Farmers against big corps. The revolution starts from your backyard!
Would you believe us if we told you that it is possible to patent a tomato? You would certainly say something along the lines of “I am sure mother Nature would have prior art on that..”. Well believe it or not big corps are placing lots of patents on food and using those to lawsuit farmers and small producers.
While you are reading this article in fact, a patent on broccolis and tomatoesis under scrutiny at the European patent office. Shocked? Well, already in 2002 Plant Bioscience Ltd. (PBL), a UK based company, was granted a patent by the European Patent Office (EPO) for a method they used to identify the anti-carcinogenic properties of broccoli. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?
The patent enabled the company not only to select and grow only plants with a high concentration of this property but it also give them some rights on the plants selected and produced by their method, not just the process. Essentially they had a patent on broccoli.
This is opening the road to a dangerous scenario, something that is yet unknown in Europe, but that American Farmers are already fighting against. Over the past 20 years or so, one specific corporation has in fact achieved a monopoly on some of the most important seed markets in the States and is trying to do the same in Europe.
If this was not enough the same company has pushed genetically modified food crops. These same crops are now contaminating non GM crops, allowing the same company to abusively place lawsuits against small producers and independent farmers.
The name of this giant corporation is Monsanto, and just to make an example, approximately 95% of all soybeans and 80% of all corn produced in the States grow from seeds genetically altered according to Monsanto company patents.
This is why family farmers are taking part, on January 31st, on a court case filed to protect farmers from genetic trespass by Monsanto’s GMO seed.
Monsanto’s monopoly on seeds and crops has grown so much in the last 20 years that they are now controlling through patents about 90% of all most common crops, forcing often farmers to stop growing certain crops to avoid genetic contamination and hence potential lawsuits.
144 lawsuits have already been filled by Monsanto in the last 15 years, and another 700 have been settled outside of court for undisclosed amounts. Farmers are driven into bankruptcy and the biodiversity of our crops is destroyed.
Find out more about this issue here:
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