Genetically Modified Seed Giant DuPont to Unleash Seed Police
Published on Friday, November 30, 2012 by Common Dreams
Genetically Modified Seed Giant DuPont to Unleash Seed Police
DuPont will use seed security firm to monitor if farmers have saved Roundup Ready soybeans
- Common Dreams staff
Agricultural behemoth and genetically modified seed maker Dupont is preparing to send out former police officers as "soybean police" to enforce its seed patents.
As Monsanto has done in the past, DuPont will be looking for evidence that farmers have saved and replanted its Roundup Ready soybean seeds, a practice that violates that company's contract.
Bloomberg reports that Dupont has hired Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Agro Protection International to do the policing, a company which conducts farm visits to determine "appropriate usage" of seeds and to create deterrence of illegally using their client's products, the company explains.
Critics see the move as more evidence of corporate control over agriculture.
"Farmers are never going to get cheap access to these genetically engineered varieties," Bloomberg quotes Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, as saying. "The biotech industry has trumped the legitimate economic interests of the farmer again by raising the ante on intellectual property."
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/30-7
