Sovereign wrote:Also, what defense does the farmer who doesn't have Monsanto soybeans have against Monsanto is a farmer using Roundup soybeans live within pollination range of his field? Plants are promiscuous and it's inevitable that the Roundup gene will wind up in the non-Monsanto farmer's seeds for the next year's use. This ruling in effect has given Monsanto the market until someone else patents a gene for use in soybeans.
Yes, so any farmer that has not signed a contract with Monsanto could use the same technique that this farmer had (natural selection using Roundup as the environmental factor) to increase the stock of Roundup tolerant plants over the years. How on earth could this be controlled by the courts?
Even if they don’t do it deliberately you can imagine with the increased use of Roundup herbicide there will be a selection pressure on all crops adjacent to farms that have used Roundup excessively so that, if the farmer does save seed for the next year’s crop the ones that best survive are the ones that are Roundup tolerant. It’s simple evolution by natural selection.
It just goes to show how ludicrous it is to take a patent out on a living organism.
The following quote shows how ludicrous the whole thing is:-
“Why in the world,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked, “would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?”
If this was a valid argument farming would never have got a start in the first place. Breeders would never have tried to improve any organism if this is how they thought.
Breeders of any organism should expect that once they have sold their own reared and improved stock (usually at a premium which they will get if the farmer thinks the improvements are worth it) that these stock will themselves be bred from – that’s how farming and horticulture has worked for centuries. I see no reason to change this now simply because the breeding technology has advanced.
Also the quote:-
“Without the ability to limit reproduction of soybeans containing this patented trait,” he said, “Monsanto could not have commercialized its invention and never would have produced what is, by now, the most popular agricultural technology in America.”
Is bogus for the same reasons. Breeders generally do very well commercially form their stock if it is sufficiently popular with the people who appreciate the improvements.
Breeders of seed often produce F1 hybrids which do not breed true in subsequent generations and though these seeds are often popular if they give the growers great benefits breeders of seed that does breed true still do well out of their products.
Generally in modern agribusiness farming it pays to specialize in either farming or breeding and I would doubt if many modern large scale farmers would want to put the effort into growing their own seed stock rather than buying it in anyway.
However, patenting organisms so that you are not allowed to breed from them would potentially hit smaller scale and subsistence farmers who do generally grow their own seed stock. But would they be able to afford the Monsanto Roundup seed? Would they be able to afford the Roundup herbicide – it’s expensive you know. Would they want it?
Why are Monsanto selling Roundup resistant stock – because they can sell more herbicide if they do.
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