Monsanto: A Great American Company

[slobber]

Being able to enforce a patent on a genetic trait is just garbage.

I agree with this. Slippery slope. But, where would the innovation come from? Will be much easier to argue for govt. funding of the research once our global govt. is in place.

I agree with this, up until the global govt. part.

[Rage Against the McKee]

Being able to enforce a patent on a genetic trait is just garbage.

I agree with this. Slippery slope. But, where would the innovation come from? Will be much easier to argue for govt. funding of the research once our global govt. is in place.

Monsanto would still be one of the world's most profitable companies even if they allowed farmers to clean their seed and replant it. There would still be plenty of motivation, if not more than there is today, for innovation.

they aren't going to invest the kind of money they currently are in innovation when they can't see the profits they currently do. same whith pharma. yeah, you can argue that life saving drugs should be available for everyone but nobody is going to create them without the incentive of being able to cash in. and I was agreeing that being able to patent genetics is probably not a good idea.

How much return on investment would Monsanto lose by allowing farmers to clean their seed and replant it? It seems to me like farmers would still have to supplement their seed with Monsanto seed, the harvested seed would be a less pure, therefore inferior product, and losses would be pretty small, but large enough to motivate Monsanto to engineer the next big thing in a shorter time frame than the current patent window. I'm probably wrong, though.

[steve dave]

Being able to enforce a patent on a genetic trait is just garbage.

I agree with this. Slippery slope. But, where would the innovation come from? Will be much easier to argue for govt. funding of the research once our global govt. is in place.

Monsanto would still be one of the world's most profitable companies even if they allowed farmers to clean their seed and replant it. There would still be plenty of motivation, if not more than there is today, for innovation.

they aren't going to invest the kind of money they currently are in innovation when they can't see the profits they currently do. same whith pharma. yeah, you can argue that life saving drugs should be available for everyone but nobody is going to create them without the incentive of being able to cash in. and I was agreeing that being able to patent genetics is probably not a good idea.

How much return on investment would Monsanto lose by allowing farmers to clean their seed and replant it? It seems to me like farmers would still have to supplement their seed with Monsanto seed, the harvested seed would be a less pure, therefore inferior product, and losses would be pretty small, but large enough to motivate Monsanto to engineer the next big thing in a shorter time frame than the current patent window. I'm probably wrong, though.

I have no rough ridin' clue. I'm not in the industry and am basically just posting stuff that my brain thought up on its own. I didn't even know monsanto was the company responsible for roundup ready or whatever until this thread. then that made me google that book I read. which led to a blog post about monsanto being the company portrayed in the book.

[slobber]

The purity is fine on saved soybean seed. It wouldn't likely be a problem for several years.

[Rage Against the McKee]

The purity is fine on saved soybean seed. It wouldn't likely be a problem for several years.

Couldn't Monsanto counteract that by mixing 2 different varieties of roundup ready seed into the same bag? It seems like the biggest problem they have is homogeneity in the field making the resulting seed too similar to the parent. Instead of having nearly 100% of the parent's genetic traits, this would make the resulting seed have anywhere from 25% to 100% of the parent traits. Again, I'm not really in this industry, so I'm probably wrong.

[michigancat]

Why shouldn't they be able to patent a genetic trait they created?

[Rage Against the McKee]

Why shouldn't they be able to patent a genetic trait they created?

It's a very slippery slope. Do you apply that to genetically engineered livestock, as well? If a company were to start creating cloned cows, should their buyers have to start sending back any calves that those cows produce?

[steve dave]

what happens when they cross-pollinate with other non-patented plants? or is this one of those kinds that can't pollinate or whatever?

[EllRobersonisInnocent]

Guys, humanity as we know it will be destroyed within 100 years, live it up while you can 

[Bloodfart]

what happens when they cross-pollinate with other non-patented plants? or is this one of those kinds that can't pollinate or whatever?

Sue their asses off. 

[michigancat]

Why shouldn't they be able to patent a genetic trait they created?

It's a very slippery slope. Do you apply that to genetically engineered livestock, as well? If a company were to start creating cloned cows, should their buyers have to start sending back any calves that those cows produce?

Did they create the bulls, too? Then probably.

I think the slippery slope is more slippery if you don't let them patent it.

[Rage Against the McKee]

Why shouldn't they be able to patent a genetic trait they created?

It's a very slippery slope. Do you apply that to genetically engineered livestock, as well? If a company were to start creating cloned cows, should their buyers have to start sending back any calves that those cows produce?

Did they create the bulls, too? Then probably.

I think the slippery slope is more slippery if you don't let them patent it.

You shouldn't be able to patent nature.

[Rage Against the McKee]

what happens when they cross-pollinate with other non-patented plants? or is this one of those kinds that can't pollinate or whatever?

Sue their asses off.

Apparently so.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-4048288.html

The Runyons say they signed no agreements, and if they were contaminated with the genetically modified seed, it blew over from a neighboring farm.

