Blkdirt Farmer
Banned
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2017
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- Conservative
There's a big money factor -- to be sure. Monsanto sued a farmer in my county for unauthorized planting of GMO corn. The farmer counter-sued and it settled out of court. Someone tested the farmer's corn the year AFTER he planted GMO seeds. That year he planted non-altered seed but whoever tested that crop found genetically altered corn. The farmer was accused of "saving seed," which is not allowed. However, he was able to show his receipts for purchasing non-altered seed and he also had independent tests that determined not ALL of the corn was genetically altered.
From what I understand, they think a number of the seeds from the previous year's crop were already in the ground, which resulted in some of the corn testing as altered. They settled out of court so I don't know what the dollar figure was, but the talk is that Monsanto had to pay the farmer's legal fees and testing fees.
Monsanto has been very aggressive prosecuting farmers for replanting seeds...The truth is the seeds in a bag of non GMO corn can have lots of GMO contamination. I have seen a non GMO field of corn get sprayed accidently with Roundup, and nearly half of the corn survived. This proves that GMO corn makes it difficult to keep traits out of non GMO varieties, but I have yet to see Monsanto taken to court over that..
Pollen drift is a huge issue as well. Non GMO corn can produce GMO grain if pollinated by the neighbors crop.. And that pollen can travel up to several miles in the right conditions.
We have lost large export markets because of this type of contamination, and no one has ever been successful in suing Monsanto or anyone else, for the contamination..
GMO may have a place in the developing world, but caution, extreme caution needs to be exercised. Not only that, but I don't see third world nations being able to afford the royalties demanded by the seed companies.