Monsanto and the arrogance of failure: 3 Case Studies!
I: Monsanto in Andhra Pradesh…
Dwindling production, rising costs, new diseases: ten years after genetically-modified cotton was introduced in India with high hopes of boosting the economy, farmers are deeply disappointed with its results and wondering if it was all worth it. Ten years after its debut, genetically modified cotton is a huge disappointment. Plants are vulnerable to new diseases, yields are far lower than expected.
The Andhra Pradesh state government recently announced that the 2011 harvest was much lower than the 2010 crop. And for the first time, the Maharashtra government and a court from the neighboring state of Madhya Pradesh, successfully sued German seed company Crop Science for 850,000 euros on behalf of more than 1,000 farmers for selling them seeds that did not deliver the promised yield.
The German company is denying responsibility and is blaming “bad production control and weather conditions.” It is thinking of appealing to get the sentence repealed.
Since gentically-modified (GMO) cotton was introduced in India in 2002, crops have doubled and the country has become the world’s No. 2 cotton producer. But the “White Revolution,” as it was called, is now generating more suspicion than enthusiasm. Anti-GMO activists believe that the big harvests of the first years were due to better climate and irrigation systems. For the last six years, the average production has stagnated while transgenic cotton cultures have more than quadrupled.
In 2009, GMO giant Monsanto admitted for the first time that its “Bollgard” cotton variety had lost its resistance against worms in the Gujarat fields, in western India. Two years later, the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) director, Keshav Raj Kranthi, warned against GM cotton’s growing vulnerability to bacteria.
“Productivity in northern India should decrease as the production capacity of the seeds is getting smaller. The latest hyrbid seeds have also contracted the ‘leaf curl virus’ and are more vulnerable to parasites, whereas non-genetically modified seeds used to be more resistant” a May 2011 CICR report explains. Kranthi adds that transgenic seeds consume more water and nutrients, which lead to soil exhaustion. Fertilizers are needed to maximize production.
All these fertilizers, GMO seeds and insecticides are expensive: farmers have to take out loans from local moneylenders, or directly from their seed and fertilizer suppliers. A minor drop in the cotton rate or bad weather conditions can lead to tragedy. In 2006, in the Vidarbha region, thousands of farmers committed suicide by swallowing pesticide because they couldn’t pay off their debts.
GMO cotton is a new technology that needs specific know-how to be put to the best use. Each one of the 780 varieties of transgenic cotton needs a different type of soil and different fertilizers. Local grains also have to be planted in just the right proportions to avoid bacteria and insects from developing resistance to transgenic seeds.
“Small farmers don’t have the slightest idea about what they buy and how to grow GMO seeds. Their traditional know-how is about to disappear,” worries Sridhar Radhakrishnan from the Coalition for GMO-Free India.
In case of bad crops, there is no legal action that the farmers can take to get compensation. “If anything goes wrong or if the farmers have difficulties, the states need to create laws to force companies to give them financial compensation,” Minister of Agriculture Sharad Pawar said recently in Parliament.
Ten years after transgenic cotton was introduced, local Indian seeds have practically disappeared. The GMO seeds market represents 280 million euros. Companies promise to create new sorts of seeds that are more resistant and consumer less water. Meanwhile, anti-GMO activists demand an immediate moratorium on the culture of transgenic cotton in India.
II. Monsanto in Gujarat
In Gujarat the state government has decided not to purchase and distribute Monsanto maize seeds to tribal farmers any more following fears expressed by them that these seeds could cause male and female infertility. Instead, these farmers can buy any of the government-certified seeds from open market and then claim subsidy from their respective district agriculture officers.
The decision was taken jointly by the state’s agriculture and the tribal ministry on Wednesday following written complaints by tribal farmers from across the state. The issue had stirred a political debate in the run-up to the December 2012 Assembly elections. The opposition Congress had raised the issue in the Assembly’s budget session last month.
Tribals account for about 15 per cent of the state’s population and influence results for about 50 Assembly seats. The state government began purchasing and distributing Monsanto maize seeds under the brand name of “Prabal” since the inception of Project Sunshine under the Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana in 2008. Under the scheme, over 5 lakh tribal farmers were being provided “Prabal” seeds for free. Non-tribal farmers were given subsidies ranging from 33 per cent to 50 per cent, depending on their financial status.
