The Earth is flat, pigs were invented by Monsanto, and genetically modified organisms are safe. Right.
In the crop department, Monsanto is well on their way to
dictating what consumers will eat, what farmers will grow, and how
much Monsanto will get paid for seeds. In some cases those seeds
are designed
not to reproduce sowable offspring. In others, a flock of
lawyers stand ready to swoop down on farmers who illegally, or even
unknowingly, end up with Monsanto's private property growing in
their fields.
One way or another, Monsanto wants to make sure no food is grown
that they don't own -- and the record shows they don't care if it's
safe for the environment or not. Monsanto has aggressively set out
to bulldoze environmental concerns about its genetically engineered
(GE) seeds at every regulatory level.
So why stop in the field? Not content to own the pesticide and
the herbicide and the crop, they've made a move on the barnyard by
filing two patents which would make the corporate giant the sole
owner of that famous Monsanto invention: the pig.
The Monsanto Pig (Patent pending)
The patent applications were published in February 2005 at the
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva. A
Greenpeace researcher who monitors patent applications, Christoph
Then, uncovered the fact that Monsanto is seeking patents not only
on methods of breeding, but on actual breeding herds of pigs as
well as the offspring that result.
"If these patents are granted, Monsanto can legally prevent
breeders and farmers from breeding pigs whose characteristics are
described in the patent claims, or force them to pay royalties,"
says Then. "It's a first step toward the same kind of corporate
control of an animal line that Monsanto is aggressively pursuing
with various grain and vegetable lines."
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There are more than 160 countries and territories mentioned
where the patent is sought including Europe, the Russian
Federation, Asia (India, China, Philippines) America (USA, Brazil,
Mexico), Australia and New Zealand. WIPO itself can only receive
applications, not grant patents. The applications are forwarded to
regional patent offices.
The patents are based on simple procedures, but are incredibly
broad in their claims.
In one application (
WO 2005/015989 to be precise) Monsanto is describing very
general methods of crossbreeding and selection, using artificial
insemination and other breeding methods which are already in use.
The main "invention" is nothing more than a particular combination
of these elements designed to speed up the breeding cycle for
selected traits, in order to make the animals more commercially
profitable. (Monsanto chirps gleefully about lower fat content and
higher nutritional value. But we've looked and we couldn't find any
"Philanthropic altruism" line item in their annual reports, despite
the fact that it's an omnipresent factor in their advertising.)
According to Then, "I couldn't belive this. I've been reviewing
patents for 10 years and I had to read this three times. Monsanto
isn't just seeking a patent for the method, they are seeking a
patent on the actual pigs which are bred from this method. It's an
astoundingly broad and dangerous claim."
Good breeding always shows
Take patent application
WO 2005/017204. This refers to pigs in which a certain gene
sequence related to faster growth is detected. This is a variation
on a natural occurring sequence -- Monsanto didn't invent it.
It was first identified in mice and humans. Monsanto wants to
use the detection of this gene sequence to screen pig populations,
in order to find which animals are likely to produce more pork per
pound of feed. (And that will be Monsanto Brand genetically engineered feed grown
from Monsanto Brand
genetically engineered seed raised in fields sprayed with Monsanto Brand Roundup Ready
herbicide and doused with Monsanto
Brand pesticides, of course).
But again, Monsanto wants to own not just the selection and
breeding method, not just the information about the genetic
indicators, but, if you pardon the expression, the whole hog.
- Claim 16 asks for a patent on: "A pig offspring produced by a method ..."
- Claim 17 asks for a patent on: "A pig herd having an increased frequency of a
specific ...gene..."
- Claim 23 asks for a patent on: "A pig population produced by the method..."
- Claim 30 asks for a patent on: "A swine herd produced by a method..."
This means the pigs, their offspring, and the use of the genetic
information for breeding will be entirely owned by Monsanto, Inc.
and any replication or infringement of their patent by man or beast
will mean royalties or jail for the offending swine.
Not pig fodder
When it comes to profits, pigs are big. Monsanto notes that "The
economic impact of the industry in rural America is immense. Annual
farm sales typically exceed US$ 11 billion, while the retail value
of pork sold to consumers reaches US$ 38 billion each year."
At almost every level of food production, Monsanto is seeking a
monopoly position.
The company once earned its money almost exclusively through
agrochemicals. But in the last ten years they've spent about US$ 10
billion buying up seed producers and companies in other sectors of
the agricultural business. Their last big acquisition was Seminis,
the biggest producer of vegetable seeds in the world.
Monsanto holds extremely broad patents on seeds, most, but not
all of them, related to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
Monsanto has also claimed patent rights on such non-Monsanto
inventions as traditionally bred wheat from India and soy plants
from China. Many of these patents apply not only to the use of
seeds but all uses of the plants and harvest that result.
Orwellian: "The Earth is flat, pigs were invented by Monsanto, and GMOs are safe."
The big picture is chilling to anyone who mistrusts Monsanto's
record disinterest for environmental safety.
And if you're not worried, you should be: central control of
food supply has been a standard ingredient for social and political
control throughout history. By creating a monopoly position,
Monsanto can force dangerous experiments like the release of GMOs
into the environment on an unwilling public. They can ensure that
GMOs will be sold and consumed wherever they say they will.
By claiming global monopoly patent rights throughout the entire
food chain, Monsanto seeks to make farmers and food producers, and
ultimately consumers, entirely dependent and reliant on one single
corporate entity for a basic human need. It's the same dependence
that Russian peasants had on the Soviet Government following the
Russian revolution. The same dependence that French peasants had on
Feudal kings during the middle ages. But control of a significant
proportion of the global food supply by a single corporation would
be unprecedented in human history.
It's time to ensure that doesn't happen.
It's time for a global ban of patents on seeds and farm
animals.
It's time to tell Monsanto we've had enough of this hogwash.
Tell Monsanto to stop patenting life
Let Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant (no relation to the actor who plays a sleazy corporate executive in Bridget Jones' Diary) and the board of Monsanto know you don't want them patenting your food.
Help us stop patents on life
When you donate to Greenpeace, you keep researchers like Christoph at work as they keep an eye on corporations like Monsanto.