truthout
Farmers like genetically modified (GM) crops because they can plant them, spray them with herbicide and then there is very little maintenance until harvest. Farmers who plant Monsanto’s GM crops probably don’t realize what they bargain for when they sign the Monsanto Technology Stewardship Agreement contract. One farmer reportedly ‘went crazy’ when he discovered the scope of the contract because it transfers ALL liability to the farmer or grower.
Found by Cinàedh.
The EULAs are becoming our rulers.
Government agents are defending corporate properties but not the property every individual has in his freedom.
If you’re dumb enough to sign a contract with Monsanto, you’re definitely dumb enough to lose your farm.
“If you’re dumb enough to sign a contract with Monsanto, you’re definitely dumb enough to lose your farm.”
In theory I would agree. Unfortunately the reality is that most farmers find themselves dependent on government subsidies. In order to qualify for most large subsidies you you are forced to enter into a contract with Monsanto or their subsidiaries.
;Any thoughts?
“Any thoughts”
Outside of the facts that Monsanto has been using contracts like this for decades – and farmers who haven’t learned this are dumber than a hoe handle?
No. Not really.
Wow! If you ever wanted absolute proof nothing could ever go wrong these GM seeds and crops, this Monsanto Technology Stewardship Agreement contract should certainly reassure you and totally calm all of your vague fears about experimental Frankenfoods.
Nuts. Truth is, any good company would limit any potential for punitive damages whenever they can. Read a car rental agreement sometime.
These “frankenfoods” are no different then any other naturally occuring variation. This man would have you believe even natural variations like Golden Delicious Apples were an act of the devil.
Obviously he’s crazy and a prone to believe in conspiracys or he’s more into selling tickets to his movie.
A piece of paper
Does not change the equities
of who pays lawsuits.
Eat the farmers and then we will all starve.
#6 BS Shill
“These “frankenfoods” are no different then(sic) any other naturally occuring(sic) variation.”
OK, now that’s just a flat-out lie.
It’s one thing to mate two different types of apple to get a variation on an apple. It’s something else again to splice the gene from an octopus into an apple to get a chewier apple.
Wow! If you can’t tell the difference, you need to go back to kindergarten and start your education all over again.
All these years I’ve been using octopus repellent, when I should have let the little fuckers hump the trees. Damn.
#10 Olo Baggins of Bywater
“All these years I’ve been using octopus repellent, when I should have let the little fuckers hump the trees. Damn.”
If I could be convinced octopi fucked apple trees, I would immediately withdraw my objection to Frankenfoods.
Well, at least the octopi variety of apple Frankenfood, anyway.
Metis–do you have anything more concrete than “vague fears” about frankenfoods? Is it only a fear, a free floating fear of the unknown, or is there anything at all to back up your objections?
The video has changed to a sign in for Comcast.
Comcast = Crooks.
I signed up for the $119.99 package for Triple Play services that included a $100 Credit. Now a few months later I find out Comcast thinks you only get the $100 Credit if you sign up for this package ON THE INTERNET. Calling them on the phone saying you want the package is not enough.
Comcast is also throwing in an additional $5 per month for modem rental above the rates shown and like the credit, their ads do not reveal this additional hidden charge at all. Comcasts excuse for this one is that all the other providers do this as well. You know–when you deal with the Italian Mafia, you are bound by what all the other crime families do too.
Freedom is one thing. Getting screwed by overcharging companies who are cock sure they have you by the balls and you can’t do anything about it, is another wrinkle.
Why tell the truth, when you can lie and think yourself clever?
bobbo,
The biggest issue with frankenfoods is that companies develop the products with a mind to profit, not safety. Hybrids are created using natural mechanisms that result in different products, but the mechanisms are by nature methodical and relatively self-regulating. Artificial gene manipulation can result in something that could never have been bred, bypassing natural mechanisms that would have rendered a chimera non-viable in a natural settting. That gene from a fish may make the tomato less frost-susceptible, but do we really know how it metabolizes in the gut? Do we know that if that gene jumps whether or not we could wind up with superweeds?
Monsanto is evil, period. Not only do they focus on trapping the farmer into using their products with proprietary technology(They sue farmers for wind-pollinated stray Monsanto product found in their fields, too.), they wanted to even make seeds that WOULD NOT GERMINATE unless you used their chemicals on it.
