by BETTER FARMING STAFF
When Monsanto’s 20-year patent on Roundup Ready soybeans comes to an end this August, it will be a world first for a widespread plant biotechnology trait to go off patent, so the company is doing its best to explain the rules of this particular endgame to farmers.
The first lesson is that this year’s crop will be subject to patent rules.
Erin Romeo, intellectual property protection manager for Monsanto Canada, says that even though the patent expires in August 2011, farmers using the technology in 2011 will be doing so during the life of the patent. That means they can’t save seed.
They can buy Roundup Ready soybeans in 2012, when it is off patent, and save seed from that crop to plant in 2013.
“Focus on the date spring of 2013,” Romeo said. “The patent comes off in August 2011 but that is just the start of things. The important date for farmers and when they get to make choices is really spring 2013.”
Of course, if they are planting Monsanto’s newer version, Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans, they are covered by a different patent that is still in force and Monsanto will continue to do field tests to make sure everyone plays by the rules.
Monsanto announced today that it has launched a website to explain the protocols and timeline around the patent expiry.
More than 60 per cent of Canada’s soybean acreage uses the Roundup Ready technology, the company’s news release states. BF
Comments
And then the other shoe to drop... I'm told that no seed companies in Canada intend to sell RR soybean seed in 2012, so you won't be able to buy it to grow your seed from. They will only be selling RR2Y. Which is why (I'm told) no seed growers have been contracted to grow RR seed in 2011.
Comment deleted by editors
Let's say no companies sell the seed. The next year may be out, but if this seed turns up in the years 2013, 2014, 2015, etc. will they be legal? If not, this seems like a perpetual patent.
No. If you can't legally buy seed to grow in 2012, any seed grown after that will be deemed to have been saved illegally, unless some seed company breaks ranks and sells RR seed for growth in 2012.
It's not a perpetual patent per se, just recognition that they don't have to sell you the seed after the patent expires so you're out of luck
That's also why your seed dealer is going to be doing their best to make sure your unplanted seed in 2011 is returned to the company, as it's supposed to have been every year before (according to the TUA) but they never followed up on it before.
There are a handful of farmers in the U.S. who have managed to keep Monsanto soybean pollen from contaminating their soybeans crops. I would urge everyone to buy seeds from these people and loosen Monsanto's strangle hold on the soybean industry. As far as I'm concerned Monsanto should be paying damages to all the farmers whose crops were contaminated by the genetically modified roundup ready soybean pollen from the farm next door. Soybean should be on the endangered species list (of plants). It's a shame public domain seeds are not protected in the same manner patented seeds are.
Q: If two companies develop the same crop with a different genetic modification (and of course they each get patented)and their crops are planted next to each other, hence both crops get cross-pollinated, who sues who and why?
Post new comment