Is Monsanto Eeeeevuuuullll ?

Keep in mind that terminator technology only exists conceptually, and is not commercially available. In fact, Monsanto pledged not to release it commercially, if that means anything.

Also keep in mind that farmers are, by contract, only allowed to plant regular Monsanto GMOs for one generation before buying new seeds. While I think the contract's a better idea, terminator technology is just a way of enforcing it. And the effects are really nothing new - hybrid seeds need to be purchased every generation because their sexual reproduction breaks it down.

As for biodiversity, I don't see how the crops limit it. "Terminator" is not a single variety; it's a trait that could be introduced into many different varieties.
 
GreyICE said:
So the farmers who use the seeds get a huge competative advantage, and drive everyone else out of the market...

Until their economy hits a hiccup or Monsanto's factory breaks down and suddenly their seed grain can't grow a new crop and a few million starve to death.
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Assuming that Monsanto had a global monopoly, and only had one factory, and had no stockpiles of seeds, and no-one else had any stockpiles of seeds, and no-one had any food reserves, yes, that would be bad.

But not Monsanto's fault.

Yeah, glad you're not on the policy board of, well, anything. I'd love for a factory breakdown to cause mass starvation.
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Ain't gonna happen.

GreyICE said:
You mean if Monsanto jacks the price of their terminator seeds, they'll what?
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And what if Google bought a nuclear weapon on the black market and dropped it on Sheboygan? That would be bad too.
 
PixyMisa said:
Monsanto has a global monopoly on seeds?
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Monsanto releases this. They're going to gain a competitive advantage, because they can resell seeds every year. All their competitors will either adopt the same technology, or suffer a competitive disadvantage.

Their technology will constantly improve. Their crops will continue to improve. So farms with them will outproduce farms without them. Which is great, right up until you have the entire developing world's food supply controlled by 2-3 corporations. Note that this is the case in America (the only seeds available are DuPont or Monsanto, there is literally no way we could plant our crops with non-brand seed, meaning we all starve if they screw up and we are stuck with terminators).

Hell, the railroad barons only controlled railroads.

The Mad Hatter said:
Keep in mind that terminator technology only exists conceptually, and is not commercially available. In fact, Monsanto pledged not to release it commercially, if that means anything.

Also keep in mind that farmers are, by contract, only allowed to plant regular Monsanto GMOs for one generation before buying new seeds. While I think the contract's a better idea, terminator technology is just a way of enforcing it. And the effects are really nothing new - hybrid seeds need to be purchased every generation because their sexual reproduction breaks it down.

As for biodiversity, I don't see how the crops limit it. "Terminator" is not a single variety; it's a trait that could be introduced into many different varieties.
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Yes, and keep in mind their pledge only occurred after a multinational moratorium on any testing, sale, or any other use of that subject. Which was, in turn, the result of massive international pressure on virtually every level, sparked by the news of the research.

The terminator seeds are now illegal in two countries, and the moratorium is voted back through every damn time it comes up.

So yes, lobbying for a technology that is pretty much one step above biological warfare is pretty much the definition of corporate evil.

And if that's not enough, they dumped toxic waste illegally, are on record as being convicted of bribing government officials, and have been convicted of false advertising. Oh and hell, lets throw in Agent Orange. That was partially their witch's brew.



Oh hell, and remember when the reporters were fired for not lying in a Fox News broadcast? The OTHER company involved, the one who pressured Fox not to release the news? Yeah. Oh, and the reporters lost on the technicality that lying on the news is not actually illegal - they proved their case true to the court's satisfaction (that Fox had no reasonable grounds whatsoever to say the report wasn't true).

I could go on. Corporate Evil? Yeah, they're it.
 
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GreyICE said:
Monsanto releases this. They're going to gain a competitive advantage, because they can resell seeds every year. All their competitors will either adopt the same technology, or suffer a competitive disadvantage.

