February 2005
..farmers, everywhere,
beware of monsanto !
The Institute of Science in Society Science Society
Sustainability http://www.i-sis.org.uk
The Center for Food Safety just released a report detailing
Monsanto's lawsuits against American farmers. For a copy of
the report, click
www.centerforfoodsafety.org/Monsantovsusfarmersreport.cfm
First-of-its-Kind Analysis Reveals Thousands of Monsanto
Investigations, Nearly 100 Lawsuits and Numerous
Bankruptcies
Toll-Free Hotline Established for Farmers Facing Lawsuits
or Threats from Monsanto to Get Guidance and Referrals
WASHINGTON - The Center for Food Safety released today an extensive review of Monsanto's use and abuse of U.S. patent law to control the usage of staple crop seeds by U.S. farmers. The Center (CFS) launched its investigation to determine the extent to which American farmers have been impacted by litigation arising from the use of patented genetically engineered crops. Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers details the results of this research, discusses the ramifications for the future of farming in the U.S. and outlines policy options for ending the persecution of America's farmers.
"These lawsuits and settlements are nothing less than corporate extortion of American farmers," said Andrew Kimbrell executive Director of CFS. "Monsanto is polluting American farms with its genetically engineered crops, not properly informing farmers about these altered seeds, and then profiting from its own irresponsibility and negligence by suing innocent farmers. We are committed to stopping this corporate persecution of our farmers in its tracks."
The report finds that, in general, Monsanto's efforts to prosecute farmers can be divided into three stages: investigations of farmers; out-of-court settlements; and litigation against farmers Monsanto believes are in breach of contract or engaged in patent infringement. CFS notes in the report that, to date, Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits against American farmers in 25 states that involve 147 farmers and 39 small businesses or farm companies. Monsanto has set aside an annual budget of $10 million dollars and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting farmers.
| Pitched
on its environmental merits, the class-action
lawsuit filed last week again Monsanto would be
thrown out in short order. So the lawyers dressed
it up as an antitrust case instead. Now it's the
Microsoft case, redirected against genes. The suit concerns two genes that Monsanto engineered, patented and now markets. Yieldgard causes corn to produce its own internal pesticide that wards off pests. Roundup Ready makes seeds resistant to Roundup, a Monsanto herbicide. Monsanto, the plaintiffs charge, has licensed its patents to various co-conspirators, including DuPont, Dow Chemical, Novartis and AstraZeneca, who in turn license genetically modified seeds to farmers. License--not sell--because copying genes is even easier than copying software, and Monsanto doesn't want to turn every customer into a competitor one harvest hence. Indeed, Monsanto already has to snoop, sue and intimidate (say the plaintiffs) to stop farmers from cutting it out of the action. The intimidation is working, we're told. Through Monsanto's patents and licenses, six companies have gained control of half to three-quarters of U.S. corn and soybean seed distribution, and they're now poised to monopolize food production worldwide. An extra bonus for Monsanto: Its lucrative patent on the Roundup herbicide will soon expire, but farmers may be required (the plaintiffs anticipate) to use only the original Roundup herbicide with Roundup Ready seeds. Legitimate power in one market will surely be exploited to extend power illegitimately in another.Peter Huber |
"Monsanto would like nothing more than to be the
sole source
for staple crop seeds in this country and around the
world," said Joseph Mendelson, CFS legal
director. "And it will aggressively overturn
centuries-old farming practices and drive its own
clients out of business through lawsuits to achieve
this goal."
The largest recorded judgment CFS has found thus far in
favor of Monsanto as a result of a farmer lawsuit
is $3,052,800.00. Total recorded judgments granted
to Monsanto for lawsuits amount to $15,253,602.82.
Farmers have paid a mean of $412,259.54 for cases
with recorded judgments. Many farmers have to pay
additional court and attorney fees and are sometimes even
forced to pay the costs Monsanto incurs while
investigating them. "Monsanto is taking
advantage of farmers with their marketing and their
threats and lawsuits," said Rodney Nelson, a
North Dakota farmer sued by Monsanto. "It's hard
enough to farm as it is. You don't need a big seed
supplier trying to trip you up and chase you down with
lawyers."
