Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto to Protect against Contamination

[The Straight Story]

Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto to Protect against Contamination

A coalition of organic farming interests have sued Monsanto in what they say is a preventive measure to stop the corporation from unfairly litigating them over the spread of patented seeds.

Increasingly, genetically-modified seeds produced by Monsanto are coming into contact with organic crops, contaminating the latter. To make matters worse, the biotech giant has threatened to file lawsuits against organic farmers on grounds that the inadvertent mixing of seeds constitutes patent infringement.

“It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers,” Dan Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), told Huffington Post.

Representing family farms, seed businesses and organic growers associations that number 270,000 members, PUBPAT is the plaintiff in the lawsuit filed against Monsanto.

http://www.allgov.com/Controversies/ViewNews/Organic_Farmers_Sue_Monsanto_to_Protect_against_Contamination_110421

[Buzz Clik]

1. Is this different than the lawsuit filed earlier this month?

http://election.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x795473

[DCKit]

2. And (again, as usual) MonSatan will find a friendly judge to deny class-action...

and force the farmers to sue individually - too time-consuming and expensive for any farmer.

[hootinholler]

3. You've got peanut butter in my chocolate!

Not to be flip, but I hope they win against Monsanto.

-Hoot

[WatsonT]

4. We do need to come up with some laws regulating this

something that protects the rights of organic farmers without impeding large scale scientific farming.

Right now we're getting by on case law which is not ideal.

[Javaman]

5. Where do I donate to the farmers defense?

on edit: Found it.

He can help here...

Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association.

http://www.osgata.org/

[felix_numinous]

6. Kick!!

[Vidar]

7. Arm the farmers--heavily! Monsanto is a threat to the entire world.

[Lorien]

8. May the Organic farmers win and win big

I'm not betting on it, but one can still hope!