Their technology will constantly improve. Their crops will continue to improve. So farms with them will outproduce farms without them. Which is great, right up until you have the entire developing world's food supply controlled by 2-3 corporations. Note that this is the case in America (the only seeds available are DuPont or Monsanto, there is literally no way we could plant our crops with non-brand seed, meaning we all starve if they screw up and we are stuck with terminators).
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So what you're saying is that on a hypothetical parallel future world where everyone in the agriculture business is really really stupid they might under certain highly implausible situations potentially run into problems with the food supply?
 
GreyICE said:
And if that's not enough, they dumped toxic waste illegally, are on record as being convicted of bribing government officials, and have been convicted of false advertising. Oh and hell, lets throw in Agent Orange. That was partially their witch's brew.
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Hey, I never said they were a good company. I don't even support terminator technology. But I do wish I hadn't wasted an hour and a half watching that damn movie.
 
How quickly can you grow crops which are not resistant to Roundup in a field which has been sprayed for years with the stuff?
 
GreyICE said:
Almo said:
Unfortunately, I can't think of a solid profit motive for a company to make really awesome seeds if the user can buy one ton then start producing his own. It's a hazard of trying to sell something that can make more of itself.
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Oh, I dunno. Take a contract to create a seed that can meet some specification. Make the deliverable on the contract 500 tons of seed.

Easy as pie, really. I just thought of a way right there.

Or you could, I dunno. Be evil.
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You're being really short-sighted. If the shipment of seeds can be used to create more seeds, then you don't get another sale. The R+D costs on this stuff are monstrous, and you need a way of recouping your cost. If you're charging $0.01 per seed to recover cost, and your first customer starts selling them for $0.005, when normal seeds cost $0.001, you're screwed.
 
PixyMisa said:
So what you're saying is that on a hypothetical parallel future world where everyone in the agriculture business is really really stupid they might under certain highly implausible situations potentially run into problems with the food supply?
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You mean, in the hypothetical situation that has already occurred in America and several other countries, using a hypothetical technology which has already been developed might cause problems?

Wow, yes, I do think that's a real-world problem. I happen to live in the real world where Monsanto and DuPont do supply the vast majority of seeds for the United States of America, and viciously and angrily prosecute anyone who saves seeds to replant fields, assuring their monopoly. Would they use terminators minus the UN ban? Most assuredly. And that means the vast majority of crops grown in the US would be terminators.

Almo said:
You're being really short-sighted. If the shipment of seeds can be used to create more seeds, then you don't get another sale. The R+D costs on this stuff are monstrous, and you need a way of recouping your cost. If you're charging $0.01 per seed to recover cost, and your first customer starts selling them for $0.005, when normal seeds cost $0.001, you're screwed.
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How am I being shortsighted? Make the contract for cost of development + healthy profit. They never have to sell another seed of that batch again, they've already delivered on a contract.

Do companies who lay roads have to construct tollbooths because once they build the roads they have no way to recoup costs? No? Same concept.
 
GreyICE said:
Do companies who lay roads have to construct tollbooths because once they build the roads they have no way to recoup costs? No? Same concept.
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Yes, same concept.

So, because they now have to include the lack of future business int heir pricing model, the cost all have to be recouped in the first year. So how, the people who want these seeds cna't afford to buy them.

For the road situation, a lot of places do need to set up toll booths. Not hte company laying the road, because they won't do it without a garauntee of payment, but the person buying the orad. They'll (for example) sell bonds that are going to be repaid out of toll costs.

How many farmers can sell bonds to cover the seed costs?

How many can get large loans to cover a highly inflated price (because now Monsanto must recover 100% of the R+D costs in the first year of sales, and still make a profit)?

