Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

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The article states the apparent agenda at its end:

"The intent of the U.S. government to use food as an ever-more powerful point of leverage to wield over large, increasingly hungry nations like China. The prosecution of Mo Hailong and his circle stands as a warning to the Chinese government, issued through its proxy companies. The ears in the field, the seeds in the ground, even the pollen on the wind, are American-owned and American-protected. They are available to the world as food only if you agree to our conditions and are willing to pay our price."

And the US, as the only superpower (1) has many ways of making other nations to comply.

One nice example, related to the GM food and the EU opposition of it, can be extrapolated from the links:

June 2003:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jun/24/gm.food

"Mr Bush's comments came barely a month after his administration took Europe's ban on GM crops to the World Trade Organisation, saying the moratorium was a barrier to trade."

Just a little later:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jul/02/gm.food2

"The European parliament today lifted the ban on genetically modified foods, instead choosing to impose a strict labelling regime that could stave off a trade war with the US."

------

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_superpowers

Not to mention all that is going on with TTIP now; essentially, trade officials are saying that working through GE crop related non-tariff barriers to trade is what the whole deal hinges on (ie. consumers are against it in EU and ag biz lobby is trying to ram it down their throats from over here. I would mention, as its a common misconception, that it's legal to sell GE crops in the EU, they just did so terribly that they've been pulled from shelves- Consumers exercised a preference and the market dictates). For some more info (pdf from Center For Food Safety):

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/trade_matters_10_14...

Here is the link to the page linking to the pdf

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/reports/3152/trade-matter...

That is a fascinating, high-quality wikipedia page. I didn't know that sort of article existed, but it is a credit to the editors.

This has been done for years domestically Farmers have been driven to bankruptcy by Monsanto, Pioneer etc for simply having fields where cross-contamination occurred. Now all that is happening is this idea is being enforced internationally...too bad. I had hoped people outside the US would force us to realize this error.

This hasn't happened, or you need a citation please.

I've searched a little, found "Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted," obviously something that can be considered a pro-GMO article for the way how the specific "myth" is formulated, but it's good enough to find out what's being claimed:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/10/18/163034053/top...

In short, if the farmer would select only the plants that survive the herbicide (effectively only those that over cross-pollination get "Monsanto" genes), they could sue him, and they did sue Schmeiser (and the farmer would probably lose as in the given example "The Canadian Supreme Court ruled that Schmeiser had violated Monsanto's patent" and the farmer lost).

But if the farmer has just the "trace amounts of GMOs" in his crops they wouldn't (and they "will pay to remove any of its GMOs from fields where they don't belong."(!))

The myth as stated in the article is "Monsanto will sue you for growing their patented GMOs if traces of those GMOs entered your fields through wind-blown pollen." Note "traces". Only that is a myth.

But that they sue when somebody sows the seeds with the genes from their seed that he hasn't bought from them, even if he obtained them by cross-pollination, it happened, they sued, and they won the case.

So it takes an active step by the farmer who is sowing seeds he/she has reason to know are protected.

The "active" step is simply keeping the seeds from the plants you sowed on your land with your own seeds that survived the herbicides. Schmeiser claims that he was doing breeding of his own seeds for 50 years. Why shouldn't he?

Ok, yes they will sue when a farmer willingly and deliberately uses cross pollinate seeds. I see nothing controversial there though.

It is controversial as the farmer was actually doing breeding himself 50 years using his own seeds. His actions were the actions of the breeder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Schmeiser#Monsanto_v._Sc...

"In 1997, Percy Schmeiser found Monsanto's genetically modified “Roundup Ready Canola” plants growing near his farm. He testified that he sprayed his nearby field and found that much of the crop survived, meaning it was also Roundup Ready.[2] He testified that he then harvested that crop, saved it separately from his other harvest, and intentionally planted it in 1998.[2] Monsanto approached him to pay a license fee for using Monsanto's patented technology without a license. Schmeiser refused, claiming that the actual seed was his because it was grown on his land, and so Monsanto sued Schmeiser for patent infringement on August 6, 1998.[2]"

Nobody disputes that it was a case of cross-pollination. He was sued for keeping the results of that cross-pollination. Why shouldn't he if he didn't use the seeds from Monsanto but his own?

Because the seeds weren't his own anymore. What, you think he believes he bred a roundup ready crop? That's why he lost the case, he definitely knew what he was doing.

How come the seeds aren't his own? The complete genetic structure of his seeds is certainly different to the Monsanto ones. It's just that the one allele got transferred via cross-pollination and remained in his own seeds he preserved, giving the seeds one specific property which is the same as in the Monsanto seeds.

Breeding is selecting your own seeds based on their properties, and Schmeiser was a breeder.

Unless I'm missing something from your citation, he wasn't sued. He was the suer, and he won. I don't see what's controversial about that.

