particular case I linked to, sorry. I assumed (incorrectly, by the looks of it) the Canadian case was similar to the many examples in the documentary (particularly from South America and India) were Monsanto was accused of doing excactly this:

Do whatever it takes to
a) force small farmers to give up their traditional seeds and farming for Monsanto's patented products and force the farmers into Monsanto's subscription-based farming, and
b) take over the farmland through rising prices of GM seed + Roundup pesticide + Monsanto fertilizer or outright litigation (for e.g. patent infringement when natural fields become cross-polinated with Monsanto patented seeds).
posted by Glee at 6:24 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

Related: The Future of Food. Pairs well with The Corporation.

When my partner was a kid, he lived near a Monsanto plant. He didn't know what Monsanto was all about, but that plant sure did look cool to a young photographer. So, he went over and shot it one day. Yup, until a security guard came over and threatened legal action - some jive about corporate espionage - and nearly confiscated his camera, although he wasn't actually ON Monsanto property. All these years later, as we see these sorts of documentaries or read about the food chain and corporate farming, he seems to be surprised that the guard wasn't actually more aggressive.
posted by sadiehawkinstein at 6:28 AM on May 12

Patapsco Mike: "Monsanto is not any more evil than any other big company trying to make money while protecting their intellectual property"

Even if this were true, that would already be Pretty Fucking Evil. [see: Recording Industry Association of America]

But it is not true. Monsanto is using lies and muscle in pursuit of a monopoly on food. If you can't see that as being vastly more evil than, say, Apple locking down iPhones, I don't know what to tell you.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:58 AM on May 12 [6 favorites has favorites]

Patapsco Mike Schmeiser won his suit, let's not forget that.

Actually, he lost Monsanto vs. Schmeiser, in which Monsanto accused him of patent infringement for knowingly selecting "contaminating" Roundup-Ready seeds and planting them all over his field. In its decision, the Supreme Court of Canada was quite scathing about Schmeiser:

The trial judge’s findings of fact are based, essentially, on the following uncontested history.

Mr. Schmeiser is a conventional, non-organic farmer. For years, he had a practice of saving and developing his own seed. The seed which is the subject of Monsanto’s complaint can be traced to a 370-acre field, called field number 1, on which Mr. Schmeiser grew canola in 1996. In 1996 five other canola growers in Mr. Schmeiser’s area planted Roundup Ready Canola.

In the spring of 1997, Mr. Schmeiser planted the seeds saved on field number 1. The crop grew. He sprayed a three-acre patch near the road with Roundup and found that approximately 60 percent of the plants survived. This indicates that the plants contained Monsanto’s patented gene and cell.

In the fall of 1997, Mr. Schmeiser harvested the Roundup Ready Canola from the three-acre patch he had sprayed with Roundup. He did not sell it. He instead kept it separate, and stored it over the winter in the back of a pick-up truck covered with a tarp.

A Monsanto investigator took samples of canola from the public road allowances bordering on two of Mr. Schmeiser’s fields in 1997, all of which were confirmed to contain Roundup Ready Canola. In March 1998, Monsanto visited Mr. Schmeiser and put him on notice of its belief that he had grown Roundup Ready Canola without a licence. Mr. Schmeiser nevertheless took the harvest he had saved in the pick-up truck to a seed treatment plant and had it treated for use as seed. Once treated, it could be put to no other use. Mr. Schmeiser planted the treated seed in nine fields, covering approximately 1,000 acres in all.

Numerous samples were taken, some under court order and some not, from the canola plants grown from this seed. Moreover, the seed treatment plant, unbeknownst to Mr. Schmeiser, kept some of the seed he had brought there for treatment in the spring of 1998, and turned it over to Monsanto. A series of independent tests by different experts confirmed that the canola Mr. Schmeiser planted and grew in 1998 was 95 to 98 percent Roundup resistant. Only a grow-out test by Mr. Schmeiser in his yard in 1999 and by Mr. Freisen on samples supplied by Mr. Schmeiser did not support this result.

Dr. Downey testified that the high rate of post-Roundup spraying survival in the 1997 samples was “consistent only with the presence in field number 2 of canola grown from commercial Roundup tolerant seed” (trial judgment, at para. 112). According to Dr. Dixon, responsible for the testing by Monsanto US at St. Louis, the “defendants’ samples contain[ed] the DNA sequences claimed in claims 1, 2, 5, and 6 of the patent and the plant cell claimed in claims 22, 23, 27, 28 and 45 of the patent” (trial judgment, at para. 113). As the trial judge noted, this opinion was uncontested.

