Whatever the case, fuck Monsanto; free the seed.
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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You know that Lemmy has made it when the Monsanto shills from Reddit join.
They make more money suing farmers for accidentally growing patented crops from natural seed dispersal mechanisms.
They make their money from royalty payments for GMO traits. It's up to 3x more profit than they get off the seed alone.
No they don't. There's never been any lawsuits filed for accidentally growing GM crops.
I don't see any natural means by which those seeds dispersed. Actually, it looks like he knew he was growing seeds that could get him in trouble
Monsanto is evil enough, we do not have to exaggerate how evil they are.
I know that you feel that you are correct because by the strict definition of the word suing, there may never have been a lawsuit, but most laymen are going to understand suing to also include being threatened with a lawsuit and settling out of court.
I feel that I'm correct because by both the strict definition of the word suing, and the inclusion of out of court settlements, I can't find any examples of Monsanto pursuing any sort of legal action against farmers who accidentally grew their crops when the seeds were spread by natural means.
Don't get me wrong, the concept of patenting a living thing is ghoulish and evil, and farmers should absolutely be allowed to grow whatever seeds they want. Just don't misrepresent someone intentionally breaching a contract as something totally accidental and out of their control
Maybe Monsanto is as forgiving as you say, but I don't believe it. I think it is a lot more likely that the type of farmers insist on regrowing from their own seed are small independents who are too far in debt to even think about fighting. I think they took the first offer given to them because it was just a smidge under the quote given to them by the lawyer they went to see where they first got a letter from Monsanto.
Monsanto is not stupid, if they ask for too much the people will fight it and go even deeper into debt to pay the lawyer and by the time Monsanto gets their cut of the remaining carcass, they won't even make enough to cover the cost of their own lawyers. But if they make the price just a bit cheaper than the cost of fighting, the victims will hand over every penny that they can squeeze out and then go off to quietly die the slow death left to them in the NDA they had to sign to get the "deal" Monsanto offered.
Or maybe I am just jaded and a giant multinational corporation is doing the right thing for the right reasons and not taking advantage of anyone.
Sure, you've just described one of the ways that Monsanto is evil. Keeping a deathgrip on the seed production and making the cost of signing another contract just slightly less than the cost of a potential legal battle is scummy as hell. Instead of making things up to be mad at, let's be mad at them for that.
I'm the guy on the left just because until for-profit corporations are reigned in I don't trust them with control of anything.
also the 30 bagged lunches...
What kind of monster steals 30 kids' lunches?
GMO skepticism or not, Monsanto is one of the most evil companies in the world and a perfect example of what makes the profit motive such an inefficient organizer of production and distribution
The moratorium is actually since 2000, but only since 2006 in its current form. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology
Thankfully, no country, much less any multinational corporation, would ever dare cross the UN's nonbinding, unenforceable moratorium. Can you imagine how stern the tone of the statement of condemnation would be, once it was worded such that a reasonable plurality of countries would agree to back it?
I’m sure it’s already been done. Just locked away until nothing more than strong concerns can be voiced by ineffective authorities.
There would totally be an open letter and dozens of people would sign it
Does anyone else feel like this entire post and most of the comments are coming straight from a Monsanto bot/shill factory?
You've never been on reddit? If someone mentions Monsanto anywhere, the thread gets flooded with shills. There are whole subreddits devoted to finding posts to shill.
That's what I love about small social media outlets like Lemmy. The big corporations just don't bother monitoring and influencing us, it's not worth it. We can speak freely here. You can just tell me your real name and where you live, without fear of someone abducting your family.
Companies DO irradiate non organic ginger though, sterilizing it, before shipping it to stores.
Don't we already have enough real shit to worry about tho?
Yeah, except the vast majority of seeds are infertile, meaning they can't be replanted, means the "good ol boys" can't survive.
Where the fuck do people come up with this shit?
No the "vast majority" of crops are not infertile. They are hybrids. Farmers buy the seeds because of a genetic phenomenon called heterosis AKA hybrid vigor. It takes expertise and a shit ton of money to make hybrid seed. If growers could get the same performance from saving their own seeds only an absolute dumbfuck would buy seeds from a seed company.
Now there are a few species that hybrids can only be made by taking advantage of mutants that have male sterility genes. The resulting hybrids are still fertile (produce viable female gametes) but need an outside source of pollen. Examples: onions, sunflowers and carrots.
The only "sterile" seed sold is seedless watermelon aka triploid seed. Seedless watermelons are only sold because the market demands it thanks to a push by the USDA after being created in Japan pre-WW2. The margins on seedless watermelon seed are often 40-50% less than hybrid diploid seed. And don't get me started on the research cost - 14-15 generations for a new female line versus 7-8 for seeded types.
Most hybrids do not produce fertile seeds. You can test it out if you want but it doesn't work. I used to work for a seed company. Beyond that, without fertilizer the soil itself is dead in the vast majority of farming land.
Stop your bullshit.
Not only are they fertile, it is standard protocol to purchase competitors hybrid F1 seed and produce F2 seed in most species (except corn). Eventually plant breeders create inbreds (self-pollinating for 6+ generation's). These inbreds are the used to make new F1 hybrids. In Europe this is referred to as "plant breeders rights".
In corn they have to get a little bit more creative. Corn breeders have to keep distinct genetically distant breeding pools to maintain heterosis in their the resulting hybrids. They pull traits from a competitors hybrid utilizing backcross breeding into their breeding pools.
I have planted seeds from round up ready soy beans. They grew just fine for my needs, which wasn't farming. Farmers have also planted harvested hybrid seeds, Monsanto sues the ones they catch, because it's a contract violation for those that bought seeds.
Source that research was banned since the 90s? All I'm aware of is that they aren't available commercially and sale and field testing of terminator seeds has been banned since the 00s.
Yeah they weren't banned in the 90s. They were developed in the mid 90s with a patent filed in 1998. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a moratorium in 2000, recommending that governments block field testing and commercial use of terminator seeds, but didn't yet ban research. In 2006 they expanded the moratorium, explicitly prohibiting field trials and emphasizing risks to biodiversity and farmers rights.
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