Farmers even have been sued after their fields were
contaminated by pollen or seed from a previous year's
crop has sprouted, or "volunteered," in
fields planted with non- genetically engineered varieties
the following year; and when they never signed
Monsanto's Technology Agreement but still planted the
patented crop seed. In all of these cases, because of the
way patent law has been applied, farmers are technically
liable. It does not appear to matter if the use was
unwitting or if a contract was never signed.
Various policy options supported by CFS include passing
local and state-wide bans or moratoriums on plantings of
genetically engineered crops; amending the Patent
Act so that genetically engineered plants will no longer
be patentable subject matter and so that seed saving is
not considered patent infringement; and legislating
to prevent farmers from being liable for patent
infringement through biological pollution.
CFS has established a toll-free hotline for farmers
facing lawsuits or threats from Monsanto to get
guidance and referrals: 1-888-FARMHLP.
www.i-sis.org.uk
===================================
Executive Summary In May 2003, the Center
for Food Safety embarked on a project to determine the
extent to which American farmers have been impacted by
litigation arising from the use of patented genetically
engineered crops.
After extensive research and numerous interviews with
farmers and lawyers, CFS found that Monsanto, the
world’s leading agricultural biotechnology company,
has used heavy-handed investigations and ruthless
prosecutions that have fundamentally changed the way many
American farmers farm. The result has been nothing less
than an assault on the foundations of farming practices
and traditions that have endured for centuries in this
country and millennia around the world, including one of
the oldest, the right to save and replant crop seed.
Monsanto’s position as a leader in the field of
agricultural biotechnology and its success in
contractually binding farmers to its genetically
engineered seeds result from its concerted effort to
control patents on genetic engineering technology, seed
germplasm, and a farmer’s use of its engineered
seed.
Monsanto begins
the process of seizing control of farmers’ practices
by getting them to sign the company’s technology
agreement upon purchasing patented seeds. This agreement
allows Monsanto to conduct property investigations,
exposes the farmer to huge financial liability, binds the
farmer to Monsanto’soversight for multiple years,
and includes a variety of other conditions that have
effectively defined what rights a farmer does and does
not have in planting, harvesting, and selling genetically
engineered seed.
In general, Monsanto’s efforts to prosecute
farmers can be divided into three stages:
investigations of farmers, out-of-court settlements, and
litigation against farmers Monsanto believes are in
breach of contract or engaged in patent infringement.
Monsanto itself admits to aggressively investigating
farmers it suspects of transgressions, and evidence
suggests the numbers reach into the thousands. According
to farmers interviewed by CFS, these thousands of
investigations frequently lead to the second stage:
Monsanto pressuring the farmer to settle out of court for
an undisclosed sum and other terms agreed to in
confidential settlements.For some farmers,
Monsanto’s investigation of them will lead to the
courtroom. To date, Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits
against American farmers.The lawsuits involve 147 farmers
and 39 small businesses or farm companies, and have been
directed at farmers residing in half of the states in the
U.S. The odds are clearly stacked against the farmer: Monsanto
has an annual budgetof $10 million dollars and a staff of
75 devoted to investigating and prosecuting farmers.
The largest recorded judgment made thus far in favor
of Monsanto as a result of a farmer lawsuit is
$3,052,800.00. Total recorded judgments granted to
Monsanto for lawsuits amount to $15,253,602.82. Farmers
have paid a mean of $412,259.54 for cases with recorded
judgments. Startling though these numbers are, they do
not begin to tell the whole story.
Many farmers have to pay additional court and attorney
fees and are sometimes even forced to pay the costs
Monsanto incurs while investigating them. Final monetary
awards are not available for a majority of the 90
lawsuits CFS researched due to the confidential nature of
many of the settlements.
No farmer is safe from the long reach of Monsanto.
Farmers have been sued after their field was contaminated
by pollen or seed from someone else’s genetically
engineered crop; when genetically engineered seed from a
previous year’s crop has sprouted, or
“volunteered,” in fields planted with
non-genetically engineered varieties the following year;
and when they never signed Monsanto’s technology
agreement but still planted the patented crop seed. In
all of these cases, because of the way patent law has
been applied, farmers are technically liable. It does not
appear to matter if the use was unwitting or a contract
was never signed.
