Posted on 05/24/2010 11:53:59 AM PDT by Eagles2003
(NaturalNews) Chemical and agricultural giant DuPont has accused rival Monsanto of maintaining a seed monopoly, in a complaint filed with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Agriculture.
"Monsanto has engaged in numerous practices that improperly seek to expand the scope of intellectual property rights at the expense of competition, innovation, and choice," the 18-page DuPont report reads.
DuPont, which owns the genetically modified seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred International, is Monsanto's main competitor in the agricultural biotech field. The two companies are already in court over a failed licensing deal.
The complaint alleges that Monsanto controls 98 percent of the U.S. market in soybeans, 79 percent of the market in corn and 60 percent of the market in patented soy and corn genetics. It accuses the company of using coercive tactics to rope farmers and seed dealers into agreements that make them dependent on its patented and expensive products.
"The ag biotech trait market is firmly in the grip of a single supplier, acting as a bottleneck to competition and choice... it also threatens the global goals for agriculture in the 21st Century doubling the world's food supply by 2050," the report reads.
Monsanto has been accused of many of the same practices by biotechnology critics, who allege that Monsanto's herbicide-resistant crops increase reliance on Monsanto chemicals and point to the company's aggressive prosecution of farmers who save and replant Monsanto seed. The company has also been known to sue farmers whose crops become genetically contaminated through cross-pollination with Monsanto-modified crops.
Although biotech critics tend to single out Monsanto as the world's largest supplier of genetically modified seed, they also level many of the same criticisms at DuPont, Bayer, and other biotech companies. Big seed companies in general have come under fire for encouraging farmers to plant expensive modern hybrids over native varieties, thus reducing seed diversity and exposing the world to a greater risk of food shortage.
The DuPont complaint comes ahead of five planned Department of Justice and Agriculture hearings into concerns about competition and monopoly in the agricultural marketing sector.
Not sure what your point is. What does profit have to do with illegal and immoral business practices? Let’s see how well you’d be championing “corporate profits” from this particular company when they sued you for pollination from your neighbor’s farm occurs on your farm. Yeah, they can (and will-and DO) check the DNA of neighboring farmers plants to see if their plants naturally pollinated with their genetically modified plants.
There is a difference between profits and mafia style corporate abuse of power.
So... you have a route mapped out to get your seeds when the STHF? Or do you press a button and they float through the air to your house? Confused and hope you are joking.
I’m joking...I just love that sentence in the infomercial.
Monsato owns the patent and DNA of their seeds. They have created genetically modified seed that is not harmed by their weed killer. So they sell their seed to large farmers who also purchase their weed killer to have a large yield without weeds choking out the crop.
Here is where they get you. You are not allowed to keep ANY seed for the next year, you MUST PURCHASE a new batch of seeds each year. They will sue you (farmers must sign a contract) if you attempt to keep seeds from the previous year. They also will sue farmers who might be neighboring with Monsato farms if their seeds are pollinated by a Monsato plant. They sue for patent infringement even though the farmer can’t really do much about pollen floating to his farm from the Monsato farm.
These people are EVIL. There is profit and then there is plain out abuse and control. There is a town in South Carolina (I think?) that has like an 80% cancer rate... their drinking water for the town is downstream from the factory that makes the weed killer.
Ha! It's an violation of the sales agreement to save any of the harvested grain (such saved grain is traditionally known as seed corn) to replant - the farmer MUST re-buy from the seed producer every year! It's wrong because it interferes with the chemical company's profits, duh! Don't even get me started on ADM...
I know we would all rather believe in some grand conspiracy theory, but commercially planted corn is not open pollenated. Farmers don’t (and can’t) save some of the kernels from this years crop to plant as seed for next year’s. Farmers who claim to the contrary are fibbing.
Snopes is a bunch of Libtards. Who cares what they say?
I meant “corn” in the traditional English sense of “grain,” not the American sense of “maize.” Yes, I know that maize farmers in modern operation need to buy fresh seed every year for maximum yield, but farmers can (and do, if need be) replant for up to three years, if they are willing to trade progressively lower yield against the cost of new seed.
Some farmers will replant bin-run soybeans, (and in Canada will replant rape seed) but if they started out with a Round Up Ready variety, that replanting violates the specific terms of their purchase contract. To avoid the consequences of purposely violating a contract, some farmers have claimed that the Round Up Ready trait must have accidentally have cross pollinated from a neighbor's field. The trouble is, such accidental cross pollination would only add the Round Up Ready trait to a very small percentage of the beans, and then only in beans close to the boundary.
If a farmer is not willing to abide by the specific terms of his purchase agreemnet, fine; he shouldn't purchase the seed.
And you trust Snopes because ... ?
Because, in this case, they are absolutely correct and have based their information on sound science.
Monsanto owns the genome of the bio engineered corn - it better not be in your field if you didnt buy it from them
Oh! And you can vouch for that because ... ?
Exactly. We have paperwork and receipts on seed for every crop that we plant. I always hear about all of the lawsuits that Monsanto is filing against farmers, but I can't seem to find any record of such suits. If a farmer is saving seed on a patented hybrid, then he should be pursued.
We've never been questioned by Monsanto, nor has any farmer that I've ever known personally or known of by talk in the farming community. Seems odd.
MS in Biochemistry - Food Science and Nutrition. 25 years in the food ingredient/flavor business, most of it in R&D. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have regarding what Snopes reported or any other concerns you might have about aspartame in general.
Where is this going on and where can I find the info?
Prove it.
There are mountains and mountains of surpluses and mountains of data that say otherwise.
What are the clearance mechanisms for Aspartame?
(2) Do you think that the husband and wife hobbyists who run Snopes are experts on Aspartame? And why?
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