‘Boy, they’re not gonna take the trees out easily,’ the farmer has said

How can you order a farmer to destroy their trees? I hope he fights in a higher court. Wish I’d heard about the nectarine giveaway. I’d have gone to pick some.

  • DisasterTransport@startrek.website
    21·
    2 hours ago

    Company’s that own a patent can release spores causing cross contamination, then sue a farmer at harvest for their crop containing copyrighted genes.

    No they cannot. This little bit of common knowledge is bullshit on several levels.

    1. nitpicky, but plants reproduce by pollen and seeds, not by spores. okay, since i’m being nitpicky potatoes and sugarcane don’t reproduce with seeds. potatoes are tubers and sugarcane uses cuttings. some plants reproduce with rhizomes but we usually don’t eat those. point is spores are for mushrooms and ferns and whatnot.
    2. the big seed producers pledge not to sue for trace contamination
    3. monsanto was preemptively sued by farmers in 2013 because the farmers were afraid of the windblown lawsuits and wanted to get monsanto’s patents on genetics struck down. court said no, because Monsanto could not be sued over a threat that did not exist. That is, Monsanto had never actually sued anyone for windblown genetics. But given the above point the court also said monsanto is legally not allowed to sue for windblown genetics. because they promised not to.
    4. copyright and patent law are two different things. seeds and their genetics are covered under patents. that’s either better, worse, or sideways depending on your perspective but it is different.

    big ag is evil and they fuck farmers over constantly but you don’t have to bullshit to make them look bad