Monsanto just announced that it will pursue a divestiture of its bovine growth hormone, Posilac (or rBGH), which seemed to be headed toward the exit door anyway following commitments from companies like Wal-Mart to source only rBGH-free milk. Though the details of the divestiture are unknown, it's clear that Monsanto no longer sees it as profitable and wants to focus resources on markets it already dominates: "the growth of its core seeds and traits business."

The Pilot Grove Cooperative Elevator, Inc. has settled with Monsanto, the details of which haven't been officially published. Second-hand information tells us that Pilot Grove settled for more than $1 million.

Apparently, the settlement includes a stipulation requiring Pilot Grove to sell more than $1 million worth of Monsanto chemicals over the next six years. This appears to be a common tactic for Monsanto when it comes to patent infringement cases settled outside of court. Some farmers who settle out of court end up signing settlements that, like Pilot Grove, require them to purchase a set amount of seed and chemical from Monsanto for a given amount of time (typically five years). This ensures that seed and chemical dollars over the course of these years are directed into Monsanto's pocket. It's one of Monsanto's lesser known practices that essentially eliminates competition one farmer at a time. Yet some farmers choose to settle for more money to avoid this stipulation, so that once the settlement is signed, they can rid their farms and lives of Monsanto altogether.

It's sometimes a different story for farmers who are taken to court -- I should say, when farmers choose not to settle and therefore are forced to go to court -- since Monsanto often files an injunction against these farmers, which puts them on a black list that prohibits them from purchasing Monsanto products. Most don't want to support Monsanto when it's all said and done anyway, but in an increasingly consolidated industry, seed and chemical choices are decreasing. 

Even without knowing the exact details of the Pilot Grove case, it appears Monsanto has used its power and schemes once again to extract money and trust from a small community. The examples of Monsanto's abuse of farmers and patent rights alike are nothing short of egregious.

Not too long ago, we told you about Monsanto's plan to increase the price of certain corn seed by about $100 per bag. (We're talking $300 a bag in some cases.) Curious as to how much money this drains from rural America? Well, here's one example: if a farmer in Iowa who farms 1,000 acres plants one of these expensive corn varieties next year, the cost per acre will increase from $82 to $123, or a gross increase of more than $40,000. 

It's pretty clear that Monsanto has quashed competition to the extent that it can raise prices unencumbered. It seems farmers have never had more forces against them, which is all the more reason for state attorneys general to ramp up their investigation into Monsanto's anticompetitive conduct in the seed industry. Read more and become involved here.

By Richard Oswald

"We gave them a monopoly and they are making billions," said a retired ag professor from the University of Missouri.

 

There was a standing room only crowd on hand in Missouri to talk about the ownership of seed and the future of independent agriculture.

Photo: Richard Oswald

Mark Twain State Park was the location of a “Taking It Back” meeting held on July 12th, sponsored by Organization for Competitive Markets, American Corn Growers, and Missouri Farmers Union. The purpose of the gathering was to learn more about how we in Missouri and across America have lost the right to plant our own seeds.

What we saw during the day was a very clear picture of power granted to corporations, especially Monsanto, through genetic patents of plants.

The meeting attracted quite a collection of organizations and people. The Missouri Rural Crisis Center was represented, as were the National Family Farm Coalition, Organic Seed Alliance, and the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association. Seed companies in attendance included Burrus Seed Farms, Arenzville, IL; Niemeyer’s RTN, Bowling Green, MO; and Monsanto.

The rest of the article is after the jump.

"Another well-known Mid-South brand will soon disappear into the new world of corporate mergers. Delta and Pine Land’s Deltapine soybean varieties are being transitioned to Monsanto’s Asgrow soybean brand," writes the Delta Farm Press today.

That's funny. Farmers use the same word when they talk about their seed options these days. My choices seem to have "disappeared," they say.

