Monsanto update: Farmers fear Roundup Ready seed will be gone before the patent is

In the last two months we've reported about allegations of monopolostic practices by seed giant Monsanto (here, here and here). Now National Public Radio has posted an in-depth examination of farmers' concerns.

Monsanto is beginning to promote its new Roundup Ready 2 Yield seeds, in advance of the 2014 patent expiration on the original Roundup Ready seeds, Frank Morris reports. Roundup Ready 2 uses the same gene as the original, but places it in a different spot on the genome, a move that Monsanto says will increase yields. Monsanto is putting the new trait in all its best soybeans, and some competitors like Paul Schickler, president of Pioneer, the seed subsidiary of the DuPont chemical company, say Monsanto moving to eliminate the original Roundup Ready trait from the market by forcing its licensees to do the same. After Monsanto's original patent expires in 2014, other companies could create generic forms of the seed trait, which would eliminate a half-billion dollar annual Monsanto revenue stream from royalties, Morris reports.

Farmers are prohibited from saving Roundup Ready seeds and replanting them the following year. After Monsanto's patent expires this restriction would be lifted. "I don't care how good Roundup Ready 2 is; if you tell me I can save back my own seed, I'm going to plant my own seed," Luke Ulrich, a Kansas corn and soybean farmer, told Morris. The problem for Ulrich and other farmers like him, Morris writes, may be that the Roundup Ready 2 gene could have pushed the original out of stores by then. (Read more)