The remaining question was how such a pure concentration of Roundup Ready Canola came to grow on the appellants’ land in 1998. The trial judge rejected the suggestion that it was the product of seed blown or inadvertently carried onto the appellants’ land (at para. 118):

"It may be that some Roundup Ready seed was carried to Mr. Schmeiser’s field without his knowledge. Some such seed might have survived the winter to germinate in the spring of 1998. However, I am persuaded by evidence of Dr. Keith Downey . . . that none of the suggested sources could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality evident from the results of tests on Schmeiser’s crop."

He concluded, at para. 120:

"I find that in 1998 Mr. Schmeiser planted canola seed saved from his 1997 crop in his field number 2 which he knew or ought to have known was Roundup tolerant, and that seed was the primary source for seeding and for the defendants’ crops in all nine fields of canola in 1998."

In summary, it is clear on the findings of the trial judge that the appellants saved, planted, harvested and sold the crop from plants containing the gene and plant cell patented by Monsanto. The issue is whether this conduct amounted to “use” of Monsanto’s invention — the glyphosate-resistant gene and cell.

A different case, Schmeiser vs. Monsanto, in which Schmeiser sued Monsanto for contaminating his field, apparently settled out of court. This is the case which Schmeiser has been promoting as a "victory". In fact, it appears that Monsanto just committed itself to bearing the costs of cleaning up Schmeiser's fields from the "contamination" with Roundup-Ready - in fact, what Monsanto had been requesting all along.

I'm not a fan of huge corporations, and I certainly have great sympathy for ecological activists, but the way in which the whole organic, anti-GM movement has taken Schmeiser (a non-organic farmer who very clearly knowingly used a pesticide-resistant GM crop) under its wing leaves me wondering, to say the least.
posted by Skeptic at 7:27 AM on May 12 [3 favorites has favorites]

Monsanto is clearly evil, but they don't strike me as unusually evil. They've basically just taken the idea of a for-profit corporation to its logical conclusion. That they'll destroy small farmers and poison people when doing so is profitable should be about as surprising as water flowing downhill. When you make evil both legally acceptable and personally profitable, you shouldn't be surprised when it becomes commonplace. (And lest this be misinterpreted as some anti-corporate screed, it's not. Corporations are made up of people; behind every corporation are individuals choosing to fuck over others. Corporations just make our inherent vileness more obvious, and in doing so they bring it out into the light where it can be dealt with, at least in theory.)

So I don't really blame Monsanto for being Monsanto. The blame should be laid squarely at the feet of the politicians and regulators who have legitimized their business practices and allow what they do to be so profitable. Blaming Monsanto is like flogging the ocean when it floods and kills people; you should instead be looking for the people who were responsible for building the levees.

Corporations respond to incentives. There would no doubt be a booming industry in murder-for-hire or organ harvesting, but no major U.S. corporation engages in either as a core business strategy (at least not domestically). Why? Because we've created an incentive structure that makes the potential profit not worth the risk.

If we don't like Monsanto's business practices, the solution isn't complicated: make those business practices illegal, and create an enforcement and punishment mechanism that hits their bottom line hard. They'll either change direction, or if they can't survive without evil — if their business model is as dependent on it as I suspect it is — then they'll go out of business. Either outcome would be fine.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:27 AM on May 12 [2 favorites has favorites]

Does a patented lifeform infringe the patent by reproducing?

No, it does not. Only natural persons (e.g., people, corporations, etc) can infringe patents.

You may have seen scary-seeming patents that claim both a GM organism and its offspring. The purpose of the latter claim is to prevent a defendant from arguing that he or she did not infringe the patent on the organism because he or she used or sold only later generations of the organism.

You may wonder then about genetically modified humans, then. I can tell you that the law is highly unlikely to hold children liable for genes given to them by genetic manipulation, and in any event no corporation would risk the PR nightmare. Instead, the target would be whatever company sold the kit the doctor used or, less likely, the doctor or clinic.

Those of you discussing the Schmeiser case might be interested in the well-written Wikipedia article on the case. One highlight: Schmeiser instructed a farmhand to save seeds from the Roundup Ready canola, resulting in over 95% of his 1000 acre farm being planted with it the following year. While the initial presence of the Roundup Ready canola may have been the result of contamination, his intentional replacement of his own variety with Monsanto's was not.