So your solution is:

1. Drive the price too high for most farmers to afford it, because they have to recoup R+D costs immediately.
2. Because the price will have to be high, sales will decline, and the comapnies will not be cable to recoup costs effectively...leading to this type of research ending.
3. Most farms will still rely on older seed stock, that is susceptible to diseases, less drought resistent, less nutritious, etc, etc, etc.
4. THe only farmers to benefit from this will be large-scael facotry farming operations, that can afford to contract for sepcific R+D research. THese farms will then be able to grow even more food, of better quality, over a larger area, and sell their product cheaper, making sure that small farms and farmers cannot compete in the market.
5. Now you get a monopoly on crop production, with a few large, corporate farming operations being the only ones able to compete effectively.

Brilliant.
 
Anyone compared yield from GM vs conventional crops?

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/exposed-the-great-gm-crops-myth-812179.html

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.

The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.
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Ivor:

Now that is interesting, and a good argument against these varieties (assuming the study is sound and can be replicated).

However, I don't see how that has bearing on whether or not it's evil to desing crops to be sterile; although it does defeat my argument of creating factory-farm monopolies above (they'd stay with higher-yield traditionals). But then again, this is simpyl the varieties of soybean designed for Roundup resistence...would this apply to other species and other GM modifications?
 
Ivor: interesting. If true, one might expect to see Kansas farmers turn away from the GM seeds studied for others promising higher yeilds...any sense of if that is so?
 
Huntsman said:
Yes, same concept.

So, because they now have to include the lack of future business int heir pricing model, the cost all have to be recouped in the first year. So how, the people who want these seeds cna't afford to buy them.

For the road situation, a lot of places do need to set up toll booths. Not hte company laying the road, because they won't do it without a garauntee of payment, but the person buying the orad. They'll (for example) sell bonds that are going to be repaid out of toll costs.

How many farmers can sell bonds to cover the seed costs?

How many can get large loans to cover a highly inflated price (because now Monsanto must recover 100% of the R+D costs in the first year of sales, and still make a profit)?

So your solution is:

1. Drive the price too high for most farmers to afford it, because they have to recoup R+D costs immediately.
2. Because the price will have to be high, sales will decline, and the comapnies will not be cable to recoup costs effectively...leading to this type of research ending.
3. Most farms will still rely on older seed stock, that is susceptible to diseases, less drought resistent, less nutritious, etc, etc, etc.
4. THe only farmers to benefit from this will be large-scael facotry farming operations, that can afford to contract for sepcific R+D research. THese farms will then be able to grow even more food, of better quality, over a larger area, and sell their product cheaper, making sure that small farms and farmers cannot compete in the market.
5. Now you get a monopoly on crop production, with a few large, corporate farming operations being the only ones able to compete effectively.

Brilliant.
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Or perhaps you could purchase a license from Monsanto to use their crop. Say, for 10 years (after which they can continue using the seed without paying any additional money, but they have the option to repurchase the latest batch of seed). Oh. Wait. That works.

Or, in other words, how about we think of methods that actually really do work, instead of methods that don't. I can think of a zillion payment models that don't work. You're trying to think of those, instead of thinking how WOULD it work - a more important economic reality.

You're basically creating a giant strawman, with bullet points, then setting the poor guy on fire. GJ.
 
GreyICE said:
Or perhaps you could purchase a license from Monsanto to use their crop. Say, for 10 years (after which they can continue using the seed without paying any additional money, but they have the option to repurchase the latest batch of seed). Oh. Wait. That works.

Or, in other words, how about we think of methods that actually really do work, instead of methods that don't. I can think of a zillion payment models that don't work. You're trying to think of those, instead of thinking how WOULD it work - a more important economic reality.

You're basically creating a giant strawman, with bullet points, then setting the poor guy on fire. GJ.
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No, I'm trying to follow the models you're putting forward. I didn't create a strawman. You compared it to road construction...I was taking that economic model and applying it to the seed. I was using the model you put forth in analogy. Just as I'm about to do again.

