Farmers cannot fight Monsanto. That is suicide.

Let's say you sue for an entire year's worth of crops and you win. Then you win the appeal. And you win the appeal of the appeal. All the way up the chain. For 10 years, you win on every level.

But you never plant another crop and you go out of business. At this point, Monsanto owns the world of agriculture. If you are planting something that is not owned by Monsanto, you are losing. Monsanta-engineered crops have such a higher yield that to plant anything else would wipe out your profit margin. The higher yield is magnified by the fact that non-Monsanto crops planted anywhere near Monsanto crops are dying from Monsanto herbicides.

It's simple math. No farmer can survive 10 years of losses due to inferior production. The giants like ADP won't go after Monsanto because they have not been affected. They are already using Monsanto seed. Young independents won't go after Monsanto because the only way they can compete against the ADPs is to use Monsanto.

So you have a few handfuls of old farmers who are ready to retire and have no family who want to carry on. They are going to sell out to some cookie-cutter subdivision developer anyway, so maybe they could be enticed into an otherwise suicidal court case. Or maybe they don't have the energy for it.

Those who win (iffy at best) will not win a real windfall. No court is going to give Monsanto a death sentence. And the farmers will have a hardtime arguing too much harm when they still got 50% of their crop harvested and made $millions$ by selling the land. Mansanto can absorb a million dollar settlement here and there.

If I'm Monsanto, I'm not worried.

If I'm a no-holds-barred in-it-for-the-buck securities advisor, I'd say "buy Monsanto." I might also say, "short Whole Foods" because their supply is dwindling and their prices have to go up. If I'm a save-the-world stop-injustice activist, I'm looking for new sources of significant capital to stem the tide. And I'll keep fighting on because it was a dim prospect from the beginning anyway.

Monsanto does not own the world of agriculture. This is a ridiculous claim.

There are many more than 1,000 separate seed companies that supply the many types of commercial seeds globally, and hundreds of seed companies that sell corn and soybean seed to American farmers. In fact, aggregate commercial sales by all seed companies account for only about 40 percent of the total volume of seeds used globally in 2014 (not sure of the last seasons). Of those commercial seed sales, roughly 2/3 of the seed volume comes from private breeding programs and significantly 1/3 comes from national or public institutions.

The remaining non-commercial seed volume is seed saved and replanted by farmers. Monsanto participates in only a few crops, with the two largest being corn and soybeans. While Monsanto is one of the largest commercial seed companies, even in those crops their output probably accounts for less than one-third of global commercial volume.

Therefore, if a farmer wants to plant seed from someone other than Monsanto, it’s very easy to do that. People use Monsanto products because of the genetics/profitability not out of intimidation or fear.

> In fact, aggregate commercial sales by all seed companies account for only about 40 percent of the total volume of seeds used globally in 2014 (not sure of the last seasons). Of those commercial seed sales, roughly 2/3 of the seed volume comes from private breeding programs and significantly 1/3 comes from national or public institutions.

> While Monsanto is one of the largest commercial seed companies, even in those crops their output probably accounts for less than one-third of global commercial volume.

These are very specific quantitative statements. Can you provide your sources? it seems like whatever this is from is overall very interesting to read.

You seem like a person who knows the deal. Is there illegal market for Monsanto seeds? Let's say people smuggling the product out of USA to countries that they can't go after the IP etc? Could North Korea use secretly their seeds to have better output or are those seeds so very specifically engineered?

Most commercial varieties these days are hybrids. Many of the desirable traits are fixed for the plants that grow from that "F1" generation. But if you try to plant harvested seeds from those plants ("F2" generation) you'll get inconsistent results. It's possible to isolate particular traits via selfing and selecting for those traits. It's a years-long process, but I could see that happening in countries not beholden to Monsanto or trade deals.

It is true for maize that you can create an unstable hybrid, which has been used as a form of IP control by corn seed companies for longer than I have been alive. That is also true for numerous other plants. As far as I know, it is not possible to create an unstable soybean hybrid, which is why Monsanto went the licensing route.

My understanding of beans is that it is possible, but not commercially feasible. Something about the yield of seeds per plant versus the effort to control the crossing of parental inbred lines.

What does unstable in this context exactly mean?

If you replant the unstable seed it might not germinate, if it does is likely to be stunted and sterile.

Chance of successful replication of the desirable traits to the offspring (seeds) of the plants

> Let's say you sue for an entire year's worth of crops and you win. Then you win the appeal. And you win the appeal of the appeal. All the way up the chain. For 10 years, you win on every level.

Herein lies the beauty of a class action suit. Let the lawyers finance and worry about the lawsuit while you go on your merry way running your farm.

Running your farm without Monsanto seed. That's the point. Farming without Monsanto seed today is a death sentence.

Organic farms don't use Monsanto GMO seeds. they haven't died.

It's a major undertaking to switch from conventional to organic farming. Much more labor intensive, can take a few years for pesticide residues to dissipate, not even possible in some location due to neighbors. Not something most farmers are in a position to do, at least for their entire acreage.

So what? Do we continue because we're f* up anyway?

I don't think it's an option to consider alternatives in this case.

Easy to say when your livelihood isn't on the line.

Why run farm without their seed? Can't you be buying their seed while suing their ass off?

If Monsanto think they can stop selling you their wares because they don't like you they should be dissolved today.

There are other seed companies that are competitive with Monsanto's traits. Pioneer, Syngenta.

