Biopiracy - India vs Monsanto

[Cramulus]

The word of the day is BIOPIRACY


bi·o·pi·ra·cy     n.    The commercial development of naturally occurring biological materials, such as plant substances or genetic cell lines, by a technologically advanced country or organization without fair compensation to the peoples or nations in whose territory the materials were originally discovered.


from http://wakeup-world.com/2011/10/11/indian-government-files-biopiracy-lawsuit-against-monsanto/?mid=52

Representing one of the most agriculturally bio-diverse nations in the world, India has become a primary target for biotechnology companies like Monsanto and Cargill to spread their genetically-modified (GM) crops into new markets. However, a recent France 24 report explains that the Indian government has decided to take an offensive approach against this attempted agricultural takeover by suing Monsanto for "biopiracy," accusing the company of stealing India's indigenous plants in order to re-engineer them into patented varieties.

Brinjal, also known in Western nations as eggplant, is a native Indian crop for which there are roughly 2,500 different unique varieties. Millions of Indian farmers grow brinjal, which is used in a variety of Indian food dishes, and the country grows more than a quarter of the world's overall supply of the vegetable.

And in an attempt to capitalize on this popular crop, Monsanto has repeatedly tried to commercially market its own GM variety of brinjal called Bt brinjal. But massive public outcry against planned commercial approval of Monsanto's "frankencrop" variety in 2010 led to the government banning it for an indefinite period of time.

But Monsanto is still stealing native crops, including brinjal, and quietly working on GM varieties of them in test fields, which is a clear violation of India's Biological Diversity Act (BDA). So at the prompting of various farmers and activists in India, the Indian government, representing the first time in history a nation that has taken such action, has decided to sue Monsanto.

"This can send a different message to the big companies for violating the laws of the nation," said K.S. Sugara, Member Secretary of the Karnataka Biodiversity Board, to France 24 concerning the lawsuit. "It is not acceptable ... that the farmers in our communities are robbed of the advantage they should get from the indigenous varieties."




Fuck yeah! Monsanto is pretty high on the list of evil megacorporations that cyberpunk fiction warned us about. They've done immeasurable harm to American agriculture, and I'm sure agriculture of other countries as well, so it's nice to see SOMEBODY out there is pushing back against them.

It's an interesting use of the word "piracy".. until now, I never would have considered that sequencing the genetic code of an eggplant might be a form of piracy, if only because until Monsanto, nobody owned genetic code.

This seems like a logical extension of gene patenting... I mean, if something like Golden Rice is a protected piece of IP, the IP had to come from somewhere, right? In America, farmers get sued all the time because their crops DNA has been contaminated by Monsanto DNA. Courts have forced American farmers to destroy their own seed banks, some of which were cultivated over the course of centuries, because they may contain patented seeds. So if this holds up, then where did Monsanto get that IP? They're not building crops from the ground up (no pun intended), they are derivatives of something. And until Monsanto established that you could patent genetic code, nobody owned any genetic code.

It's really such a shame that the American agricultural lobby didn't protect our farmers through all of this. Best of luck to you, India.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

It's really such a shame that the American agricultural lobby didn't protect our farmers through all of this. Best of luck to you, India.

You can hold Monsanto and Cargill at least 98% responsible for the decrease in American agriculture because of their evil methods of forcing farmers to use their seed.  Both names are considered garbage here in the midwest and the trend in and around St. Louis is for farmer's to go completely "green" using no chemically altered seeds, only all natural fertilizers and selling more to local retaurants and Farmer's markets these days rather than the big vegetable companies.

Some of those companies now demand that they will only use Monsanto or Cargill grown vegetables in their products.  Farmers are revolting but it is a long and uphill battle.

[Triple Zero]

Interesting. Though I take issue with the term "frankencrop", since it seems to imply that GM food is inherently bad, while so far it's been mostly Monsanto's corporate politics that are the real evil (well, that and monocultures, but really mainly Monsanto being evil fucks). It kinda bugs me cause it causes the eco hippies to focus on health risks and such which is a red herring because this is about bigass corporate systems being evil and GM can actually (afaik) be used for good as well.

Also, maybe I'm wrong, but even though the GM corn in the US is loaded with a pesticide called "roundup", most of that corn is used for livestock feed, ethanol and HFCS in which case I suppose not much of that pesticide will be left since it all goes through chemical processing anyway? Or maybe it ends up in your meat via the lifestock feed, I dunno.

[Juana]

Fucking Monsanto. Good on India!

