Monsanto patent fight ensnares Missouri farm town

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Monsanto patent fight ensnares Missouri farm town

_http://www.kansascity.com/382/v-print/story/699820.html_

(http://www.kansascity.com/382/v-print/story/699820.html)

 

By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER

The Associated Press

 

 

 

PILOT GROVE, Mo. | Soybean farmer David Brumback calls himself a loyal

customer of Monsanto Co. His product of choice: genetically engineered seeds

resistant to pesticides and weed killers.

So when the biotech giant named Brumback and more than 100 other local

farmers in a subpoena seeking five years of sales records, his first reaction

was

befuddlement. Then anger.

" With Monsanto, you're guilty until you're proven innocent, " he said.

Across rural America, Monsanto is known for aggressive legal efforts to

protect its patent. Farmers who save and replant the patented seeds in

subsequent

growing seasons quickly hear from the company's lawyers — and almost always

lose, or settle out of court before trial.

Now Monsanto is raising the stakes against this so-called seed piracy with

an unprecedented lawsuit against a farm co-op it accuses of aiding the illegal

practice by cleaning seeds for use in future crops. That practice violates

the contract between Monsanto and farmers which prohibits farmers from

stockpiling seeds or selling second-generation seeds.

The St. Louis-based company says it's merely protecting an investment that

exceeds $2 million a day in overall research and development costs.

Lawyers for the Pilot Grove Cooperative Elevator Inc. in the central

Missouri town, population 750, offer a more nefarious explanation: Monsanto

wants to

make an example of the co-op through tactics that reek of bullying and

intimidation.

" Monsanto is doing its best to make this case so expensive to defend that

the co-op will have no choice but to relent, " attorney Steven Schwartz wrote in

a court motion filed earlier this year. The company sought purchase records

and depositions from 114 Pilot Grove customers.

" Its true motive is to gather information for future lawsuits against the

co-op, its customers and other farm businesses around Pilot Grove. "

Schwartz declined to discuss the ongoing case. So did several of the more

than 20 co-op customers who have settled patent infringement complaints out of

court. Those settlements include gag orders.

" It's a bad deal, " said Pilot Grove farmer James Wessing. " According to

Monsanto, nobody is supposed to know anything about it. "

The company's enforcement strategy includes private investigators, video

surveillance and a toll-free hot line provided for farmers and business owners

to anonymously report violations to what farmers call the " seed police. "

A Monsanto spokeswoman noted that farmers who use patented seeds such as its

Roundup Ready soybean — so named because it resists the Monsanto herbicide

Roundup — sign written agreements pledging not to save and replant seeds.

Of the roughly 250,000 farmers who buy such products annually, the company

has sued about 120 customers over the past decade, spokeswoman Janice Person

said.

She compared the seed contracts to DVD rental agreements that require

customers to not copy movies for commercial use.

" It's an equitable playing field for all farmers to follow the same rules, "

she said.

Sometimes though, the company's zealous enforcement efforts ensnare innocent

bystanders.

Gary Rinehart, a northern Missouri convenience store owner, said he was

accosted in 2002 by a Monsanto private investigator who warned him not to fight

the company. Only Rinehart doesn't own a farmer or sell seeds.

" It was a case of mistaken identity, " he said.

Monsanto sued Rinehart in federal court before dropping its case. According

to a statement on the company's Web site, a Monsanto investigator " saw

unmarked, brown bagged seed delivered to a couple of fields " nearby. The actual

offender was Rinehart's nephew, whom the company says planted saved seeds on

Rinehart's land.

" There's nobody else in the world that can get away with what they've done, "

Rinehart said. " When you buy a loaf of bread, it's yours. You're done. It

should be the same way with seeds. "

Rinehart's sentiment underscores years of simmering resentment among farmers

who say Monsanto's grip on the seed market has produced unreasonable demands

regarding the use of its seeds.

Saving seeds for reuse in later planting seasons is how it was done since

the earliest days of agriculture. But the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980 deemed

seeds as products that could be patented, opening the door for Monsanto and

other companies.

A 2007 study by the Center for Food Safety showed that Monsanto had

collected between $107 million and $186 million in patent infringement

settlements

before and after trial. The largest judgment, against a North Carolina farmer,

topped $3.05 million.

A Tennessee farmer was sentenced to eight months in prison after he was

caught lying about a truckload of cotton seed he hid for a friend. And a

Canadian

canola grower was sued even after the company acknowledged that the patented

seeds merely drifted onto his land or fell off trucks headed to grain

elevators.

" It's unacceptable that Monsanto is going after farmers, " said Bill Freese,

a science policy analyst for the Washington-based watchdog. " And it's even

worse when they broaden it to an entire cooperative. "

Schwartz, the co-op's attorney, said in a court filing that the Pilot Grove

business is being targeted for " inducing farmers to infringe (the patent) by

cleaning their soybeans. "

Monsanto's pursuit of patent claims against individual farmers has been

upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, which in January let stand without comment

two

lower court rulings that found a Mississippi farmer responsible for $375,000

in damages for reusing Roundup Ready soybean seeds.

© 2007 Kansas City Star and wire service sources.

. _http://www.kansascity.com_ (http://www.kansascity.com/)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Moderator's Note: I did a search on google and found this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8098965482866581381

 

----------------

 

Watch " The Future of Food " ...Monsanto is a giant that needs to be put

to rest. Enough is enough!

 

 

 

,

bestsurprise2002 wrote:

>

>

> Monsanto patent fight ensnares Missouri farm town

> _http://www.kansascity.com/382/v-print/story/699820.html_

> (http://www.kansascity.com/382/v-print/story/699820.html)

>

> By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER

> The Associated Press

>

>

>

> PILOT GROVE, Mo. | Soybean farmer David Brumback calls himself a

loyal

> customer of Monsanto Co. His product of choice: genetically

engineered seeds

> resistant to pesticides and weed killers.

> So when the biotech giant named Brumback and more than 100 other

local

> farmers in a subpoena seeking five years of sales records,