Monsanto is using lies and muscle in pursuit of a monopoly on food.

No, it isn't. It's using 'lies and muscle' in pursuit of a monopoly on its genetically modified products. No one is stopping anybody from growing organic heirloom varieties and swapping seeds for free with their neighbors, and all the patents in the world can't stop that. You can't patent something you didn't invent, and you can't patent something that's been going on in public for more than a year even if you did invent it.* Thousands of years of agricultural technology are off limits to monopolization through intellectual property and there's nothing Monsanto or any other company can do about it.

If you don't like what Monsanto does, then buy organic produce, meat, and milk and eat at restaurants that do the same. Or, shop at farmers markets and verify that what you're buying didn't come from seeds sold by an evil corporation. Educate your friends and relatives about the merits of the same. If you don't like it, do something about it.

* That's in the US. In most of if not all of the rest of the world there is no one year grace period: if a technology is used in public at all it can no longer be patented.
posted by jedicus at 7:30 AM on May 12 [2 favorites has favorites]

Only natural persons (e.g., people, corporations, etc)

In jurisprudence, a natural person is a human being perceptible through the senses and subject to physical laws, as opposed to an artificial, legal or juristic person, i.e., an organization that the law treats for some purposes as if it were a person distinct from its members or owner.

Corporation != natural person
posted by rough ashlar at 7:36 AM on May 12

Corporation != natural person

Yes, sorry about that. My typing got away from me. Should have read "natural or legal persons."
posted by jedicus at 7:47 AM on May 12

jecdicus: Monsanto is using lies and muscle in pursuit of a monopoly on food.

No, it isn't. It's using 'lies and muscle' in pursuit of a monopoly on its genetically modified products. No one is stopping anybody from growing organic heirloom varieties and swapping seeds for free with their neighbors, and all the patents in the world can't stop that.

That's all fine and well for right now. But what about in 20 or 30 or 50 years, when the Monsanto genes have spread via natural mechanisms to most of the seed stock on the planet? Will the only non-patented food be those heirloom varieties grown indoors?

The fight to keep our food supply free (whether that's dollars or fences) isn't necessarily for NOW... It's for 2 generations from now. If they start the fight then, it will likely be too late.

rough ashlar: corporations ARE natural persons under US law. It's frightening and sad, but true.
posted by hippybear at 7:50 AM on May 12 [3 favorites has favorites]

oh, ouch. that should be attributed to jedicus. sorry.
posted by hippybear at 7:51 AM on May 12

If you don't like what Monsanto does, then buy organic produce, meat, and milk and eat at restaurants that do the same. Or, shop at farmers markets and verify that what you're buying didn't come from seeds sold by an evil corporation. Educate your friends and relatives about the merits of the same. If you don't like it, do something about it.

I think these sorts of arguments are great, except they tend to ignore the tremendous advertising and lobbying power and deceptive practices that are inevitably brought to bear by large corporations to combat people opting out of their products. For example, do you think that if 90% of farmers suddenly decided to start using natural seeds and stop using Roundup, Monsanto would be ok with that?

The textbook idea of perfectly informed rational consumers exercising free choice to influence the market is pretty inapplicable in the real world IMO. Those of us posting on MeFi and obsessively reading court cases and wikipedia articles to "get the truth" are certainly not the majority of consumers. Most of them are successfully bombarded into submission by (often false) advertising, fake consumer groups, and the like.
posted by freecellwizard at 7:55 AM on May 12

But what about in 20 or 30 or 50 years, when the Monsanto genes have spread via natural mechanisms to most of the seed stock on the planet?

As explained in that Canadian Supreme Court decision, in the Schmeiser case the Roundup Ready seed did most certainly not spread "via natural mechanisms". There was a conscious selection (by Schmeiser) of Roundup-resistant seeds.

An important thing to understand is that, in the natural world as much as anywhere else, there is no such thing as a free lunch. GM organisms must pay for their engineered qualities in other terms that make their survival in free range unlikely, to say the least. Just like that of our conventionally-bred food crops (which must be continuously cared for and tended to protect them against natural competitors and pests), only even more so. The nightmare scenario of out-of-control "supercrops" taking over nature is just that, a nightmare.

Will the only non-patented food be those heirloom varieties grown indoors?

Considering that patents have a lifespan of only 20 years from filing (which, in this particular field, is mostly spent trying to get approval for commercial exploitation), well, no.
posted by Skeptic at 8:03 AM on May 12 [3 favorites has favorites]

Most of them are successfully bombarded into submission by (often false) advertising, fake consumer groups, and the like.

