Pesticide Action Network: "Brazil, the world's second largest user of genetically engineered (GE) seeds, just took Monsanto down a notch. The court focused on Monsanto's harassment and exploitation of farmers - potentially causing huge financial losses to the company, and keeping their army of lawyers busy for a while."
Farmer spraying his crops. (photo: Pesticide Action Network)
How Brazil Stopped Monsanto's Bullying
29 June 12
razil, the world’s second largest user of genetically engineered (GE) seeds, just took Monsanto down a notch. The court focused on Monsanto’s harassment and exploitation of farmers — potentially causing huge financial losses to the company, and keeping their army of lawyers busy for a while. Meanwhile, we celebrate a rare commonsense legal decision.
Monsanto's RoundUp Ready soy seeds comprise 85% of all soy grown in Brazil, and the corporation has been making a tidy profit charging farmers a levy of 2% on top of the cost of seed. In April, a Brazilian court ruled this levy illegal.
Monsanto appealed the court’s decision, which has been suspended for now and is being reviewed by a judicial tribunal in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Monsanto also appealed to the Brazilian Supreme Court to limit the tribunal’s ruling to the state of Rio Grande do Sul, but this appeal was denied. Whatever the Rio Grande do Sul tribunal rules could be applied to the whole country, potentially increasing Monsanto’s liabilities to pay farmers back.
Banditry, Bullying & Highway Robbery
This is a first step in what we hope will be a victory for Brazilian farmers against harassment by Monsanto, a corporate giant that makes a sport out of threatening farmers’ livelihoods in the U.S. and around the world.
Monsanto’s overzealous protection of its "intellectual property" for GE seeds includes testing of non-GE farms to see if any traces of GE seeds are present on the farm. This policing exposes farmers to levies by Monsanto claiming intellectual property infringement, even in cases where farmers' crops were contaminated against their will and without their knowledge.
"Genetic drift" is an established reality for farmers who say it is almost impossible to prevent contamination of their fields by GE seeds from neighboring farms. This was one of the main arguments made by farmers against Monsanto in Brazil, where the company charged a levy of 3% of their crop sales on farmers on whose farms they found "illegal" GE soy seeds.
Previous to this ruling, if Brazilian farmers planted GE seeds "illegally," but admitted this to their local trader at point of sale, they were charged a penalty fee of 2.3% of their crop's value. If, however, they denied using Monsanto's seeds but on-site testing revealed genetic contamination of as little as 1% of their crop, they were then required to pay a higher penalty fee of 3% of their entire crop's value.
Contamination at the 1% level is virtually inevitable, because in Brazil most farmers must rent harvesting equipment and that equipment often has traces of GE seed from previous uses. Brazilian farmers we spoke with on a visit last fall reported that they felt trapped into falsely "admitting" illegally planting GE seed in order to pay the lower of the two fines.
In the U.S. we call this highway robbery. Nice to see Brazil take the bandits down a notch.
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
 16 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 17 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
 19 June 2013
|
 18 June 2013
|
 18 June 2013
|
 16 June 2013
|
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
It really takes the cake, that they ROB the farmers because THEIR PRODUCTS have contaminated fields of farmers, who do NOT want to use their seeds!!
That is unfortunately what happens here too. Organic farmers' fields get contaminated, by grains (wind borne) from a neighbor's Monsanto fields.
That nasty giant needs to be taken down MANY notches.
Ifa dog jumped a fence and impregnated somebodies bitch against the owners wishes...would the owner of the bitch expect to have to pay the owner of the male for something he didn't want in the first place? NO!!! Theft is when somebody starts out to take something away from someone else for no pay. I'm sure someoje doesn't buy property next to somebody growing monsanto seeds, and plant the non-monsanto crop hoping that the wind will blow the pollen in the right direction so he could steal his seed. If anything he should sue the monsanto company who invented that seed because people don't want to eat the genetically modified food. People and the courts can't be that stupid. I have found that in my life if it seems that people are doing something stupid...it is because they are doing something crooked and from that self-serving standpoint it's a good idea! If the greatest court in the land can be bought, why not a lower court? From a corrupt standpoint, what's right is wrong!
If Capitalism and competition both stimulate the economy and promote advancing technologies further, then Copyright is what grinds the pace of advancement and the economy to a slow crawl.
Don't get me wrong, copyright is copyright, people have a basic right to enjoy the fruits of their labour - for a time (since a person MUST use resources and knowledge bestowed unto him/her by a society, the result of his/her work ultimately belongs to the members/contrib utors of society itself - if keeping with the true spirit of copyright).
I also know that if too stringent, copyright strangles innovation down to the pace of one man's lifetime. No one man or company is more important than the needs of the entire world. I thought we had already established that?
I have read that Nafta rulings take precedence over national law (remember Caanda and California.
What are the similarities here. Thank you.
Texas Aggie hits the nail on the head. Any law firm worth its salt should counter-sue Monsanto on the accepted terms of "Genetic Drift" and file suit on the basis of "Genetic Trespass" on the part of Monsanto. Monsanto is the violator in this matter.
I read an article where a reporter said that Monsanto doesn't serve GMO's in their own company Canteen because "they want to give people a choice."
Never mind the thousands of lawyers and lobbyist they have on the planet, they KNOW this stuff is bad and they push it anyway.
I'll bet Michelle Obama didn't plant GM seeds in her garden. Maybe we should ask the President since he can't keep his position on labeling GMO's.
RSS feed for comments to this post