Seeds

Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Seed Patents May Trump Antitrust Claims

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It all began with the ruling that a corporation is legally a ‘person’, which undermined the constitution and was dead wrong.

Then in another case (1980 Diamond v. Chakrabarty) those idiot supreme court judges ruled that it is OK to patent life forms, were before life forms were considered a part of nature and were not patentable.

This ruling lead to corporations patenting the genes of everything they can think of, that could later on bring them profit.

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Hugh Grant, chief executive officer of Monsanto Co., speaks during an interview in Chicago, Illinois, on Jan. 8, 2010. Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg

March 12 (Bloomberg) — Monsanto Co., facing antitrust probes into its genetically modified seeds, may benefit from previous court rulings in which intellectual property rights trumped competition concerns, antitrust lawyers say.

The Department of Justice and seven state attorneys general are investigating whether the world’s largest seed company is using gene licenses to keep competing technologies off the market. At issue is how the St. Louis-based company sells and licenses its patented trait that allows farmers to kill weeds with Roundup herbicide while leaving crops unharmed. The company’s Roundup Ready gene was in 93 percent of U.S. soybeans last year.

“Justice is clearly trying every way it can to see whether Monsanto is exceeding its rights under the patent,” said James Weiss, a Washington-based attorney at K&L Gates LLP who helped defend Microsoft Corp. against a federal antitrust probe. “At the end of the day, they may not be able to do much with it because of the scope of those patents. In almost all the cases, the courts come out on the side of intellectual property.”

Read moreMonsanto’s Genetically Modified Seed Patents May Trump Antitrust Claims

Monsanto to Charge as Much as 42 % More for New Seeds!

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– Monsanto lobbyists to be placed in charge of food safety by Obama
– US Association of Physicians calls for Moratorium on GMO Foods
– Greenpeace: No need for condoms – GE corn can do the job
– Austrian Government Study Confirms Genetically Modified (GM) Crops Threaten Human Fertility and Health Safety
– The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see.
– Life running out of control – Genetically Modified Organisms
– At stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply.
– BIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile
– Biotech giants demand a high price for saving the planet
– Exposed: the great GM crops myth:
The biggest study of its kind ever conducted – the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development – concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.

Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if GM could solve world hunger, said: “The simple answer is no.”

GM food is all about profit and it kills you.

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) — Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed maker, plans to charge as much as 42 percent more for new genetically modified seeds next year than older offerings because they increase farmers’ output.

Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans will cost farmers an average of $74 an acre in 2010, and original Roundup Ready soybeans will cost $52 an acre, St. Louis-based Monsanto said today in presentations on its Web site. SmartStax corn seeds, developed with Dow Chemical Co., will cost $130 an acre, 17 percent more than the YieldGard triple-stack seeds they will replace.

“Our pricing has the flexibility built in to ensure the grower captures the greatest return from his seed investment, irrespective of market volatility,” Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant said today in a statement.

Read moreMonsanto to Charge as Much as 42 % More for New Seeds!

More Seeds For Doomsday Seed Vault

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Related article:

–  Investors Behind Doomsday Seed Vault May Provide Clues to Its Purpose:

The group of investors includes The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation, and the Government of Norway.

The elite has always been known for their altruism, working for the benefit of mankind:

“If you control the oil you control the country; if you control the food you control the population.”
– Henry Kissinger

The remote, frozen landscape provides an ideal backdrop for the vault

(BBC NEWS) — Almost 90,000 food crop seed samples have arrived at the “doomsday vault” in the Arctic Circle, as part of its first anniversary celebrations.

The four-tonne shipment takes the number of seeds stored in the frozen repository to more than 20 million.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built 130m (426ft) inside a mountain, aims to protect the world’s food crop species against natural and human disasters.

The £5m ($7m) facility took 12 months to build and opened in February 2008.

“The vault was opened last year to ensure that, one day, all of humanity’s existing food crop varieties would be safely protected,” explained Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT).

“It’s amazing how far we have come towards accomplishing that goal.”

Read moreMore Seeds For Doomsday Seed Vault

At stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply.

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Related articles:

Exposed: the great GM crops myth:
“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.”

BIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile

U.S. using food crisis to boost bio-engineered crops

From Seeds of Suicide to Seeds of Hope: Navdanya’s Intervention to Stop Farmers’ Suicides in Vidharbha

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Heather Meek leafs through the seed catalogue she wrote on the family computer, on winter nights after the kids went to bed.