Then the problem is false advertising, fake consumer groups, and the like, not the patent system. By all means, empower the FTC, FDA, and the DOJ Antitrust division to be more careful watchdogs of the market, but the patent system itself is not fundamentally broken by dint of allowing patents on genes or genetically modified organisms.
posted by jedicus at 8:04 AM on May 12

Skeptic:As explained in that Canadian Supreme Court decision, in the Schmeiser case the Roundup Ready seed did most certainly not spread "via natural mechanisms". There was a conscious selection (by Schmeiser) of Roundup-resistant seeds.

Yes, but as also detailed in that same case, the round-up ready genes had spread to the seed stock he planted to the extent that 70% of the seeds he planted were round-up resistant. This was before he sprayed his fields with the herbicide. It doesn't take a genius to see that, given time and wind and natural forces, a gene such as herbicide-immunity will quickly become dominant given time.

And in regard to your statement about patents expiring in 20 years, you've COMPLETELY sidestepped the point. Perhaps I should rephrase the question:

Will the only non-GM foods be heirloom varieties grown indoors?
posted by hippybear at 8:11 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

I think these sorts of arguments are great, except they tend to ignore the tremendous advertising and lobbying power and deceptive practices that are inevitably brought to bear by large corporations to combat people opting out of their products.

Fair point, but that should be reason for generally sharpening our critical instincts, not jumping on the bandwagon of attacking a particular corporation that appears to attract more than its fair share of criticism. After all, those with the greatest interest in blackening Monsanto's image are its competitors...and large landowners who'd like to buy commercial seed as cheaply as possible. Not a single innocent choirboy among the lot of them...
posted by Skeptic at 8:14 AM on May 12

rough ashlar: corporations ARE natural persons under US law. It's frightening and sad, but true.

No. They are not.
Definitions of Natural person on the Web:

* In jurisprudence, a natural person is a human being perceptible through the senses and subject to physical laws, as opposed to an artificial ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person

* A human being, and a particular category of Legal Entity. Distinguished from a Legal Person. A Natural Person performs social, economic and ...
www.rogerclarke.com/EC/IdAuthGloss.html

* This is a common offshore legal term meaning a living breathing person as opposed to an unnatural person such as a corporation.
www.panamalaw.org/offshore_dictionary.html

* means a private individual, and for purposes of this definition, a trust with less than three trustees, all of whom are private individuals;
https://www.standardbank.co.za/secure/applications/loans/loanterms.htm

* This term appears in the GATS where it deals with the international movement of employees of firms that are providing services in another country. ...
www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/glossary/n.html

* An individual. The opposite of a legal person.
www.kentbankhead.com/web/glossary2.php

But do post your evidence that you are correct.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:15 AM on May 12

It doesn't take a genius to see that, given time and wind and natural forces, a gene such as herbicide-immunity will quickly become dominant given time.

Actually, since herbicides like Roundup don't really exist in nature, the resistant strains will tend not to be dominant as they are useless except in the artificial environment of commercial agriculture. Commercial crops do not do well in the natural environment, which is why we have to load them down with fertilizer, water, herbicides, and pesticides. It would, in fact, take a genius to determine that, through some miracle, Roundup Ready strains would outcompete wild plants or even non-Roundup Ready strains except in an environment full of Roundup.
posted by jedicus at 8:17 AM on May 12

rough ashlar: yes, I misspoke. I do not believe I am mistaken to say that corporations are treated as persons under the law. But natural persons? Yes, I was wrong about that. Still, the legal differences where business are concerned? Aside from not being able to beat a corporation to death with a baseball bat, I'd be curious to know what they are.
posted by hippybear at 8:18 AM on May 12

did it again. "The legal differences where corporations are concerned?
posted by hippybear at 8:19 AM on May 12

hippybear the round-up ready genes had spread to the seed stock he planted to the extent that 70% of the seeds he planted were round-up resistant

Again, wrong on almost every point:

He sprayed a three-acre patch near the road with Roundup and found that approximately 60 percent of the plants survived.

Sure, there was contamination, but it was apparently quite limited to a small area. If, of course, you then spray the crops with just the pesticide they are designed to be resistant to...
posted by Skeptic at 8:21 AM on May 12

jedicus: um... where is this Roundup-free environment of which you speak? and how does the non-use of Roundup keep the pollen from spreading to one's fields? And where is this natural environment wherein humans are producing food in the US these days? Perhaps corn and soybeans are being gathered where they are found to grow naturally in some Pacific Northwest Forest wilderness area?