Pioneer and some other company I can't think of right now seem to be the main seed companies around here, not Monsanto. And central Kansas is definitely farming country.

It seems that farming with Monsanto seed is just a slower death sentence.

Life is a slow death sentence. Who will commit suicide to protest Death?

Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta are the big players in the seed market. So i guess their products are more or less in the same league.

So, if it's that bad, why don't we rise up and string their executives and legal team up? I don't want to have to resort to that, but at some point it seems that's the only thing they'll listen to.

At the very least they must advocate for the earth and health of the ecosystems. However, it is much more tempting for fools to put the earth through a wood chipper, just to dance in a pile of mulch that we call money. Monsanto could actually be a world saving company, but they are not trying to further nature, but exploit it. And then, when they screw up, they try and hide it. It is not going to last forever, but they believe that with lies they can last longer, and this is incorrect. Not to mention that we are eating what they are growing. The Egyptians mastered irrigation and the Native Americans taught the pilgrims agriculture, for what, so we can enslave our farmers and hard working agrarians on a treadmill of defeat and lawsuits? My country, how I weep for thee.

What's ADP? Are you referring to this company: https://www.adp.com/ ?

I suspect they may mean ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Daniels_Midland

I would have read it as a typo, but they did use it twice.

I have an idea, but it's pure speculation. Fear. Going up against Monstanto and the like is a good way to get into trouble. [0][1]

There are many other examples. Often, they are mixed with sentimentalism or sensationalism (and these examples might be, too-- they're the result of 5 seconds of Googling). But beneath the ones I've read/watched, there's clearly some truth.

[0] https://modernfarmer.com/2015/09/seeding-fear-the-story-of-a... [1] https://www.rt.com/news/206787-monsanto-india-farmers-suicid...

I remember seeing a documentary film about this. I think it was called, "The Future of Food" and it documented pretty well Monsanto's MO to go after farmers who aren't using their seeds. Farmer's who don't use their seeds are sued for patent infringement if a neighbors seeds blow onto their land and they find out about it.

Monsanto is a modern day Mafia cartel, it's insane.

> Farmer's who don't use their seeds are sued for patent infringement if a neighbors seeds blow onto their land and they find out about it.

This is not true. This NPR article, written by the same author as top link, was already linked above: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/10/18/163034053/top...

No, they don't sue for that. Myth #2 as listed here:

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

Please don't cite rt.com. That is pure Russian propaganda. Not saying your general point is wrong, but the minute you cite rt.com you're basically repeating politcally generated fake news straight from the Kremlin.

Your point is perfectly valid, and shouldn't have been downvoted.

But as a footnote, the sibling comment here happens to also be correct: like any truly effective propaganda outlet, RT leverages a mix of largely legitimate / mundane news along with a certain proportion of fake or distorted news. But for the sake of simplicity it's best to stop citing RT or feeding it attention of any other form, altogether.

I know why you were downvoted, unfortunately you are more or less right but at the same time chances are they do publish or republish legitimate news soem of the time. I think its fine to ask for another source to verify a questionable source like RT.

RT is a particular case, because they publish things straight from a national state. Legitimate news sources do not. You'll never see them publish something that challenges their national sponsor.

Agreed. Also, don't cite BBC because it is fake news straight from Buckingham. Also, don't quote WSJ or NYT because it is fake news straight from the 1%. And don't quote CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News because they are all just fake news buzzfeed wannabes.

So what totally unfiltered source do you get your information from?

4chan

Buckingham? The British monarchy is only a figurehead.

Right, they probably meant Downing Street.

It's cute you believe that. Ever read the Black Spider memos?

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_spider_memos#Reception: "The Black Spider Memos met with little criticism, and public support for the Prince of Wales."

Most people in the UK will support the monarchy regardless of what they do. Including meddling in political affairs and not being figure heads.

I took that as silly humor. Buckingham is a funny word.

Would you? So far Monsanto was able to crush everybody - by threats, lawyers, sponsored research, lobbying, you name it. Would you like to be the first one to try your luck?

Why not first penalize the farmers who used the stuff? That would make farmers think twice about using untested herbicides. Then, if a farmer does use a Monsanto product and accidentally burns his neighbor, he can be the one who has to try to recoup the losses from Monsanto (e.g. through false advertising claims.)

Dicamba and the rushed-to-market GMO Dicamba-resistant crops were all certified by the USDA and FDA prior to use. The problem here is the scientific studies used by the FDA in certifying products are produced by the vendor, instead of an adversarial third party. Combine that with Monsanto’s formidable PR and Legal capabilities, and of course, the result is dangerous products that nobody can even talk about.

This whistleblower guy at the University of Missouri, his career is over. Monsanto will see to that through either withdrawing its funding to their research programs, or by funding them even more, with the quid-pro-quo that this guy is fired for some unrelated reason, like phony performance reviews, or perhaps allegations of him sleeping with a student.

I've only worked on a farm with a college roommate for a very brief period of time, but I would assume Monsanto does the exact same thing big pharma does with Doctors and Nurses -

Hire extremely attractive men and women to go to farms and sell some 'Santo Seed.

It's in the works. I'm hearing radio law firm ads in the midwest asking for farmers who have suffered Dicamba crop damage to call them.

So the law firms may do well while the farmers will get maybe half of their lost crops back.

Lawsuits are expensive and agriculture is a low margin enterprise. Further Monsanto would likely field a team of lawyers for the defense.

According to one of the side bars, disputes between farmers have already led to one death.

this happened last fall

https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2016/1...

Arbitration clauses?