Why is Monsanto so hated?

[Puppycow]

There's a few companies that many people love to hate.

Monsanto is one I hear a lot. I don't know too much about them but I understand that they mainly provide seeds for genetically modified crops, and that one of the complaints is that farmers can't keep the seeds and reuse them each year, but instead have to buy them from Monsanto each year.

Well, OK, but what if the seeds are so much better than the natural stuff that it's worth it to the farmer to do that? Are farmers victims here or beneficiaries?

Even when Monsanto gives away its seeds for free with no strings attached, they are criticized for that too.

 

[Aepervius]

There are many grounds why they are hated : they essentially for example sued a farmer contaminated by their seed for replanting them. And they seem to go for a no-replanting no-reseeding policy which has quite a certain implication for the 3rd world. Then there are the ecolo which simply hate anybody which produce pesticide.

On my side I don't care too much. I neither hate nor love them.

 

[mrgrouch]

charity is often the best propaganda money can buy.

god bless their hearts.

 

[Aepervius]

There are many grounds why they are hated : they essentially for example sued a farmer contaminated by their seed for replanting them. And they seem to go for a no-replanting no-reseeding policy which has quite a certain implication for the 3rd world. Then there are the ecolo which simply hate anybody which produce pesticide.

On my side I don't care too much. I neither hate nor love them.

 

[roger]

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805

 

[stevea]

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805

Wow - that's among the shallowest articles I've read in a decade. Monsanto is "evil" b/c it wants to enforce it's contracts with farmers. Heavily reliant on liberal stereotypes and economic fallacies.

The short-sighted view, that Monsanto should give its product way - is exactly the same method any economist would use to drive Monsanto out of business and ensure that no company ever again invests in a product intended to improve the lot of poor agrarians.
The idiotic populist view is heavily investing their stereotypes that the poor agrarian is "deserving" and that any "large company" is rolling in free cash assets and ipso facto guilty of theft. Totally unrealistic and radically biased.

I am not against the little guy (or the big guy), but I am not in favor of justifying theft based on poverty or other conditions.

Statements in the article like this .....

At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto’s seeds can’t even do that.

Implies that violating an agreement the farmer agrees to as a condition of sale, AND violating US ferderal law i somehow a god-giver right. That's kookie talk. If the farmer want;s to re-propagate GMO grops he needs permissio nof the patent holder AND federal licenses. Stupid arguments from VanityFair.

What about poor-liitle-me - why shouldn't I be allowed to steal from mean-ol-big-companies too ? Yeah - why can't I steal from VanityFair for example ? Illogical, anti-social cr*p.

 

[DC]

because their seeds contaminate the GM free fields, because of their practices, because they talk about better yields for poor people while mainly selling roundup ready seeds that have NOT better yields. etc etc.

 

[nvidiot]

Why are monsanto hated?

In the end, it's because they're big, and little guys don't trust big guys. Especially when the big guy has been known to beat up on little guys at whim.

Monsanto aren't "evilz" but they're another corporation doing what corporations do best: make money.

 

[nzric]

nvidiot nailed it. They are a huge corporation so there's obviously things to hate about them, and the more you dig the more you can come across.

But ultimately what gives people the motivation to dig is that Monsanto is a giant company making profit from poor, third-world farmers (yes, just one of lots of other groups they make a profit from), while other organisations are trying to use charitable funds to give training/food/equipment etc to those same farmers.

Made even worse when Monsanto use their full power to influence everything from political machinations in Spain (see wikileaks) to heavy-handed tactics on African farmers.

Monsanto is also a good representative (i.e. like McDonalds is for the fast food industry) to some of corporate interests over-riding environmental concerns.

 

[Puppycow]

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805

I've read that to the end. It makes some valid points about possible over-litigiousness on the part of Monsanto and some environmental issues from decades ago but for the most part it's a one-sided hatchet job.

For example:

Lawyers who have represented farmers sued by Monsanto say that intimidating actions like these are commonplace. Most give in and pay Monsanto some amount in damages; those who resist face the full force of Monsanto’s legal wrath.

There seems to be an assumption that the people who settle are all innocents who don't want to be drawn into an expensive legal battle with Monsanto, but there is no actual evidence that any of them are innocents. The fact that they settled suggests that they probably are not, in fact.

 

[Tippit]

Wow - that's among the shallowest articles I've read in a decade. Monsanto is "evil" b/c it wants to enforce it's contracts with farmers. Heavily reliant on liberal stereotypes and economic fallacies.

Certain contracts can be deemed unenforceable, however. Just because you sign a contract for indentured servitude, doesn't mean courts will or should uphold such a contract. I'm not claiming that this example is analogus, but there are some problems with Monsanto's business model that depend on specific enforcement of intellectual property laws that are, in my opinion, flawed.

The short-sighted view, that Monsanto should give its product way - is exactly the same method any economist would use to drive Monsanto out of business and ensure that no company ever again invests in a product intended to improve the lot of poor agrarians.
The idiotic populist view is heavily investing their stereotypes that the poor agrarian is "deserving" and that any "large company" is rolling in free cash assets and ipso facto guilty of theft. Totally unrealistic and radically biased.

The problem is that GM crops can propagate naturally, with no intent of the farmer to "steal" the seed. But Monsanto's business model depends on a legal infrastructure (that they are cultivating) which gives them a claim against farmers who may have no contract with Monsanto at all.

I am not against the little guy (or the big guy), but I am not in favor of justifying theft based on poverty or other conditions.

Statements in the article like this .....


Implies that violating an agreement the farmer agrees to as a condition of sale, AND violating US ferderal law i somehow a god-giver right. That's kookie talk. If the farmer want;s to re-propagate GMO grops he needs permissio nof the patent holder AND federal licenses. Stupid arguments from VanityFair.

What about poor-liitle-me - why shouldn't I be allowed to steal from mean-ol-big-companies too ? Yeah - why can't I steal from VanityFair for example ? Illogical, anti-social cr*p.

Another problem is that the long term safety of GMO food is questionable, and unproven, yet these risks and costs are externalized by Monsanto on to the rest of us. Furthermore, how does Monsanto intend to control these seeds when they are out in the wild? I can guarantee you they're more interested in the creation of the farm police to coercively enforce their specially crafted IP laws which ensure that they get paid, regardless. The indignant red-blooded capitalist defense of Monsanto, and other big firms that make their living based on intellectual property doesn't hold with this red blooded capitalist, who recognizes that IP requires a large government to enforce and protect what are, in my opinion, questionable business models.

 

[HansMustermann]

Actually, I wonder why they aren't _more_ hated.

One problem GM wheat, more specifically the Roundup-resistant kind, has caused already was propagating those genes to weeds. And such herbicide-resistant weeds are spreading alarmingly fast already. Now if you're a farmer who _doesn't_ use their modified seeds, effectively the weeds are more herbicide resistant than your crops.

It also has already proven a vector by which such genes _can_ spread to other plants without anyone wilfully infringing on Monsanto's IP. And it's the same vector they used to copy genes.

See, copying genes isn't actually invented by humans. There is a whole class of bacteria out there, the agrobacteria, which evolved a mechanism to copy genes from one plant to another. Usually just the kind of genes that causes a root tumour in which such bacteria thrive. But you can load it with any arbitrary payload. And occasionally it loads the wrong DNA segment by sheer random chance anyway.

It seems to be a major vector of horizontal gene transfer in plants.

Which brings us to another kind of GM crops, those who produce their own pesticides. E.g., those who have a gene copied from Bacillus Thuringiensis.

What you don't hear about it is that it caused a slew of problems, often in countries which are already too poor to deal with them anyway. It's caused harmless insects to go nearly extinct, it's created invasions of insects it _doesn't_ kill to fill the niches freed, _and_ again the genes have spread in the wild so such ecological effects are now happening even in places where nobody farms corn anyway.

At least spraying DDT in ye olde days killed all insects, but really only around the parts you were farming. A gene that spreads to wild grasses and makes them kill a class of insects everywhere is a whole other thing.

But that one seems to have solved itself in that it created resistance.

 

[Aepervius]

There seems to be an assumption that the people who settle are all innocents who don't want to be drawn into an expensive legal battle with Monsanto, but there is no actual evidence that any of them are innocents. The fact that they settled suggests that they probably are not, in fact.

Many people settle because the cost of settling is much lower than the cost of fighting. Look at how much it cost Randi/JREF to fight that guy (was it sniffex ? Can't recall) and that money is *lost*.

 

[stevea]

The anti-Monsanto ideation above fails to address the fact that other companies and even other nations that we might consider non-free also produce GMO seed. GMO crops would still exist - with all their admitted systemic peril - even if Monsanto was obliterated. It's blaming the messenger.

Tippit - your OPINION that Monsanto's non-propagation license is flawed or unenforceable is irrelevant. The legal mechanism is that Monsanto attempts to enforce and then the defendant can make a case to the court that contract is flawed. There is nothing wrong with anyone trying to enforce an explicit contract.

Your uninformed opinion about "business model" defies the 80 years of US plant patents which of course imply (non-)propagation licenses. Everything from roses, barley cultivars to fruit trees are patented, and have been for decades. Get a clue.

Another problem is that the long term safety of GMO food is questionable

Agreed - so how does hating Monsanto solve that problem ? Does hating Bayer, Novartis, Aventis, and AgrEvo improve the situation ? How about hating China's agriculture ministry with their Bt63 rice - is that helpful too ? Would things be better or substantially different if we waited a few years to allowed China and Korea to dominate GMO crop production ?

That train has already left the station and as far as I can tell there never was a realistic hope if could ever have been prevented. Telling China to not develop GMO rice is effectively telling a starving person not to eat. It isn't going to happen no matter how much you would prefer to wait for some perfect proof of safety. Yes the gene pool is polluted. What exactly did you think would happen once the less hirsute primates began tinkering with genes ?

=====

One problem GM wheat, more specifically the Roundup-resistant kind, has caused already was propagating those genes to weeds.

There is no evidence of that sort of gene flow. Instead roundup resistant weeds are developing/evolving in response to the heavy reliance on roundup/gylphosate.

See, copying genes isn't actually invented by humans. There is a whole class of bacteria out there, the agrobacteria, which evolved a mechanism to copy genes from one plant to another.

WRONG ! Agrobacterium transfer their bacterial DNA to plants - it's a one-way transfer. Now agrobacteria have been modified in lab to introduce selected "GMO" plasmids into plants, but that is nothing like the bogey man you are trying to invent.

I am not suggesting that horizontal gene transfer (very rare in higher plants) is not a huge looming problem associated with GMOs, but telling lies and crying wolf is not helpful.

What you don't hear about it is that it caused a slew of problems, often in countries which are already too poor to deal with them anyway. It's caused harmless insects to go nearly extinct, it's created invasions of insects it _doesn't_ kill to fill the niches freed, _and_ again the genes have spread in the wild so such ecological effects are now happening even in places where nobody farms corn anyway.

Evidence !

You can get GMO gene transfer to related wild crops by cross pollinization. There are no know cases of GMO plasmids horizontal transfer "in the field", despite your repeated claims to the contrary. Thanks for the alarmist woo; it's what I expect on this forum.

There was concern that Bt pollen might kill friendly insects at a distance, but this appears to not be the case in practice.

A lot of these concerns will likely be addressed in future GMO crops where one will be unable to re-propagate from offspring seed.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

There's a few companies that many people love to hate.

Monsanto is one I hear a lot. I don't know too much about them but I understand that they mainly provide seeds for genetically modified crops, and that one of the complaints is that farmers can't keep the seeds and reuse them each year, but instead have to buy them from Monsanto each year.

Because there are modern day luddites (also known as hippies) who don't like Monsanto because their evil scientist are trying to poison us with unnatural chemicals and plants. They want to return to the days when Indians (oops, excuse me, "Native Americans") lived in harmony with nature, and didn't rape the land and kill all the little woodland creatures.

Well, OK, but what if the seeds are so much better than the natural stuff that it's worth it to the farmer to do that? Are farmers victims here or beneficiaries?

Beneficiaries.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

There are many grounds why they are hated : they essentially for example sued a farmer contaminated by their seed for replanting them.

This is an oft-repeated myth. They did no such thing. They sued a farmer who was violating their patent and knew exactly what he was doing.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Certain contracts can be deemed unenforceable, however. Just because you sign a contract for indentured servitude, doesn't mean courts will or should uphold such a contract. I'm not claiming that this example is analogus, but there are some problems with Monsanto's business model that depend on specific enforcement of intellectual property laws that are, in my opinion, flawed.

You're not a judge, so your opinion is irrelevant. If this contract is uneforceable, how come it's still in force, Wendy? Like I said, good thing you're not a judge.

The problem is that GM crops can propagate naturally, with no intent of the farmer to "steal" the seed. But Monsanto's business model depends on a legal infrastructure (that they are cultivating) which gives them a claim against farmers who may have no contract with Monsanto at all.

Incorrect.

Another problem is that the long term safety of GMO food is questionable, and unproven, yet these risks and costs are externalized by Monsanto on to the rest of us. Furthermore, how does Monsanto intend to control these seeds when they are out in the wild? I can guarantee you they're more interested in the creation of the farm police to coercively enforce their specially crafted IP laws which ensure that they get paid, regardless. The indignant red-blooded capitalist defense of Monsanto, and other big firms that make their living based on intellectual property doesn't hold with this red blooded capitalist, who recognizes that IP requires a large government to enforce and protect what are, in my opinion, questionable business models.

GMO food is unproven? Indians have been eating corn for a 1000 years. Is that not long enough? The "unproven" argument is the same one used by the anti-vax loons:

Nut: "Vaccines are unproven"
Me: "Vaccines have been in use for decades and in some cases hundreds of years. How many years will it take for them to be proven?"
Nut: Refuses to answer

 

[DC]

You're not a judge, so your opinion is irrelevant. If this contract is uneforceable, how come it's still in force, Wendy? Like I said, good thing you're not a judge.



Incorrect.



GMO food is unproven? Indians have been eating corn for a 1000 years. Is that not long enough? The "unproven" argument is the same one used by the anti-vax loons:

Nut: "Vaccines are unproven"
Me: "Vaccines have been in use for decades and in some cases hundreds of years. How many years will it take for them to be proven?"
Nut: Refuses to answer

so GM is nothing new, its the same as selective breeding?
thats pure nonsense, with GM some huge natural barriers have gone and they can cross stuff that was not even imaginable with selective breeding.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

so GM is nothing new, its the same as selective breeding?
thats pure nonsense, with GM some huge natural barriers have gone and they can cross stuff that was not even imaginable with selective breeding.

What do you think selective breeding is? The genes are being modified. That's how you get hybrids. But of course, it's not bad when the Indians (ooops, "Native Americans") do it, because they lived in harmony with nature, as opposed to those evil scientists in their sterile, man made labs. I bet they even work with chemicals! <gasp!!!>

 

[DC]

What do you think selective breeding is? The genes are being modified. That's how you get hybrids. But of course, it's not bad when the Indians (ooops, "Native Americans") do it, because they lived in harmony with nature, as opposed to those evil scientists in their sterile, man made labs. I bet they even work with chemicals! <gasp!!!>

nice straw-men you have there, have fun playing with them, when you are done reread my post and read the part about a barrier. and try to address my point, ok?