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Re:Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think ... by Sohcahtoa82 on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @03:42PM (#18924948)
> Another understated problem is the intellectual property issue. Saving seeds is usually prohibited (and those seeds might not be viable anyway), farmers have been successfully sued.

Those lawsuits are heavily misunderstood.

Monsanto was not suing farmers for saving seeds from their own crops and planting. They were suing for farmers selling the seeds from their crops grown from Monsanto seeds. It's like agricultural version of software piracy.

Re:Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think ... by linuxftw on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @04:07PM (#18925258)
What you're saying is entirely untrue [1]

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/farmers-use-of-genet...

Re:Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think ... by Junk_Collector on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @04:36PM (#18925568)
What he is saying is not that far off. When Monsanto sells those seeds, they include a contractual obligation not to resell the offspring seeds for planting. Whatever you feel about the validity of this contract, that's the current state of affairs. Monsanto also has patents on those seeds of the classical variety. That is, irrespective of their being genetically engineered.

The work around was to sell those seeds as animal feed, purchase the feed in bulk, which is a mixture of seeds and then spray a large amount of herbicide on the crop until only the Monsanto seeds are left effectively creating copies. The offspring seeds of that crop are then sold as feed and the process is repeated.

Monsanto argues that this is in effect making illegal copies of their patented seed even though the letter of the contract was not violated and that the feed sellers were infringing on their patents by selling the seed to be reused in plantings. It says all of this in the article you linked as well.

Re:Strongest opponents of GM foods know the least but think ... by Sohcahtoa82 on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @11:45PM (#18928446)
That does not refute what I claimed, even in the loosest of interpretations.