Let's look at your 10-year plan. It's an unenforceable contract. Again, after the first year, the contractee can simply take the seed he's produced and sell it to his neighbors, and you're out. A group of farmers can get together, pool their money, have one person buy the contract, then that person shares his seeds out the next year. And in any cae, paying for ten years runs into the problems of cost again. I fyou say "well, they can do a yearly payment plan) yes, they can. But, then you run into the problem you borught up before: what happens if they have a bad year or two? Now, not only are they not producing a crop, the farm (or parts of it) or the equipment (or parts or it) have to be sold to pay for the contract for that year, which means next year they have less farm to work and stil have to pay the contract costs. Again, the large factory farming outfits, which are somewhat insulated from bad years by variety of crops, scale of operations, and stored capital, take over the market.

I'm trying to say that, so far, you haven't given a method that works. The engineered sterility enforces the contract agreements.

Why not sell the seed, engineered to be sterile, for the first ten year,s then only after that start offering it in a non-sterile version, with a new seed available in a sterile version? Follow the model used by prescription drugs and generics...a time period where sterility is allowed in order for the company to recoup R & D costs, then it's opened up.

What I'm trying to point out is that you seem to be stuck into a "sterile seed=evil" model without looking at any option other than getting rid of sterile seeds, period. I'm simply saying that I see nothing wrong with it at all; it's a way for Monsanto to enforce the contract agreements that the farmers are supposed to be following anyway. And, as the study Ivor posted seemed to hint, if the yields for GM crops are actually less than traditional kinds, then your scenario (GM crop monopoly) won't come to pass anyway.
 
Huntsman said:
No, I'm trying to follow the models you're putting forward. I didn't create a strawman. You compared it to road construction...I was taking that economic model and applying it to the seed. I was using the model you put forth in analogy. Just as I'm about to do again.

Let's look at your 10-year plan. It's an unenforceable contract. Again, after the first year, the contractee can simply take the seed he's produced and sell it to his neighbors, and you're out. A group of farmers can get together, pool their money, have one person buy the contract, then that person shares his seeds out the next year. And in any cae, paying for ten years runs into the problems of cost again. I fyou say "well, they can do a yearly payment plan) yes, they can. But, then you run into the problem you borught up before: what happens if they have a bad year or two? Now, not only are they not producing a crop, the farm (or parts of it) or the equipment (or parts or it) have to be sold to pay for the contract for that year, which means next year they have less farm to work and stil have to pay the contract costs. Again, the large factory farming outfits, which are somewhat insulated from bad years by variety of crops, scale of operations, and stored capital, take over the market.
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Which is pretty much already happening anyway. Large farms are ALWAYS more insulated from temporary setbacks.

As for the contract being unenforceable, see: rule of law. Our country has it. If countries don't, simply deal on the country level. It's a problem, yes, but it's significantly better than risking famine based on Monsanto's goodwill.
I'm trying to say that, so far, you haven't given a method that works. The engineered sterility enforces the contract agreements.
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So does hiring assassins to kill everyone who breaks the contract. Many things that solve one particular problem create several others.

Why not sell the seed, engineered to be sterile, for the first ten year,s then only after that start offering it in a non-sterile version, with a new seed available in a sterile version? Follow the model used by prescription drugs and generics...a time period where sterility is allowed in order for the company to recoup R & D costs, then it's opened up.
What I'm trying to point out is that you seem to be stuck into a "sterile seed=evil" model without looking at any option other than getting rid of sterile seeds, period. I'm simply saying that I see nothing wrong with it at all; it's a way for Monsanto to enforce the contract agreements that the farmers are supposed to be following anyway. And, as the study Ivor posted seemed to hint, if the yields for GM crops are actually less than traditional kinds, then your scenario (GM crop monopoly) won't come to pass anyway.
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I don't see any option other than banning them. There is no such thing as basd science, but there certainly is technology that should never be used.

Oh and by the way, they've never really proven that the terminator plants won't cross pollinate. There's a significant risk of cross-pollinization. How does that fit into your libertarian economic model?
 
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