Confidential contracts detailing *onsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors...
patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the X.X....
the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with *onsanto's patented genes...
For example, one contract provision bans independent companies from breeding plants that contain both *onsanto's genes and the genes of any of its competitors, unless *onsanto gives prior written permission...
"We now believe that *onsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable,"...
One contract provision likely helped Monsanto buy 24 independent seed companies throughout the Farm Belt over the last few years: that corn seed agreement says that...
... if a smaller company changes ownership, its inventory with *onsanto's traits "shall be destroyed immediately."...
...
....
...includes provisions in all its contracts that allow companies to sell out their inventory if ownership changes, rather than ...force... the firms... to destroy the inventory immediately....
One contract gave an independent seed company deep discounts if the company ensured that *onsanto's products would make up ...
70 percent of its total corn seed inventory....
The restrictions even apply to *axpayer-funded researchers....
...a research professor at the University of ...is developing specialized strains of soybeans that grow well in ..., but his current research is tangled up in such restrictions from *onsanto and its competitors.
"I think the co-mingling of their trait technology...
with another company's trait technology...
would likely be a serious problem for them," he said....
...provision requiring companies to destroy seeds containing ...'s traits...
... if a competitor buys them...
or other big firms from bidding against ... when it snapped up two dozen smaller seed companies over the last five years...
"If the independent seed company is losing their license and has to destroy their seeds, they're not going to have anything, in effect, to sell,"
"It requires them to destroy things - destroy things they paid for - if they go competitive...
That's exactly the kind of restriction on competitive choice that the antitrust laws outlaw."...
Dec 14,2009
*onsanto seed biz role revealed
By C. LEONARD
patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the X.X....
the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with *onsanto's patented genes...
For example, one contract provision bans independent companies from breeding plants that contain both *onsanto's genes and the genes of any of its competitors, unless *onsanto gives prior written permission...
"We now believe that *onsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable,"...
One contract provision likely helped Monsanto buy 24 independent seed companies throughout the Farm Belt over the last few years: that corn seed agreement says that...
... if a smaller company changes ownership, its inventory with *onsanto's traits "shall be destroyed immediately."...
..........includes provisions in all its contracts that allow companies to sell out their inventory if ownership changes, rather than ...force... the firms... to destroy the inventory immediately....
One contract gave an independent seed company deep discounts if the company ensured that *onsanto's products would make up ...
70 percent of its total corn seed inventory....
The restrictions even apply to *axpayer-funded researchers....
...a research professor at the University of ...is developing specialized strains of soybeans that grow well in ..., but his current research is tangled up in such restrictions from *onsanto and its competitors.
"I think the co-mingling of their trait technology...
with another company's trait technology...
would likely be a serious problem for them," he said....
...provision requiring companies to destroy seeds containing ...'s traits...
... if a competitor buys them...
or other big firms from bidding against ... when it snapped up two dozen smaller seed companies over the last five years...
"If the independent seed company is losing their license and has to destroy their seeds, they're not going to have anything, in effect, to sell,"
"It requires them to destroy things - destroy things they paid for - if they go competitive...
That's exactly the kind of restriction on competitive choice that the antitrust laws outlaw."
...Dec 14,2009
*onsanto seed biz role revealed
By C. LEONARD
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