Under Monsanto, farmers can’t even use the leftover grain as seed in the next growing season. What kind off*cked-up shit is that?
Bobbo, you are not required to rent the modem. The conditions of the special offers does say you have to sign up online. I didn’t sign up for one with a rebate, but I was able to get the special offer when I went in person to their service center, and avoided the $10 fee for them to mail me a self-install kit.
Lawyers have been suing the big corporations for everything, occasionally winning, so of course companies will put in this sort of waiver.
#14–SmartAlix==I agree gene splicing has an element of risk associated with it–not getting specific about “what kinds” of risk but your analysis conflates the BUSINESS PRACTICES of Monsanto with the technology. You have to parse those out to have credibility on whatever you think the remaining issues are. For instance, a horrible gene mutation may cause havoc for the reproducibility of the patented product and have nothing but positive effects for its nutritional value, storage life, etc. and vice verse. The issues are separate.
#15–Mike==I’m half way there on the modem as long as we all agree there is no reason for an experienced marketer to tell the consumers what the marketer knows the consumer wants to know.
but not true on the website offer saying it is only valid if you sign up on line. Having dealt with Comcasst before, I made a copy of the website for future reference. That language appears no where.
So, fine. Assume a completely adversarial relationship with your customers===and thats exactly what you will get.
If this goes to court this contract might be ruled abusive and it wouldn’t hold up.
#19–Paul==why do you think it is abusive? Don’t gun manufacturers have the same relationship and they don’t even have to have a contract?
but I agree. If our courts dealt with justice, they on their own motion would hold such contracts null and void AS Monsanto created the product and sold it. Nuff said.
Monsanto owns Republicans so it must be a wholesome corporation.
Similar rulings have effectively blocked a lot of GM seeds in europe.
Some GM seed escaped from a ‘test’ and contaminated an organic farm nearby – the judge ruled that this was an industrial pollution spill – no different than if an oil company had spilled oil destroying the organic farm’s crop.
So the farms planting GM seed need to have insurance against any of it escaping – which since it is guaranteed to escape and contaminate other crops is impossible to get.
Bobbo,
The business drives the technology. The two are inseparable. Evil intentions creates evil tech, and Monsanto’s GM tech is designed specifically to maximize Monsanto profit at any cost, regardless of the impact on the farmer, the consumer, or the environment.
Bobbo, regarding web signup, you see it popup up when you click terms and conditions on the website.
You are of course right that the end price ends up much higher than what they say.
#22->Maybe that is what farmer’s sued for growing M grain by accident should do. Sue M for producing a product that is polluting their fields.
I wonder if that would hold up in court . . .
“The contamination of air, water, or soil by substances that are harmful to living organisms.”
Doesn’t their seeds kill off weeds and bugs and such?
#23–Smartalix==no.
inseparable: Not capable of being separated. /// Well, ok. Maybe YOU are not capable of separating the business practices from the product offered. Everyone else can though.
#24–Mike==I only copied the website page. did go back and looks at “terms and conditions” and did not see “You must sign up ON THE WEBSITE.” but indeed such a link/wording could be buried somewhere.
Doesn’t matter. The only issue is is it worth the $280 to file in smalls claims court? And just like most others, for me its not, so Comcasst “wins” as curses, like prayers, don’t work. Probably a good thing as the world circles the sewer known as Media Consolidation.
#26 bobbo
#23–Smartalix==no.
Actually #23-Smartalix=yes.
You’re just being a dick, bobbo. Can you really afford to be a dick when you’ve already admitted today you got outsmarted by Comcast, of all people!
Har!
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Metis==yes, I can and do separate my dickness from Comcassts Fraudulent advertising from their forced tier programing not wanted to get the programing I do want from their generally reliable broadband services.
Four times. None of them the same thing.
Easily separable.
#12 – it’s not so much the genes in the GM crops themselves that are a risk.
For example Monsanto make a wheat that is resistant to their Roundup pesticide, this allows you to use much higher dozes of the pesticide (which they also sell), this resistance transfers to the weeds, so next year you need to use even more pesticide and so on.
After a few years you are putting 10x as much pesticide onto the fields, and into the drinking water.
The genes in the GM crop are perfectly safe – put everything around the field is dead
This has already happened with unregulated use of roundup resistant wheat in S. America
Are you guys really claiming you never read a Eula before?
They all say the same thing. If you have a problem drop dead. If was your fault for buying our product and using it.