Home › News & Media › Center Newsletter

Corporate Farming Notes-Courts Favor Monsanto

On January 15, Judge E. Richard Webber, U.S. District Court of Saint Louis, ruled that a 2002 licensing agreement prohibits DuPont from creating a new line of seeds in which its own glyphosate-tolerant genetic trait is stacked with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready trait.

Monsanto heralded the ruling as a vindication of their arguments in the case. DuPont vowed to continue pressing their antitrust and patent fraud litigation against Monsanto. In early January the U.S. Department of Justice announced they were also opening a formal investigation of Monsanto for potential antitrust violations related to their biotech soybean business.

Also on January 15, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Monsanto’s petition for review of a 2007 federal district court order preventing planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa until the completion of an environmental impact statement (EIS) by USDA. Monsanto previously lost their appeal on this issue to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service completed a draft EIS in December, and public comments on the draft EIS will be accepted through February 16. Email johnc@cfra.org for information about submitting draft EIS comments.

On January 5, the American Meat Institute (AMI), lobbying arm of the meatpacking industry, sent a letter to the Department of Justice and USDA regarding the upcoming Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Workshops. AMI’s belief that antitrust laws and the Packers and Stockyards Act are irrelevant – in their eyes – is even less audacious than their recommended list of categories from which workshop panelists should be chosen.

They list packers (of course), antitrust attorneys, bankers and economists, and offer some of the industry’s favorite talking heads from each category. In case you missed it, farmers and ranchers are missing from their list. It would be almost comical absent USDA’s long history of giving too much credence to AMI and their ilk.

So here are my suggestions – farmers, ranchers, family farm and ranch organizations, bankers, antitrust attorneys and economists (but only one per panel, including good ones the packers don’t like). I leave it to you to figure out who I left off my list.

Agree or disagree? Send your comments to John Crabtree, johnc@cfra.org or call 402.687.2103 x 1010 or post your comment below.

Comments

Forget Hope

Fri, 02/12/2010 - 06:45 — Gloria Picchetti (not verified)
Our rights as US citizens have been bought our by the Supreme Court decision that corporations can contribute as much money as they want to elections. Being a citizen of the US means nothing. From now one the courts are going to decide for corporations every time.
»

Forget Hope

Fri, 02/12/2010 - 08:29 — Mike Shrewsberry (not verified)
So, unlimited corporate donations have become a deadly threat to our republic, while the free reign given unions, ACORN (and other organizations of that ilk) and 527 propaganda outlets (i.e. Move On.org et al) are not? WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO KID?!? The only true campaign finance reform that stands any hope of success in the real world is to allow unlimited donation with full disclosure. If your vote on any issue is swayed by campaign advertising, then your grasp of the situation is superficial at best. Besides, we the people do hold the ultimate weapon against any political or special interest advertising - the TV remote. I've used it for over twenty years, and it works every time.
»

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters (without spaces) shown in the image.