There are Kahnawake Mohawk beans and Painted Mountain corn; Tante Alice cucumber and 40 varieties of heritage tomatoes.

Selling seeds is more than just an extra source of income on this organic farm an hour northwest of Montreal.

For Meek and partner Frederic Sauriol, propagating local varieties is part of a David and Goliath struggle by small farmers against big seed companies.

At stake, they believe, is no less than control of the world’s food supply.

Since the dawn of civilization, farmers have saved seeds from the harvest and replanted them the following year.

But makers of genetically modified (GM) seeds — introduced in 1996 and now grown by some 70,000 Canadian farmers, according to Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company — have been putting a stop to that practice.

The 12 million farmers worldwide who will plant GM seeds this year sign contracts agreeing not to save or replant seeds. That means they must buy new seeds every year.

Critics charge such contracts confer almost unlimited power over farmers’ lives to multinational companies whose priority is profit. They say GM seeds are sowing a humanitarian and ecological disaster.

But Trish Jordan, a Canadian spokesman for Monsanto, explains that requiring farmers to sign “technology use agreements” allows companies to recoup the cost of developing products.

“Farmers choose these products because of benefits they provide,” Jordan says. “That’s why we’re successful as a company.”

The debate over GM seeds has come into sharp focus as the world faces a food-price crisis that threatens to push millions into starvation.

Read moreAt stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply.

BIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile

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BONN, May 22 (IPS) – Seeds were once for ever. After harvest, a few from the crop would be planted for the following year, and so it went on.

Now, biochemical industry giants are making seeds themselves infertile. You sow them this year, and that’s it. For next year’s crop, you need brand new seeds — you would have to buy them, of course.

Twenty-five years ago, there were at least 7,000 seed growers worldwide, and none of them controlled more than one percent of the global market. Today, after a takeover spree, 10 major biochemical multinationals, including Monsanto, DuPont-Pioneer, Syngenta, Bayer Cropsciencie, BASF, and Dow Agrosciences, control more than 50 percent of the seeds market.

“The goal of these companies is, of course, to make profits,” Benedict Haerling, researcher at the German non-governmental organisation Future of Agriculture, told IPS. “In order to improve their profits, they all apply one strategy to increase their control of the market: they impose upon farmers worldwide the so-called vertical integration of inputs, from seeds to fertilisers to pesticides, all from one brand.” Compulsory customer loyalty, you might call it.

And through biochemical manipulation, including genetic modifications, many companies have made sure the harvest you obtain cannot be sown again.

Such “vertical integration of agricultural inputs” has transformed agriculture in developing countries into a two-class business, Angelika Hillbeck, researcher on bio-safety and agriculture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich told IPS.

“In the developing countries there is a class of farmers with large plantations and enough money who can afford to buy all inputs from the major biochemical companies, from seeds and fertilisers to pesticides and conservatives.” But there are small farmers for whom the biochemical markets are out of reach.

Hillbeck and Haerling are scientific counsellors to non-governmental organisations and associations of small farmers in developing countries who are attending the UN conference on biological diversity in Bonn.

The conference aims at reviewing international compliance with the targets adopted in 2002 to significantly reduce the rate of decimation of species at the global and national level by 2010. It is also set to formulate binding international rules on legal measures to stop the loss of biodiversity.

Read moreBIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear

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Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics-ruthless legal battles against small farmers-is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.

No thanks: An anti-Monsanto crop circle made by farmers and volunteers in the Philippines.
By Melvyn Calderon/Greenpeace HO/A.P. Images.

Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.

The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.

Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.

“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.

As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him-or face the consequences.

Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small-a really small-country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. “It made me and my business look bad,” he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, “You got the wrong guy.”

When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”

Read moreMonsanto’s Harvest of Fear

GM Seeds Still Active in Soil 10 Years Later

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Scientists discovered seeds from certain genetically modified crops can endure soil for at least 10 years in some cases.

A field planted with experimental oilseed rape a decade ago found transgenic specimens were still growing there despite intensive efforts over the years to remove the seeds, according to researchers in Sweden.

This is the first time a genetically modified crop has endured so long and critics say it shows that genetically modified organisms cannot be contained once released.

Tina D’Hertefeldt and a team of researchers from Lund University searched a small field that hosted the GM trial 10 years ago looking for “volunteers” – plants that have sprung up spontaneously from seed in the soil.

“We were surprised, very surprised,” said D’Hertefeldt. “We knew that volunteers had been detected earlier, but we thought they’d all have gone by now.”

