Photo Credit: © igor.stevanovic/ Shutterstock.com
March 1, 2013 |
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments in
a seed patent infringement case that pits a small farmer from Indiana,
75-year old Vernon Hugh Bowman, against biotech goliath Monsanto.
Reporters from the
New York Times to the
Sacramento Bee
dissected the legal arguments. They speculated on the odds. They opined
on the impact a Monsanto loss might have, not only on genetically
modified crops, but on medical research and software.
What most of
them didn’t report on is the absurdity – and the danger – of allowing
companies to patent living organisms in the first place, and then use
those patents to attempt to monopolize world seed and food production.
The
case boils down to this. Monsanto sells its patented genetically
engineered (GE) “Roundup Ready” soybean seeds to farmers under a
contract that prohibits the farmers from saving the next-generation
seeds and replanting them. Farmers like Mr. Bowman who buy Monsanto’s GE
seeds are required to buy new seeds every year. For years, Mr. Bowman
played by Monsanto’s rules. Then in 2007, he bought an unmarked mix of
soybeans from a grain elevator and planted them.
Some of the soybeans
turned out to have been grown from Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready
soybean seeds. Monsanto sued Mr. Bowman, won, and the court ordered the
farmer to pay the company $84,000. Mr. Bowman appealed, arguing that he
unknowingly bought soybeans grown from Monsanto’s seeds, not the seeds
themselves, and that therefore the law of “patent exhaustion” applies.
The
press and public have fixated on the sticky legal details of the case,
and the classic David vs. Goliath nature of the fight. But win or lose,
Mr. Bowman’s predicament is part of a much bigger problem.
The
real issue is this: Why have we surrendered control over something so
basic to human survival as seeds? Why have we bought into the biotech
industry’s program, which pushes a few monoculture commodity crops, when
history and science have proven that seed biodiversity is essential for
growing crops capable of surviving severe climate conditions, such as
drought and floods?
As physicist and environmentalist Vandana
Shiva explains, we have turned seed, which is the heart of a traditional
diversity-rich farming system across the world, into a powerful
commodity, used to monopolize the food system.
According to a recent
report by
the Center for Food Safety and Save our Seeds, three companies –
Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – control 53 percent of the global
commercial seed market. They have pressured farmers to replace diverse,
nutritional seeds, seeds that are resilient because they’ve been bred by
small-scale farmers to adapt to local climates and soil conditions,
with monocultures of genetically engineered seeds. In the U.S. these
crops are predominately corn and soybeans. According to the report,
entitled “Seed Giants vs. U.S. Farmers,” 93 percent of soybeans and 86
percent of corn crops in the U.S. come from patented, genetically
engineered seeds.
Monsanto profits handsomely from selling its
patented seeds. But the real profits are in selling farmers its
proprietary pesticides, like Roundup. Farmers can spray huge amounts of
Roundup on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans, killing everything except
the soybean plants. It’s a win-win for Monsanto. And it’s sold as a win
to farmers, who have been told that by following the Monsanto method,
they’ll increase their yields and make more money. Monsanto even claims
that its GE crops are the answer to world hunger.
But little of what Monsanto has promised, to farmers and the world, has proven true.
Since
farmers first began buying into Monsanto’s scheme in 1995, the average
cost to plant one acre of soybeans has risen 325 percent, according to
the Center for Food Safety’s report. Corn seed prices are up by 259
percent. Those increases don’t include the cost of the lawsuits Monsanto
has aggressively filed against farmers the company claims have violated
patent agreements. By the end of 2012, Center for Food Safety
calculates that Monsanto had received over $23.5 million from patent
infringement lawsuits against farmers and farm businesses.
And the
rest of us? What have we gained from this aggressive monopoly of seeds
and crops? Nothing. In fact, the losses continue to mount.
Monsanto
promised that its GE crops would help the environment by reducing the
need for pesticides. But according to the USDA, farmers used up to 26
percent more chemicals per acre on herbicide-resistant crops than on
non-GE crops. And as several dozen aggressive "
superweeds" have
become resistant to glyphosate, the primary herbicide used on GE crops,
the biotech industry is ramping up its war on weeds with a new
generation of GE crops that can surviving spraying with 2,4 D, paraquat,
and other super-toxic herbicides.
As for GE crops being
necessary to feed the world, that promise has also been debunked. In
2010, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
warned that the loss of biodiversity will have a major impact on the
ability of humankind to feed itself in the future.
According to “A Global Citizens Report on the State of GMOs: Failed Promises, Failed Technologies:”
The
fable that GMOs are feeding the world has already led to large-scale
destruction of biodiversity and farmers’ livelihoods. It is threatening
the very basis of our freedom to know what we eat and to choose what we
eat. Our biodiversity and our seed freedom are in peril. Our food
freedom, food democracy and food sovereignty are at stake.
It’s
safe to say that the majority of the general public would love to see
the small farmer from Indiana knock Monsanto down a peg. Last year, a
Monsanto ally threatened to sue the state of Vermont if legislators
passed a law requiring labels on all foods containing genetically
modified organisms (GMOs).
Lawmakers capitulated, despite the fact that
voter support was running at more than 90 percent. Later in the year,
Monsanto and large food corporations spent $46 million to defeat a
citizens’ initiative in California that would have required mandatory
labeling of GMOs.
Monsanto may be Public Enemy Number One, but a
win for Mr. Bowman is hardly a win for mankind. It’s time we ask
ourselves: How long are we going to let Monsanto bully farmers and
politicians into controlling the very source of life on earth? How long
will we tolerate the growing monopolization and genetic engineering of
seeds by an aggressive cabal of chemical and pesticide corporations who
pose a deadly threat to our health, our environment and the future of
our food? And when does “how long” become too late?
Katherine Paul is director of development and communications at the Organic Consumers Association.
Ronnie Cummins is founder and director of the
Organic Consumers Association.
Cummins is author of numerous articles and books, including
"Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers"
(Second Revised Edition Marlowe & Company 2004).
No comments:
Post a Comment