"Pollination occurs, wind drift occurs. There's just no way to keep their products from landing in our fields," David said.

"What Monsanto is doing across the country is often, and according to farmers, trespassing even, on their land, examining their crops and trying to find some of their patented crops," said Andrew Kimbrell, with the Center For Food Safety. "And if they do, they sue those farmers for their entire crop."

[felix rex]

Monsanto is just the stem cell research of starving people.

[pissclams]

farmer's fault for using the mansanto seeds in the first place, and by the way, i've asked this a million times but who eats soybeans anyway?   

wheat?  check.
corn?  love it.
peas?  sometimes.
potatoes?  always.
carrots?  if i'm drunk at dinner and find one on my plate.
lettuce?  yup.
cucumber?  maybe one slice per year in a drink.
peppers?  yup.
onion? yes please.
tomatoes?  in salsa and ketchup and pizza sauce.

soybeans?  i have never seen them one time on a menu.

/thread

[felix rex]

The problem is starving dudes just don't have the same POP.

[Emo EMAW]

farmer's fault for using the mansanto seeds in the first place, and by the way, i've asked this a million times but who eats soybeans anyway?   

wheat?  check.
corn?  love it.
peas?  sometimes.
potatoes?  always.
carrots?  if i'm drunk at dinner and find one on my plate.
lettuce?  yup.
cucumber?  maybe one slice per year in a drink.
peppers?  yup.
onion? yes please.
tomatoes?  in salsa and ketchup and pizza sauce.

soybeans?  i have never seen them one time on a menu.

/thread

Doesn't elite diner pissclams like to get some edamame at Kona? 

[michigancat]

Why shouldn't they be able to patent a genetic trait they created?

It's a very slippery slope. Do you apply that to genetically engineered livestock, as well? If a company were to start creating cloned cows, should their buyers have to start sending back any calves that those cows produce?

Did they create the bulls, too? Then probably.

I think the slippery slope is more slippery if you don't let them patent it.

You shouldn't be able to patent nature.

That's absurd on a number of levels. First of all, calling roundup-ready soybeans "nature" is a bit of a stretch but just calling for a blanket ban on "nature" patents makes no sense.

[EllRobersonisInnocent]

Nuts Kicked 

[Rage Against the McKee]

Why shouldn't they be able to patent a genetic trait they created?

It's a very slippery slope. Do you apply that to genetically engineered livestock, as well? If a company were to start creating cloned cows, should their buyers have to start sending back any calves that those cows produce?

Did they create the bulls, too? Then probably.

I think the slippery slope is more slippery if you don't let them patent it.

You shouldn't be able to patent nature.

That's absurd on a number of levels. First of all, calling roundup-ready soybeans "nature" is a bit of a stretch but just calling for a blanket ban on "nature" patents makes no sense.

The offspring of those roundup-ready soybeans are produced naturally. If they carry so much of the same traits as their parents that they can be replanted the next year and not die when you spray them with roundup, then that's a failure on Monsanto's level in making all of the parent seeds exact clones of each other.

It only gets more complicated when you start applying the same logic to genetically engineered meats, which are FDA-approved and should be on the market soon, btw. Monsanto should have control over the parents, not the offspring.

[steve dave]

is it selective breeding that makes this stuff or do they chop up the DNA and make it different or whatever?

[Bloodfart]

Monsanto is just the stem cell research of starving people.

I think of it as Monsanto the Rockefeller of biotechnology.

[Rage Against the McKee]

is it selective breeding that makes this stuff or do they chop up the DNA and make it different or whatever?

I think it is a little bit of both. Dobber might know.

[pissclams]

farmer's fault for using the mansanto seeds in the first place, and by the way, i've asked this a million times but who eats soybeans anyway?   

wheat?  check.
corn?  love it.
peas?  sometimes.
potatoes?  always.
carrots?  if i'm drunk at dinner and find one on my plate.
lettuce?  yup.
cucumber?  maybe one slice per year in a drink.
peppers?  yup.
onion? yes please.
tomatoes?  in salsa and ketchup and pizza sauce.

soybeans?  i have never seen them one time on a menu.

/thread

Doesn't elite diner pissclams like to get some edamame at Kona? 

kona sucks

[Dugout DickStone]

farmer's fault for using the mansanto seeds in the first place, and by the way, i've asked this a million times but who eats soybeans anyway?   

wheat?  check.
corn?  love it.
peas?  sometimes.
potatoes?  always.
carrots?  if i'm drunk at dinner and find one on my plate.
lettuce?  yup.
cucumber?  maybe one slice per year in a drink.
peppers?  yup.
onion? yes please.
tomatoes?  in salsa and ketchup and pizza sauce.

soybeans?  i have never seen them one time on a menu.

/thread

Doesn't elite diner pissclams like to get some edamame at Kona? 

kona sucks

they have a few good appetizers.  be cool man.