How Monsanto owns and manipulates the world's food supply

By at 9:57 pm Sunday, Dec 13

Steve Silberman sends us "A major AP expose of how Monsanto uses secret licensing agreements for its genetically manipulated crops to squeeze smaller seed companies, lock out competition, and keep food prices high.".
Monsanto's methods are spelled out in a series of confidential commercial licensing agreements obtained by the AP. The contracts, as long as 30 pages, include basic terms for the selling of engineered crops resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, along with shorter supplementary agreements that address new Monsanto traits or other contract amendments...

For example, one contract provision bans independent companies from breeding plants that contain both Monsanto's genes and the genes of any of its competitors, unless Monsanto gives prior written permission -- giving Monsanto the ability to effectively lock out competitors from inserting their patented traits into the vast share of U.S. crops that already contain Monsanto's genes...

"We now believe that Monsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable," said Neil Harl, agricultural economist at Iowa State University who has studied the seed industry for decades. "The upshot of that is that it's tightening Monsanto's control, and makes it possible for them to increase their prices long term. And we've seen this happening the last five years, and the end is not in sight."

AP INVESTIGATION: Monsanto seed biz role revealed (Thanks, Steve!)

(Image: Monsanto == Satan, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from illustir's photostream)

Previously:

Read more      

Cory Doctorow

Upcoming appearances

* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
* Feb 22, 2012, 3PM, London, University of Westminster Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture, Old Cinema, 309 Regent Street, free with RSVP
* Mar 9, 2012, Washington DC, IAPP Global Privacy Summit

Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)

Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.