Also, maybe I'm wrong, but even though the GM corn in the US is loaded with a pesticide called "roundup", most of that corn is used for livestock feed, ethanol and HFCS in which case I suppose not much of that pesticide will be left since it all goes through chemical processing anyway? Or maybe it ends up in your meat via the lifestock feed, I dunno.

I'm really curious about that now, and I wonder how the processing (or cooking) of products/animals changes any Roundup that makes it in there. They use insane amounts of it here, so it would be good to know.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Fucking Monsanto. Good on India!

Also, maybe I'm wrong, but even though the GM corn in the US is loaded with a pesticide called "roundup", most of that corn is used for livestock feed, ethanol and HFCS in which case I suppose not much of that pesticide will be left since it all goes through chemical processing anyway? Or maybe it ends up in your meat via the lifestock feed, I dunno.

I'm really curious about that now, and I wonder how the processing (or cooking) of products/animals changes any Roundup that makes it in there. They use insane amounts of it here, so it would be good to know.

I am only moderately concerned about the direct health impact, and extremely concerned about the environmental impact.

IMO these companies are pure evil either way.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

We had a local farmer lose everything because of Monsanto.  His farm was adjacent to a Monsanto farm.  Monsanto came in and pulled samples from the farm that was using their seed and the ones adjacent to that farm.  They then sued the surrounding farms because when tested, the produce grown had the crap in it that Monsanto uses.  Now this is a direct result of natural polination by insects, weather and so forth.  However, of the 3 farmer's sued, one lost everything, another sold out and the other changed their cash crop because they could not sell the corn they had grown.

It's a nasty nasty cycle and these bio-companies need to be put in their place.  Health concerns aside, they are fucking shit up for people just because they can.

[BabylonHoruv]

Interesting. Though I take issue with the term "frankencrop", since it seems to imply that GM food is inherently bad, while so far it's been mostly Monsanto's corporate politics that are the real evil (well, that and monocultures, but really mainly Monsanto being evil fucks). It kinda bugs me cause it causes the eco hippies to focus on health risks and such which is a red herring because this is about bigass corporate systems being evil and GM can actually (afaik) be used for good as well.

Also, maybe I'm wrong, but even though the GM corn in the US is loaded with a pesticide called "roundup", most of that corn is used for livestock feed, ethanol and HFCS in which case I suppose not much of that pesticide will be left since it all goes through chemical processing anyway? Or maybe it ends up in your meat via the lifestock feed, I dunno.

it goes into the meat, it also kills insects while in the corn, which fucks up the ecosystem in ways that are less severe when pesticide is applied and then allowed to wash away.

There are also issues with transgenic corn causing allergies that regular corn doesn't.

[Triple Zero]

Fucking Monsanto. Good on India!

Also, maybe I'm wrong, but even though the GM corn in the US is loaded with a pesticide called "roundup", most of that corn is used for livestock feed, ethanol and HFCS in which case I suppose not much of that pesticide will be left since it all goes through chemical processing anyway? Or maybe it ends up in your meat via the lifestock feed, I dunno.

I'm really curious about that now, and I wonder how the processing (or cooking) of products/animals changes any Roundup that makes it in there. They use insane amounts of it here, so it would be good to know.

Well, ethanol and HFCS production both involve chemical purification. I bet the roundup will be gone after the first few steps. Especially with the ethanol production, they'd probably have to get rid of it before the yeast can turn the cornstarch into ethanol and if any is left after that, it'll disappear with destillation (wikipedia says it boils at 187C, and ethanol at 78C, so it'll just stay behind).

As Nigel said, environmental impact is much, much worse. And if anything, you're probably more likely to come into contact with Roundup via the environment than via the processed food made with GM corn.

Also what Khara said, Monsanto are assholes suing people for growing corn that happens to get cross-pollinated with Monsanto's patented GM corn. I mean that's just pretty much biological warfare through a judicial channel.

Though Khara, do you know whether Monsanto sued those farmers for just having their GM corn (or a sizeable amount of it), or also because they were profiting from their corn being (partly) GM-cross-pollinated so they could use more pesticides on it? Cause I thought it was the latter, in some cases, but I admit I haven't really looked into this at all. It's a shitty move either way, of course.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Though Khara, do you know whether Monsanto sued those farmers for just having their GM corn (or a sizeable amount of it), or also because they were profiting from their corn being (partly) GM-cross-pollinated so they could use more pesticides on it? Cause I thought it was the latter, in some cases, but I admit I haven't really looked into this at all. It's a shitty move either way, of course.

According to what I remember from the news, Monsanto reps went to the farm they provided and took samples.  While there, they "accidentally" discovered that their "GM" traits were showing up in the samples from adjacent farms.  They took it to court and got a warrant to take full field samples, which resulted in so many ears per acre.  Those ears tested positive for GM traits.  Monsanto took those farmers to court for "illegally" growing their corn for profit without paying for the seed.  Though the farmer's were able to prove cross pollenation, the legal fees and bullshit Monsanto put them thru basically bankrupted them.

Here in markets you actually have signs that specify a corn is not Monsanto. 

[Triple Zero]

Ahhh I see. So Monsanto didn't actually win the case, but it still ruined them in legal fees and bullshit.

And I would totally support buying corn with such signs. Fuck them.

[BabylonHoruv]

We had a local farmer lose everything because of Monsanto.  His farm was adjacent to a Monsanto farm.  Monsanto came in and pulled samples from the farm that was using their seed and the ones adjacent to that farm.  They then sued the surrounding farms because when tested, the produce grown had the crap in it that Monsanto uses.  Now this is a direct result of natural polination by insects, weather and so forth.  However, of the 3 farmer's sued, one lost everything, another sold out and the other changed their cash crop because they could not sell the corn they had grown.

It's a nasty nasty cycle and these bio-companies need to be put in their place.  Health concerns aside, they are fucking shit up for people just because they can.

Ought to sue the farmer that was growing monsanto corn for contaminating their crops.

[Bruno]

I'd prefer to see the enactment of "Intellectual Trespassng" laws.

Basically, if someone's intellectual property finds its way onto your property, then you can do whatever you want with it.

This would also apply to any information found in broadcast signals.

This opinion isn't intended to be "reasonable".

[Juana]

Fucking Monsanto. Good on India!

Also, maybe I'm wrong, but even though the GM corn in the US is loaded with a pesticide called "roundup", most of that corn is used for livestock feed, ethanol and HFCS in which case I suppose not much of that pesticide will be left since it all goes through chemical processing anyway? Or maybe it ends up in your meat via the lifestock feed, I dunno.

I'm really curious about that now, and I wonder how the processing (or cooking) of products/animals changes any Roundup that makes it in there. They use insane amounts of it here, so it would be good to know.

Well, ethanol and HFCS production both involve chemical purification. I bet the roundup will be gone after the first few steps. Especially with the ethanol production, they'd probably have to get rid of it before the yeast can turn the cornstarch into ethanol and if any is left after that, it'll disappear with destillation (wikipedia says it boils at 187C, and ethanol at 78C, so it'll just stay behind).

As Nigel said, environmental impact is much, much worse. And if anything, you're probably more likely to come into contact with Roundup via the environment than via the processed food made with GM corn.

Thanks! QUESTION ANSWERED.

And yeah, I know. Like I said, they use Roundup for weed control pretty much everywhere here (k-12 schools, my university, the city, plenty of farms) and Monsanto rice has a pretty solid foothold in the rice industry here from what I hear. This area doesn't have that much natural diversity (destroyed by livestock), but I do know what it does.

[Freeky]

Hooray for India!  Stupid Monsanto fucks.

[Kai]

Interesting. Though I take issue with the term "frankencrop", since it seems to imply that GM food is inherently bad, while so far it's been mostly Monsanto's corporate politics that are the real evil (well, that and monocultures, but really mainly Monsanto being evil fucks). It kinda bugs me cause it causes the eco hippies to focus on health risks and such which is a red herring because this is about bigass corporate systems being evil and GM can actually (afaik) be used for good as well.

Also, maybe I'm wrong, but even though the GM corn in the US is loaded with a pesticide called "roundup", most of that corn is used for livestock feed, ethanol and HFCS in which case I suppose not much of that pesticide will be left since it all goes through chemical processing anyway? Or maybe it ends up in your meat via the lifestock feed, I dunno.

There are two major lines of GM crops used in the USA, Bt and Roundup Ready. Bt crops, including corn and soybeans, manufacture a crystaline botulotoxin which dissolves in pH high solutions such as a plant feeding caterpillar gut, but passes freely through the digestive tracts of other animals. Roundup Ready crops produce a chemical that protects them from roundup, meaning that farmers can herbicide their fields without harming their crop plants. While Bt crops don't seem to have any negative side effects in theory, Roundup Ready crops have taken some flak from some correlations with birth defects.

In any case, GM organisms are not the evil here, rather, it's the monopolizing corporations like Monsanto acting as robber barons over the farmers of North America that are the real problem.