This announcement today is no surprise, of course, since we know Monsanto's acquisition of Delta & Pine Land last year means Delta & Pine's extensive breeding program and germplasm library are now owned by Monsanto. But what's bound to happen is that Monsanto will maintain a monopoly position by eliminating Delta & Pine from entering into partnerships with other seed companies to develop new traits and share genetic resources. Any research efforts between companies it doesn't own is foreclosed. Meaning, important traits useful to research and farmers may never be developed. Of course not. That's more competition, says Monsanto. That's also one more strike against farmers.

The following letter is a response to a Star-Tribune editorial entitled  Wyo should repeal its below-cost law, published on July 15, 2008.

"A monopoly is the economic equivalent of a dictatorship. Competition is the economic equivalent of an election."

Repealing Wyoming’s below-cost law would be a shortsighted action, characterized by short-term benefit and long-term harm. This law prevents large multi-outlet businesses from selling below cost in a given locality long enough to put the competition out of business, then raising their prices above original levels while they sell below cost in another city, and repeat the process. In short, it is an antitrust law.

The example the Star-Tribune used of the repeal of a below-cost law in Wisconsin doesn’t present the whole picture. There was no damage to businesses due to the repeal of that law. Wisconsin has one of the nation’s most stringent sets of state antitrust statutes. Wyoming has nothing. In Wisconsin, if a business sells below cost in order to put the competition out of business in one area, while living off the income from stores in other locations, that business will run afoul of Wisconsin’s antitrust laws. In Wyoming, it would not.

Antitrust laws are the economic equivalent of the rules in an athletic contest. They are necessary in order to keep big businesses from “clipping” or “facemasking” the competition. Well-executed antitrust laws create a level playing field. Letting the big boys make the rules as they go destroys it.

The lame duck U.S. Trade Representative made this offer.  It's almost comical.  Doha has repeated been pronounced dead, but we keep hearing about it.  The wacko free traders cycling between think tanks and government keep transfusing new blood into the cadaver.

Congress passed the Farm Bill over Bush's veto this summer.  Susan Schwab did not vote.  The Office of the USTR thankfully has no jurisdiction over the farm bill, or we would not have a national farm policy.

Whether you like it or not, in this era of globalization, a fundamental imperative is for countries to preserve and increase their national industrial and national farm policies.  The multinationals hate national policies.  Democratic societies need to maintain their rights to create and implement stupid or smart policies to govern themselves.

In a recent interview, Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, talks about agribusinesses’ record profits in the face of a global food crisis. She highlights the race for companies like Monsanto to buy up patents on “climate ready” genetics. Just like its Roundup Ready technology is "ready" for Roundup, these plants would be “ready” for challenging conditions that result from a warming planet. Only, as Klein points out, the privatization of these genetics will likely lead to seed technologies that are expensive and hard to access. Klein says:

So if they really are developing seeds that are climate ready and they’re also patenting them and buying them up, then really what we’re seeing is not a future of feeding the world, but once again a future of a kind of climate apartheid, where it becomes less accessible and more expensive to have the crops that will grow in this future.

The interview continues after the jump.

Monsanto needs to do its homework. Just ask David Brumback, a fourth generation farmer tied up in Monsanto’s investigation of the Pilot Grove Cooperative, who says investigators showed up on his farm in a Ford Expedition looking for his father last December. Only, his father died more than 10 years ago. “My dad wasn’t even here to see me harvest our first crop of Roundup Ready beans – that was in 1997,” Brumback explains.

But getting the facts straight doesn't appear to be Monsanto's priority. Troy Roush, an Indiana farmer who spoke at OCM’s “Taking It Back” event last Saturday in Missouri, spent $400,000 defending his family from frivolous litigation. Monsanto’s proof? The company was pursuing its case based on erroneous research of Roush’s fields. Fields it claimed were sown to its patented soybeans were in fact planted to popcorn.

Brumback calls himself a loyal Monsanto customer and is offended by Monsanto’s approach to this investigation. He says he’s never planted saved seed, yet he’ll no doubt spend a great deal of time and money defending this position.

Apparently, Monsanto’s private investigators have tried to serve papers to 10 other people in Pilot Grove who are deceased. I’m sure the company thinks it can pass the red-face test on this one, too.