Given the system we currently have, and the natural prolific nature of pollen and plants, it is difficult to imagine the utopia of Roundup-free environs sown with naturally occurring food crops which have no outside influence. As the linked-to documentary made clear, even subsistence farmers are having a difficult time keeping their crops untainted.
posted by hippybear at 8:25 AM on May 12

Skeptic: you are correct, of course. There is nothing to fear with Monsanto's Roundup ready genes, and I should not feel alarmed about their spread to crops which were not planted with such stock.

Sorry about the 10% error there. Not sure that's "almost every point", but yes, it does invalidate everything else I said.
posted by hippybear at 8:28 AM on May 12

where is this Roundup-free environment of which you speak?

There are lots of plants that are not Roundup-resistant, so any farmer who plants those would either not use Roundup or only use it as Mr. Schmeiser did: to kill weeds at the perimeter of the field to prevent encroachment. Any farmer who doesn't use Roundup-ready corn, canola, soybeans, etc would have no reason to use Roundup, as it would kill his or her crops.

And of course the non-farmland between stretches of farmland has no Roundup exposure to speak of, so it would be difficult for Roundup Ready varieties to spread over long distances because it has to make long jumps over 'wild' terrain.

Anyway, throughout history humans have been selectively breeding crops, hybridizing, and taking advantages of mutations. This is nothing but slow genetic manipulation. Lots of crops that we take for granted (nectarines, for example) are the result of discovered genetic mutations, but we don't burn down all the nectarine trees in order to avoid the nightmare scenario of not being able to get fuzzy peaches anymore. Why not? Because nectarines are 'natural?' No, they're a genetic mutant propagated artificially by man. Because they're safe? We think so now, but nobody was conducting large scale safety trials of nectarines at the time.

The problem isn't GMOs, or patents, or corporations. The problem is that we should do more to regulate them for safety (both to humans and the environment) and for market fairness. Banning them outright over a nightmare scenario that we have reason to believe is pretty unlikely is a tremendous overreaction.
posted by jedicus at 8:42 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

I have a friend who used to spray crops way back in the 60's. He said back then, farmers only sprayed when they had a problem. Now farmers HAVE to spray pesticides and fertilizer even if they dfon't have a problem. It has killed off little creeks and places where small wildlife used to live. the creeks around here no longer flow, they are just depressions in the land full of mud and muck.
posted by brneyedgrl at 8:43 AM on May 12

The problem isn't GMOs, or patents, or corporations. The problem is that we should do more to regulate them for safety (both to humans and the environment) and for market fairness. Banning them outright over a nightmare scenario that we have reason to believe is pretty unlikely is a tremendous overreaction.

Yes, I agree with you here. I don't believe I ever spoke for a ban on anything. But I do not believe they are being adequately tested, controlled, or regulated, and I fear by the time we are interested in putting the genie back in the bottle for whatever reason, we will find it is too late. It's not about a nightmare scenario, so much, as it is about realizing that, oh shit, we DID kill al the dodos after all. (insert whatever other parallel for stupid human tricks you wish here)
posted by hippybear at 8:45 AM on May 12

hippybear You are purposely missing the point, are you? Those were plants from a three-acre area directly adjacent to a public road along which Roundup Ready harvests from his neighbours were routinely transported (also, whether this initial concentration was the result from contamination by spilled seeds, pollination, or further shenanigans by Schmeiser, as alleged by Monsanto, was never cleared).

where is this Roundup-free environment of which you speak?

Well, in most places? Starting with fields of non-Roundup-Ready canola, which doesn't take well to that pesticide?

and how does the non-use of Roundup keep the pollen from spreading to one's fields?

One does not need to. As jedicus points out, non-contaminated seeds will outcompete them in the absence of that particular pesticide.
posted by Skeptic at 8:54 AM on May 12

As explained in that Canadian Supreme Court decision, in the Schmeiser case the Roundup Ready seed did most certainly not spread "via natural mechanisms". There was a conscious selection (by Schmeiser) of Roundup-resistant seeds.

I still don't see it. He planted a field of canola, and a bunch of his neighbors planted Monsanto seeds, which cross-pollinated with his crop without any action on his part. Did the bees infringe on Monsanto's patents? Because Schmeiser didn't go out there and dab patented pollen on his crops. He just grew a field full of canola, and then reserved part of that crop for seed. Next year, he planted last year's seeds, and then applied industrial-grade chemicals to the field to eliminate parasites, killing a large amount of the crop in the process. From what survived, he saved a portion to use as seed the next year, just like he does every year, and just like every farmer has done since the dawn of agriculture. At what point in here did he violate a patent? That's not a coy hypothetical, I'm actually curious as to what step in that process the court found fault with.

I'll grant you that he didn't act in good faith by dosing the field with a chemical that his neighbors had specifically paid for their crops to be resistant to, but what if his direct neighbors hadn't been using modified crops? In the absence of the adjoining, patented canola, he might very well have done the same thing: applied powerful chemicals, killing a large portion of his crop, and treated the survivors as being genetically superior stock, and using them as seed for next year's crop. The cross-pollination from Monsanto crops may have brought the survival rate from 1% up to 60%, but the process itself wasn't any more infringing than Mendel and his pea plants. In fact, the idea that the process, exercised identically for millenia, could be considered infringing strikes me as a complete failure of patent law, and yeah, it worries me deeply that a corporation can get away with strong-arming people over something like this.
posted by Mayor West at 9:01 AM on May 12

The problem is that we should do more to regulate them for safety

Safe regulation? See my uplink comment on the wipe-out-the-plants GMO and note how regulators had approved that GMO for field tests.

Note how regulation did not catch the StarLink contamination - a private group caught the contamination after the fact.


Exactly what level of regulation do you think needs to be in play to avoid the above in the present regulated environment?
posted by rough ashlar at 9:41 AM on May 12

Mayor West, I'll quote the SC of Canada once again:

Mr. Schmeiser is a conventional, non-organic farmer. For years, he had a practice of saving and developing his own seed. The seed which is the subject of Monsanto’s complaint can be traced to a 370-acre field, called field number 1, on which Mr. Schmeiser grew canola in 1996. In 1996 five other canola growers in Mr. Schmeiser’s area planted Roundup Ready Canola.

In the spring of 1997, Mr. Schmeiser planted the seeds saved on field number 1. The crop grew. He sprayed a three-acre patch near the road with Roundup and found that approximately 60 percent of the plants survived. This indicates that the plants contained Monsanto’s patented gene and cell.

In the fall of 1997, Mr. Schmeiser harvested the Roundup Ready Canola from the three-acre patch he had sprayed with Roundup. He did not sell it. He instead kept it separate, and stored it over the winter in the back of a pick-up truck covered with a tarp.

A Monsanto investigator took samples of canola from the public road allowances bordering on two of Mr. Schmeiser’s fields in 1997, all of which were confirmed to contain Roundup Ready Canola. In March 1998, Monsanto visited Mr. Schmeiser and put him on notice of its belief that he had grown Roundup Ready Canola without a licence. Mr. Schmeiser nevertheless took the harvest he had saved in the pick-up truck to a seed treatment plant and had it treated for use as seed. Once treated, it could be put to no other use. Mr. Schmeiser planted the treated seed in nine fields, covering approximately 1,000 acres in all.

Schmeiser didn't spray Roundup on all his canola, he sprayed it on a very small three-acre plot near the road, which he should have known to be most likely to be contaminated. From that small plot, he then harvested the surviving crop, and chose just that canola for use as seed over all of his 1000-acre fields.

At what point did he violate the patent? Let the judges speak:

The preliminary question is whether this conduct falls within the meaning of “use” or “exploiter”. We earlier concluded that these words, taken together, connote utilization with a view to production or advantage. Saving and planting seed, then harvesting and selling the resultant plants containing the patented cells and genes appears, on a common sense view, to constitute “utilization” of the patented material for production and advantage, within the meaning of s. 42.

We turn next to whether the other considerations relevant to “use” support this preliminary conclusion.

In this regard, the first and fundamental question is whether Monsanto was deprived in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, of the full enjoyment of the monopoly that the patent confers. And the answer is “yes”.

Monsanto’s patent gives it a monopoly over the patented gene and cell. The patent’s object is production of a plant which is resistant to Roundup herbicide. Monsanto’s monopoly enabled it to charge a licensing fee of $15 per acre to farmers wishing to grow canola plants with the patented genes and cells. The appellants cultivated 1030 acres of plants with these patented properties without paying Monsanto for the right to do so. By cultivating a plant containing the patented gene and composed of the patented cells without licence, the appellants thus deprived Monsanto of the full enjoyment of its monopoly.
posted by Skeptic at 9:41 AM on May 12

»Those were plants from a three-acre area directly adjacent to a public road along which Roundup Ready harvests from his neighbours were routinely transported (also, whether this initial concentration was the result from contamination by spilled seeds, pollination, or further shenanigans by Schmeiser, as alleged by Monsanto, was never cleared). [...]

Ok, so according to you Schmeiser is a crook farmer. Possibly true.

The rest? Watch the parts from the documentary in the OP about these and related topics in Mexico, India, and Paraguay (along with Brazil and Argentina). Comment?
posted by Glee at 9:42 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

I often used to bike past their world headquarters, a beautifully green campus in the richest suburb of Metro St. Louis...

There's a Sweet Tomatoes restaurant across the road from it now that my wife and I go to pretty frequently. We always blow raspberries at the Monsanto campus, as we do for the Scientology building in U City.
posted by Foosnark at 9:50 AM on May 12

Skeptic: You are failing on one valuable point with your posts. You seem to posit that the plants which were pollinated in one year will gain immunity that same year. This is untrue, and weakens your arguments. The farmer in question planted seed from a 370 acre plot which was cross-pollinated the year after that contamination occurred, and then sprayed a small subset of that crop with Roundup and found it to be resistant due to the previous years pollination, and then he saved THAT seed to get a 100% resistant crop the year after that.
posted by hippybear at 10:01 AM on May 12

See my uplink comment on the wipe-out-the-plants GMO and note how regulators had approved that GMO for field tests.

See my uplink from biased website above.
posted by electroboy at 10:24 AM on May 12

See my uplink from biased website above.
posted by electroboy at 10:24 AM on May 12 [+] [!]

Flagged as noise.

Come back when you have documented proof showing the tale as told there is incorrect.
posted by rough ashlar at 10:30 AM on May 12

One does not need to. As jedicus points out, non-contaminated seeds will outcompete them in the absence of that particular pesticide.
posted by Skeptic at 8:54 AM on May 12 [+] [!]

Does anyone have a link to actual studies showing this, or is yet another this a 'take it on faith' argument common on the Blue?
posted by rough ashlar at 10:44 AM on May 12

Flag it all you want. You're making the assertion, it's up to you to provide the proof.
posted by electroboy at 10:51 AM on May 12

You're making the assertion, it's up to you to provide the proof.
posted by electroboy at 10:51 AM on May 12 [+] [!]

That is what the link does, provides the proof to back up the GMOed Klebsiella planticola as example of failed regulation and "as Ingham points out, the lack of pre-market safety testing of other genetically altered organisms virtually guarantees that future biological monsters will be released into the environment."

http://www.saynotogmos.org/klebsiella.html

If metafilter had a flag for "Ad hominem", I would have used that - because you opted not to provide valid counter claim, but instead went with "biased website" as a rebuttal attempt. If you actually have data showing the modified Klebsiella planticola never existed or is being used feel free to demonstrate VS more astroturfing-style noise.
posted by rough ashlar at 11:04 AM on May 12

Does anyone have a link to actual studies showing this, or is yet another this a 'take it on faith' argument common on the Blue?

Sure. Genetic engineering, ecosystem change, and agriculture: an update, published in Biotechnology and Molecular Biology Review

"In most instances it can be shown that for herbicide resistance at least, the resistant form is unlikely to out-compete the susceptible in the absence of strong selective pressure."

[In the context of a glyophosphate (Roundup)-resistant weed]: "There is no evidence for selective advantage of the weed in absence of the herbicide."
posted by jedicus at 11:06 AM on May 12

Sure.

Thank you.

(now if I could only find the article on one man's attempt to breed a blue corn and his 20+ years effort wiped out due to Monsanto genetic contamination)
posted by rough ashlar at 11:10 AM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

That is what the link does, provides the proof to back up the GMOed Klebsiella planticola as example of failed regulation and "as Ingham points out, the lack of pre-market safety testing of other genetically altered organisms virtually guarantees that future biological monsters will be released into the environment."

So why not link from a reputable source? I suspect it's because your hyperbolic claims wouldn't be borne out by an actual scientific study, so you chose the one that you liked the best.
posted by electroboy at 11:28 AM on May 12

»"In most instances it can be shown that for herbicide resistance at least, the resistant form is unlikely to out-compete the susceptible in the absence of strong selective pressure."

