Monsanto Bullies Small Farmers Over Planting Harvested GMO Seeds

TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15825

by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog March 26th, 2013

"Seed Giants vs. U.S. Farmers." New report by Center for Food Safety. Does Monsanto own all future generations of genetically modified seeds that it sells? The Missouri-based agribusiness giant wants farmers to pay a royalty to plant any seed that descended from a patented original. The legal decision has ramifications for other patented "inventions" that reproduce themselves like strands of DNA. The U.S. Supreme Court appeared to side with Monsanto in oral arguments heard this past February in a lawsuit that the world's largest seed company has brought against Vernon Hugh Bowman, a 75 year old farmer in Indiana, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on a small farm of 600 acres (242 hectares). The impending court decision, which will probably come this June, has sparked alarm among consumer advocates. "Judges don't understand agriculture," says Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety, a Washington DC based watchdog group. "The Monsantos of the world have everyone convinced through a massive misinformation campaigns that biotech crops are essential to feed the world, and patents are necessary for biotech crops. So there's this patina of virtuous innovation when in fact what biotechnology is really used for primarily is to develop pesticide-promoting crops."