Edit: I see that the other suit[1] was not cited. In the Monsanto v. Schmeizer suit, he was accidentally planting Monsanto seeds that he had harvested, and did not mount a sufficient defense against it.

"Schmeiser supporters argued that his account still leaves open the possibility that the harvesting and replanting of Roundup Ready canola from the sprayed region was accidental and resulted from a miscommunication between Schmeiser and his farmhand, or from a failure of Schmeiser to have the presence of mind to instruct his farmhand to avoid taking canola seed for replanting from the sprayed region."

He knowingly used Monsanto seeds in his crops, but thought that using the seeds would not be theft because he didn't apply RoundUp to them. That's like suggesting that if I steal a Tesla roadster, but convert it to a gasoline engine, then I haven't stolen it.

Again though, I don't see this as terribly controversial, unless I'm missing something.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc_v_Schmeise...

Stealing a physical thing (Tesla Roadster) is not at all like infringing a patent or violating a contract. Your arguments would work a lot better if you didn't say things like that.

I respect intellectual property, so the analogy works for me, but fine, it's like pirating an English film that's been dubbed into a language other than the one it was filmed in, and claiming that no piracy has occurred.

Edit: That first sentence came out unintentionally snarky, but I can't think of a better way to put it, so please understand that no snark was intended.

That's also a terrible analogy.

And are you saying that I don't respect intellectual property, if I disagree with the previous flawed analogy? Many people who respect intellectual property don't agree with it: just look at the reactions of experts to the various "Piracy is theft" PR campaigns.

Apologies. I knew it was going to come off snarky, but was in the middle of something then, and didn't have the cycles to fix it.

It was not my intent to imply that you did not respect IP, just that I do, and to me, the theft of an album is on equal moral footing with the theft of a car (though, commensurately less so, given the value). As, to me, they are the same, the analogy worked to me.

I don't know what's terrible about the second analogy, but either way, the guy knowingly used seeds that weren't his, claiming at one point that its planting was a miscommunication, and that it should have been allowed due to lack application of RoundUp at another.

The case was not concerned with any accidental plantings, but focused only on those plants that he intentionally harvested and planted, claiming imaginary "farmer's rights" of ownership of anything that happens to be upon his physical property.

I'll refrain from coming up with another flawed analogy here, but it doesn't seem controversial to me that he lost because he did not present a legally valid defense to the Canadian court system.

> he guy knowingly used seeds that weren't his

If they had been cross-pollinated (and nobody proved otherwise) the seeds had been his all the time. If you'd do DNA sequencing of such seeds you'd see a different DNA from the Monsanto seeds. But Monsanto claimed that as soon as the seeds produce plant resistant to their herbicide he has no right to use his own seeds.

The software analogy were, the computer virus infests your document files because you surf the same sites as your neighbors who pay "Monsanto protection." The infected files contained only the text you wrote, after running the Monsanto scanner only the infected files remain on your disk, all others are deleted. You can't preserve, copy or edit the infected files anymore because Monsanto, which produced the virus, has a copyright on avoiding Monsanto virus scanner, so as soon as the files aren't deleted by the Monsanto scanner you can't keep your own files.

The advantageous property in the seeds he developed, originated from the cross-pollination. He just purified the Monsanto-originated genes into a usable strain.

If a software analogy is what you want, it's like he used some third party library which requires a license to make new software, but didn't pay for the license. Sure, the code is new and unique and his, but it contains the code that is patented.

Doing it by mistake is one thing. But he clearly did it on purpose and was trying to win in court to get away with it.

Citation: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/cfsmonsantovsfarmer...

In May 2003, the Center for Food Safety embarked on a project to determine the extent to which American farmers have been impacted by litigation arising from the use of patented genetically engineered crops. After extensive research and numerous interviews with farmers and lawyers, CFS found that Monsanto, the world’s leading agricultural biotechnology company, has used heavy-handed investigations and ruthless prosecutions that have fundamentally changed the way many American farmers farm. The result has been nothing less than an assault on the foundations of farming practices and traditions that have endured for centuries in this country and millennia around the world, including one of the oldest, the right to save and replant crop seed.

The largest recorded judgment made thus far in favor of Monsanto as a result of a farmer lawsuit is $3,052,800.00. Total recorded judgments granted to Monsanto for lawsuits amount to $15,253,602.82. Farmers have paid a mean of $412,259.54 for cases with recorded judgments.

No farmer is safe from the long reach of Monsanto. Farmers have been sued after their field was contaminated by pollen or seed from someone else’s genetically engineered crop; when genetically engineered seed from a previous year’s crop has sprouted, or “volunteered,” in fields planted with non-genetically engineered varieties the following year; and when they never signed Monsanto’s technology agreement but still planted the patented crop seed. In all of these cases, because of the way patent law has been applied, farmers are technically liable. It does not appear to matter if the use was unwitting or a contract was never signed

No, they haven't.

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