Read moreGM Seeds Still Active in Soil 10 Years Later

From Seeds of Suicide to Seeds of Hope: Navdanya’s Intervention to Stop Farmers’ Suicides in Vidharbha

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The increasing costs of production and the falling farm prices that go hand in hand with globalisation and corporate hijack of seed supply, combined with the decline in farm credit is putting an unbearable debt burden on farmers. The lure of huge profits linked with clever advertising strategies evolved by the seeds and chemical industries are forcing farmers into a chemical treadmill and a debt trap. It has been witnessed that across the country, farmers are taking the desperate step of ending their life. The pesticides, which had created debt, also became the source of ending indebted lives. More than 150,000 farmers have committed suicide in India due to distortions introduced in agriculture as a result of trade liberalisation. More than 20,000 farmers have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh alone.

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Read moreFrom Seeds of Suicide to Seeds of Hope: Navdanya’s Intervention to Stop Farmers’ Suicides in Vidharbha

Investors Behind Doomsday Seed Vault May Provide Clues to Its Purpose (Part 2)

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(NaturalNews) It’s got all the exciting elements of a science fiction novel. A seed bank as strong as a fortress built into the side of a mountain in the remote arctic wilderness built for the purpose of preserving food sources in the event of a disaster. Among the specifications for the bank are dual blast-proof doors with motion sensors, two airlocks, and one-meter thick walls of steel reinforced concrete.

“If you control the oil you control the country; if you control the food you control the population.” — Henry Kissinger

Built on the island of Spitsbergen in the Barents Sea near the Arctic Ocean in the country of Norway, a group of wealthy corporations has invested millions of dollars in their project named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The mission statement is: “So that crop diversity can be conserved for the future”.

The seed vault will have the capacity to house up to 4.5 million different varieties of seeds from all over the planet. The Doomsday Vault will officially open on February 26, 2008. There will be no full time staff necessary to operate the seed vault. It has been designed to run itself independent of human direction. Svalbard will be managed and overseen by the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust.

The question begs asking – Why the need for this super fortress seed bank when adequate protective measures for the earth’s seeds already exist around the world? Delving into the details of this project is an interesting undertaking.

The group of investors includes The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation, and the Government of Norway. Both Monsanto Corporation (US based) and Syngenta Foundation (Swiss based) are leading agricultural companies active in the development of genetically modified (GMO) plant seeds and related agricultural chemicals.

Read moreInvestors Behind Doomsday Seed Vault May Provide Clues to Its Purpose (Part 2)

African seed collection first to arrive in Norway on route to Arctic seed vault

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LAGOS, NIGERIA (31 January 2008)-Twenty-one boxes filled with 7,000 unique seed samples from more than 36 African nations were shipped to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a facility being built on a remote island in the Arctic Circle as a repository of last resort for humanity’s agricultural heritage.The vault is being built by the Norwegian government as a service to the global community, and a Rome-based international NGO, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, will fund its operation. The vault will open on 26 February 2008.

The shipment, which was sent by the Ibadan, Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), consists of thousands of duplicates of unique varieties of domesticated and wild cowpea, maize, soybean, and Bambara groundnut. The seeds from the IITA genebank in Ibadan, Nigeria, were packed in 21 boxes weighing a total of 330 kg. The processing by IITA staff took several months, and the boxes were packaged over a three-day period, with 10 staff checking the accession list, reporting errors, and adjusting the inventory, as needed.

The seeds were shipped on to Oslo on route to the village of Longyearbyen on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, where the vault has been constructed in a mountain deep inside the Arctic permafrost.

Read moreAfrican seed collection first to arrive in Norway on route to Arctic seed vault

Hungary to start the world’s first wild seed bank

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The world’s first gene bank for wild plants is to be established in Hungary, reports geographic.hu, the online version of National Geographic magazine’s Hungarian edition. The collection would be stored at the Institute of Agrobotany in Tápiószele, Pest County, and store the genes of 85,000 types of cultivated plants, making it Europe’s fifth largest agrobotany gene bank.
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Colchicum hungaricum (Magyar kikerics), one of Hungary’s protected plant species that lives only on the highest hill in the Villány Hills, the Szársomlyó, in Baranya County.

Read moreHungary to start the world’s first wild seed bank

‘Doomsday’ seed vault opens in Arctic

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Frozen ‘Garden of Eden’ secures biological diversity for future generations

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway – A “doomsday” seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened Tuesday deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.

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Read more‘Doomsday’ seed vault opens in Arctic