Since the introduction of genetically engineered crops,
farming for thousands of America’s farmers has been
fundamentally altered; they have been forced into
dangerous and uncharted territory and have found they are
the worse for it.
As growing numbers of farmers become subject to
harassment, investigation, and prosecution by Monsanto
over supposed infringement of its seed patents and
technology agreements, there will have to be increased
pressure to reverse the governmental policies that are
allowing this persecution. Various policy options include
passing local and state-wide bans or moratoriums on
plantings of genetically engineered crops; amending the
Patent Act so that genetically engineered plants will no
longer be patentable subject matter and so that seed
saving is not considered patent infringement; and
legislating to prevent farmers from being liable for
patent infringement through biological pollution.
Implementation of these, and a variety of other options
discussed in more detail in the report, is critical.
Nothing less than the future of farmers and farming
communities is at stake.
The Center for Food Safety, 660 Pennsylvania Ave, SE,
#302 Washington DC. 20003;
P 202.547.9359;
F 202.547.9429
office@centerforfoodsafety.org
Monsanto Terminator Technology -- Worldwide Famine & Starvation
Monsanto is in the process of acquiring
and patenting their newest technology, known as
"Terminator Technology." This technology is
currently the greatest threat to humanity. If it is used
by Monsanto on a large-scale basis, it will inevitably
lead to famine and starvation on a worldwide basis.
Billions of people on the planet are supported by farmers
who save seeds from the crops and replant these seeds the
following year. Seeds are planted. The crop is harvested.
And the seeds from the harvest are replanted the
following year. Most farmers cannot afford to buy new
seeds every year, so collecting and replanting seeds is a
crucial part of the agricultural cycle. This is the way
food has been grown successfully for thousands of years.
With Monsanto's terminator technology, they will sell
seeds to farmers to plant crops. But these seeds have
been genetically-engineered so that when the crops are
harvested, all new seeds from these crops are sterile
(e.g., dead, unusable). This forces farmers to pay
Monsanto every year for new seeds if they want to grow
their crops.
In less rich countries, hundreds of millions of people
rely heavily on small farms which produce foods for the
region. If these farms begin to use Monsanto's terminator
technology, and cannot afford to buy new genetically
engineered seeds from Monsanto the following year, many
of the people in the region may starve. Under normal
circumstances, food could be brought in from other
regions. However, many of those other regions will likely
have the same problems with famine due to Monsanto's
terminator technology.
- "It's terribly
dangerous," says Hope Shand, "half the
world's farmers are poor and can't afford to buy
seed every growing season, yet poor farmers grow
15 to 20% of the world's food and they directly
feed at least 1.4 billion people - 100 million in
Latin America, 300 million in Africa, and 1
billion in Asia. These farmers depend upon saved
seed and their own breeding skills in adapting
other varieties for use on their (often marginal)
lands."
What is even more frightening is that
traits from genetically-engineered crops can get passed
on to other crops. Once the terminator seeds are released
into a region, the trait of seed sterility could be
passed to other non-genetically-engineered crops making
most or all of the seeds in the region sterile.
- Camila Montecinos, an
agronomist with the Chilean organization, CET,
has another concern, "We've talked to a
number of crop geneticists who have studied the
patent," she says. "They're telling us
that it's likely that pollen from crops carrying
the Terminator trait will infect the fields of
farmers who either reject or can't afford the
technology. Their crop won't be affected that
season but when farmers reach into their bins to
sow seed the following season they could discover
- too late - that some of their seed is sterile.
This could lead to very high yield losses. If the
technology is transmitted through recessive
genes, we could see several years of irregular
harvests and a general - even dramatic - decline
in food security for the poorest farm
communities."
Because of the worldwide condemnation
of terminator seeds, Monsanto appears to be verbally
distancing itself from its own technology that it is in
the process of acquiring. Even without the threat of this
technology Monsanto is contributing significant to the
destruction of health and environment around the world.
But if this technology is released by Monsanto, it could
spell disaster for hundreds of millions of people around
the world. How anyone could invest in such a company is
difficult to imagine!
Other resources for Monsanto Terminator Technology
information on the Internet:
