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5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

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Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#181

Post by nwenzel »

Does hating on Monsanto mean you can jump directly to Monsanto as the cause of the farmer suicides? Does a farmer suicide every 30 minutes sound a little high to anyone else? That would be 48 / day or over 17k / year.

As for the lawsuit, Monsanto sues a farmer because a farmer's land contains some of Monsanto's product. Fine, their product is essentially DNA, but they're allowed to call it their product. Fighting the patent is a losing fight. Right or wrong, it's a battle that won't be won until Kucinich is in the White House.

I've wondered why farmers don't file a counter-claim of trespassing since Monsanto allowed or caused their agents (both the patented DNA and whomever discovered the Monsanto plant) to enter a farmer's property. Additionally, it seems like there would be a case for destruction of property since the genetically modified seeds and plants crowd out the farmer's seeds and plants. Lastly, if the farmers really wanted to hit Monsanto with some irony, they should sue to have Monsanto pay for the removal of the modified seeds and plants. The farmer would have to argue that it is Monsanto's responsibility to prevent the outward spread of their crop. I'm sure the right judge could be found who would draw the comparison to breaking and entering someone's home.

But I'm reminded of a couple simple facts. You don't have to be right to sue someone. You don't have to be in the wrong to get sued. Win or loose, it's not cheap to go to court.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#182

Post by Symmetry »

protomyth wrote: post #163
Symmetry wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think the idea that you can sue someone just for seeds that blew in is absurd. But as far as I can tell, that hasn't happened. In each case where someone was sued by Monsanto they were alleged to have deliberately tried to save only the GM seeds. And of course they denied it and said that it wasn't deliberate, but what they were charged with was deliberate patent violation.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto... has some cases of their lawsuit fun

Yes, they're bad guys. But reading it quickly I didn't see any cases of them suing people for having had their fields accidentally contaminated. Its possible for a person or company to be bad without being guilty of every bad thing anyone says about them.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#184

Post by jlgreco »

shawn-butler wrote: post #176
jlgreco wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrible. How about this (with thanks to another HNer): You patent a specially engineered cow to taste good with your specially engineered steak sauce. One day your specially engineered steers jump my fence and rape my cows. Upon realizing this, I begin buying your special steak sauce from you and eating my new cows with it. When your analogy is not about "patent law pertaining to genetic material ", you wash out the…

Steers, per se, lack the (ahem, equipment) capacity to impregnate cows. I think you mean your bull jumps my fence. Also I believe it could be argued that a specially engineered bull would rise to the level of a "dangerous animal" (such as keeping an elephant or a lion) for purposes of trespass and liability. The owner of a genetically engineered, patent-encumbered, bull would know and have prior knowledge about the u…

Fair points. Specially engineered bulls on open range then.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#185

Post by washedup »

earnon wrote: post #175
ChuckMcM wrote: post #152

Another interesting batch of comments. Generally a lot of hating on Monsanto (which is exploiting the fact that genes can be patented). This "story" is part of a bigger conversation going on. The outcome of which is very much up in the air. The conversation we're having is "Should it be allowed for individuals, or companies, to patent genetic sequences?" On the 'for' side we have people like Monsanto who make the cla…

Is it the farmers who have a powerful lobby, or the food processors, such as Monstanto and ADM?

That question sheds light on many contemporary issues

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#186

Post by crikli »

Spooky23 wrote: post #169
crikli wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't accept subsidies and would absolutely love to see them go away completely. They're doing nothing but sustaining inefficient farming practices and keeping afloat farmers that are quite simply bad at what they do. I don't want to get too off into the HCFC rabbit trail, but I have yet to see any research that indicates anything other than correlative evidence between the ingestion of C6H1206 derived from corn.…

I don't know that HFCS is "bad" vs. cane sugar. My only dig here is that generally speaking, eating alot of calories makes you gain weight. The US government decided at one time that lowering the cost of food proportionally would increase overall prosperity by giving consumers more buying power. The unintended side effect of that policy is that heavily sweetened prepared foods are now cheap and ingrained into culture…

Agree 100%. Refined sugars, regardless of the source, are bad for the human organism.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#187

Post by protomyth »

Symmetry wrote: post #182
protomyth wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto... has some cases of their lawsuit fun

Yes, they're bad guys. But reading it quickly I didn't see any cases of them suing people for having had their fields accidentally contaminated. Its possible for a person or company to be bad without being guilty of every bad thing anyone says about them.

The original case you dismiss (Schmeiser) is acknowledged by both sides that the field was contaminated by passing trucks. Both he and the company have said he bought no seed from Monsanto. The court ruling said it didn't matter what he did after that (knowingly or unknowingly) since he was a person who reused seed which is how it has been done forever until Monsanto.

The reason they are after all the record on page 2 of the article is they are taking anyone who had seed cleaning done - even if they are not their customers. Its real easy to prove their seed mixed since even Monsanto admits that pollen-flow is inevitable (Monsanto's 2005 Technology Agreement).

Google Tom Wiley who is a ND farmer. He has some interesting experiences in the contamination area.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#188

Post by andylei »

jerf wrote: post #157
andylei wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for those that don't understand the implications of this: the runyons claim that the seeds got there accidentally, and imply that they had no knowledge of the seeds' origins. given that they also sprayed Roundup on their crops, the claim just makes no sense. if your crops are not "Roundup-ready", Roundup will kill your crops along with the weeds. if it was really the wind that blew in some seeds, then they never woul…

I can think of an extremely simple experiment that can be run on a field of unknown corn to determine if it is Roundup ready, in a few hours, with only the loss of a couple of corn plants and less than a teaspoon of Roundup.

how does this experiment have any relation to reality?

i think you're implying that this farmer happened upon an entire field of crops that he did not plant, then determined that this field was seeded using roundup-ready seeds, and then sprayed roundup on that field.

do you really think that the entire field was planted by the wind? do you think that this guy left his fields fallow and then the wind just seeded the entire thing? or that he planted his own seeds, but then the wind blew in enough seeds to displace enough of his crop that he could spray it with roundup and still have enough crop left for a good yield?

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#189

Post by andylei »

JPKab wrote: post #100
jaysonelliot wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what level of evidence would satisfy you, as you seem to have a pre-existing bias against the farmers' claims. Monsanto attempted to sue, then dropped its case against the Runyons. Given Monsanto's otherwise litigious history, and the damage that would be done to the company if they were to lose a case like this in court, the evidence points in favor of the farmer. Statements like "I believe (any case) d…

It blows my mind that there are people on HN confusing opposition to the horrific practices that Monsanto uses with opposition to GM crops in general. I am a supporter of GM strains of crops, because I think they have proven environmental benefits. However, what Monsanto did to the seed cleaner is no different than blaming BitTorrent for piracy. The only difference is that BitTorrent sites actually have a somewhat po…

this is not at all like blaming bittorrent sites for pirating

look, you don't understand what this seed cleaner was doing. monsanto does not go around suing every seed cleaner in the midwest just because they could be cleaning roundup ready seeds. they sued moe parr, and they did so because he told other farmers that it was legal for them to clean their roundup ready seeds (which it is not).

evidence: http://www.fr.com/files/uploads/publications/DSU-Medical-Cor...

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#190

Post by Tichy »

knieveltech wrote: post #111
Tichy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, certainly they shouldn't be won as a rule. Maybe there are exceptions, but it shouldn't be just a case of whoever hires the most expensive lawyers wins.

There's a massive gulf between "shouldn't" and "isn't". :/

So basically you are saying the legal system (in the US?) is worthless?
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