Jedicus, if I understand the documentary correctly, the Mexican farmers face a different problem. Their traditional corn varieties are "transgenically contaminated" by Monsanto's GM corn from someplace nowhere near their fields. Whether deliberately or accidentally contaminated, the mutated corn is worse than the natural, unmodified, corn.

So, according to the documentary, it's not -- in the Mexico example at least -- that the herbicide-resistant GM corn outcompetes the natural corn. It's that it contaminates the natural corn (which will then become equally dependant on supporting products -- Monsanto fertilizers and herbicides -- to grow adequately).
posted by Glee at 12:44 PM on May 12

It's that it contaminates the natural corn (which will then become equally dependant on supporting products -- Monsanto fertilizers and herbicides -- to grow adequately)

If the contaminated corn fails to grow in the absence of fertilizers and herbicides, then it sounds like the solution is to let it die (which should be easy) and then plant uncontaminated corn again. I don't know about Mexico, but in the US you could make a good case for suing Monsanto and the Monsanto-using farmers for damaging your property, especially if the scenario was repeatable.

Again, the problem here isn't GM plants as such. In this case, it's a lack of strong property rights and access to an effective court system. If GM plants are causing harm, then their producers and users should be sued for that harm. The cost of the harm will become internalized by the producer and the market will balance out the value of GM vs non-GM crops.
posted by jedicus at 12:56 PM on May 12

Oh hey, it turns out they're not supported by actual studies. And that the study in question may not even exist (paragraph 5 under Executive Summary).
posted by electroboy at 1:25 PM on May 12 [1 favorite has favorites]

Maybe Mexican farmers should move to a more productive seed stock so they can leave more acerage fallow. That might prevent this from happening again.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:11 PM on May 12

Glee Ok, so according to you Schmeiser is a crook farmer.

No, in my opinion, Schmeiser is a rather clever farmer who, after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled out patents on "higher lifeforms", thought he had found a perfectly legal loophole to exploit Roundup-Ready without paying $15,000 in royalties to Monsanto. Not a completely outlandish conclusion, as at least one of the Supreme Court judges agreed with him in his dissenting opinion in Monsanto vs. Schmeiser.

What really puzzles me is how some activists have turned him into a "Monsanto martyr". After canola, he seems to have become quite adept at cultivating a new cash crop: the "gullible greenie". More power to him, but it really doesn't promote my trust in the better judgment of anti-Monsanto activists.
posted by Skeptic at 1:07 AM on May 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Communism is to capitalism as cyanide is to arsenic. Both are evil and will kill you. I point the finger at the society that lets corporations like 4his build up and exist. They obviously could give a rat's ass about who they kill with their chemicals and what families they destroy. Frankenstein will do that. I blame the Doc that made it.
posted by Mastercheddaar at 6:14 AM on May 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

I have a friend who used to spray crops way back in the 60's. He said back then, farmers only sprayed when they had a problem. Now farmers HAVE to spray pesticides and fertilizer even if they dfon't have a problem. It has killed off little creeks and places where small wildlife used to live. the creeks around here no longer flow, they are just depressions in the land full of mud and muck.

Whee generalizations. There are many different areas and growing conditions and crops that dictate things such as required fertilization, pesticite usage, herbicide usage, etc. To say that all farmers now have to use pesticide and fertilizer is silly. Most do use pesticides, but not all. I'd also question how those specific things have caused that damage. There are many other practices which probably were the root cause of that damage (drainage practices, tillage, and water control issues seem much more likely, and because of those things the use of pesticide/fertilizer would be more damaging).

Because "Roundup Ready" means "Roundup, which is what everyone sprays all over everything won't kill your crops"

Then why spray all your crops with Roundup?

1) Not everyone sprays round-up. If they did, what would keep all those other seed companies in business?
2) If your land is next to someone's who does use Roundup then you will lose some of your crop to over-spray. (Or more if they spray when it's windy) This means that if one farmer in an area moves to Roundup the surrounding farmers are more likely to choose to rather than risk the losses. (Or in some cases pressure the other farmer into not using Roundup)

I grew up in an area with mostly small corn and soybean farms where people tended to not use Roundup. Or if they did, were generally considerate enough to let people know before they planted, and not go too crazy with it. However, many of the surrounding areas had large farming operations that did use Roundup so farms bordering those were basically forced to switch or suffer losses. Of course it varries from community to community.

granting patents for plants is fucking dumb

Yes.
posted by Feantari at 8:13 AM on May 13