Though the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and NGOs like Jatan and ASHA had been opposing the distribution of Monsanto maize seeds, which is a double-cross hybrid, the state government ignored the protests. Now, Monsanto will lose its monopoly over maize seed sale in the state. The decision will also allow fair play to other seed companies since the state government was procuring and distributing Monsanto seeds only.
State Agriculture Minister Dileep Sanghani told the press “The state government will no more buy the seeds and distribute it to the farmers. We have allowed to the farmers to buy any seed certified by the state government’s seed development agency and submit the bills to their respective district agriculture officers to claim 100 per cent subsidy.”
BKS, Jatan and ASHA (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture) on Thursday welcomed the state government’s decision to withdraw itself from purchase and distribution of Monsanto seeds. BKP’s state president Maganbhai Patel, Jatan representative Kapil Shah and ASHA representative Kavitha said that the state government’s role in the whole project had become questionable and hence they had opposed it.
A statement released by Monsanto said that the company was not aware of the government decision. It also added that the maize seed had been tested at the Anand Agricultural University and no adverse effect was reported on health or fertility.
III: …and Monsanto in the USA
The Monsanto versus Bowman lawsuit, which was initiated in 2007, has just reached the US Supreme Court which has asked the US Justice Department to weigh in on the controversial issue of patent rights exhaustion. Normally, a patent owner’s rights are “exhausted” when the product is sold to an end user. The case promises to be particularly instructive for those interested in seed rights and farmers’ sovereignty.
In September 2011, Monsanto, which has the largest share of the global market for seeds, won yet another case—its website lists its many victories— for patent infringement against Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman for planting and saving its herbicide-tolerant seeds although he was using only undifferentiated “commodity” seeds. Commodity seeds are a mix of seeds that come from farms using Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready technology and others that do not. As such, no licensing agreements are required for the sale of these seeds. Here is the genesis of this case: Bowman bought Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybean, a herbicide resistant variety, from its licenced seed producer Pioneer Hi-Bred and signed a contract that contained restrictions identical to Monsanto’s Technology Agreement that does not allow farmers to reuse the seeds. From 2000 onwards, Bowman continued to buy seeds from Pioneer and planted them each year as first crop in each season; scrupulously, he did not save seed from this crop.
But Bowman also bought commodity soybean seed from a local grain elevator for his late-season second crop and applied a glyphosate-based herbicide on them. Quite a few of these plants exhibited the glyphosate tolerant trait, and he saved the seed from this harvest for replanting as his second crop. He also supplemented the supply with regular purchases from a grain elevator.
Monsanto, which clearly boasts intelligence capabilities better than that of the CIA, learned of this and wrote to Bowman. Thereafter, in 2007 it sued the farmer. In September 2009, the district court granted summary judgement against Bowman, ordering him to pay US $84,456.20 to Monsanto.
Bowman appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit arguing that Monsanto’s patent rights were exhausted with respect to second-generation soybean seeds. Besides, the seeds were bought in grain elevators as undifferentiated commodity.
Patent experts say that according to the doctrine of patent exhaustion, the first authorised sale of a patented item terminates all patent rights on it. Monsanto, however, contends that the doctrine of patent exhaustion does not apply to sales of second-generation seeds. It also claims that a licenced grower’s sale of harvested soybeans to a grain elevator is not an “authorised sale”.
To an ordinary reader this issue would appear as a bizarre claim: how can there be patent infringement if the seeds are sold in a mix of undifferentiated “commodity” seeds? If that argument makes a non-legal person’s head spin here is more: Monsanto also argues that even if the doctrine of patent exhaustion is applied to commodity seeds, Bowman remains liable for patent infringement because patent protection applies independently to each generation of soybeans that contains the patented trait.
The Federal Circuit—unsurprisingly, say US patent attorneys— agreed the doctrine of patent exhaustion did not prevent an infringement action against Bow man. “Even if Monsanto’s patent rights in the commodity seeds are exhausted,” the court said, “such a conclusion would be of no consequence because once a grower, like Bowman, plants the commodity seeds containing Monsanto’s Roundup Ready technology … the grower has created a newly infringing article.”
The more troubling issue here is this: with seed companies, especially Monsanto, having carpeted the market with their GM seeds—94 per cent in the case of US soybean—how would a farmer who did not want to grow the patented GM variety go about it? Think about it.
[last case: courtesy: Down to Earth]