On 2015-12-28 6:23 PM, graham wrote:

>> He may not have fallen off the turnip truck on the way to town, but
>> there is a problem there. Farmers have traditionally sustained their
>> operations by keeping a portion of each year's produce to plant for the
>> next year. The stuff was growing on his land. Perhaps he should have
>> gone after Monsanto for marketing a product that contaminated his land.
>>
> I followed the court case at the time and it was plain to me that he was
> telling a real, long-nosed story. There's no way, IMO, that it happened
> the way he spun it. If a farmer under contract to Monsanto saves some
> seed and plants it the next year without renewing the permit, Monsanto,
> whatever we might think of it, has every right to go after that
> miscreant as the farmer is abusing the patent.

I don't know how closely you followed the case if you are talking about
a farmer under contract to Monsanto. Schmeiser was not under contract to
Monsanto. He was developing his one strain of canola. His defense was
that he did not plant the Monsanto product and that it had contaminated
his field.


> Farmers like to write their own rules and laws. I know of one who
> *contracted* to sell his crop to a particular agent. When the agent sent
> a truck to pick it up, the farmer had sold it to someone else, thinking
> he was in the right to do so.

Farmers are funny that way. We had a wheat marketing board that was
given a monopoly for buying and selling wheat and barley. It was a
pretty good deal for the farmers because it paid them market price for
their grain, stored it and then sold it for them. It was great for the
farmers when there was no market for their product. Then when the market
was hot some of the farmers thought they could sell their grain
elsewhere for more. It was like wanting to buy crop insurance after a
disaster, or getting car insurance after an accident.