George Kimbrell and Debbie Barker: Monsanto seed claims should raise concern

On Tuesday, attorneys for the largest agrochemical corporation in the world, Monsanto, presented arguments before the Supreme Court asserting the company's rights to generations of seeds that naturally reproduce from its genetically modified strains.

Bowman v. Monsanto Co. will be decided based on the court's interpretation of a complex web of seed and plant patent law, but the case reflects something much more basic: Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?

The journey of a 75-year-old Indiana farmer to the highest court in the country began when Vernon Hugh Bowman purchased an undifferentiated mix of soybean seeds from a grain elevator, planted the seeds and then saved seed from the resulting harvest to plant another crop. Finding Bowman's crops were largely the progeny of its genetically engineered proprietary soybean seed, Monsanto sued for patent infringement.



This logic is troubling to many who point out it is the nature of seeds and all living things, whether patented or not, to replicate. Monsanto's claim that it has rights over a self-replicating natural product should raise concern.

Although Monsanto and other agrochemical companies assert they need the patent system to invent better seeds, the counterargument is that splicing an existing gene or other DNA into a plant and transferring a new trait to that plant is not a novel invention. A soybean, for example, has more than 46,000 genes. Properties of these genes are the product of centuries of plant breeding and should not, many argue, become the product of a corporation. Instead, these genes should remain in the public domain.

The seed industry claims that if patents are made narrower in scope, innovation, such as devising environmentally sustainable ways to farm, would be stifled. But evidence casts doubt on the prevalent assumption that positive environmental impacts have resulted from their seed technologies.


In response, farmers resort to more soil-eroding tillage operations to combat the weeds, and they turn to more toxic chemicals. Based on data from the USDA, as much as 26 percent more pesticides per acre were used on genetically engineered crops than on conventional crops.


Finally, the agrochemical industry claims that its seed innovation has provided farmers more choices. Yet the market concentration of 10 agrochemical companies owning about two-thirds of global commercial seed for major crops has narrowed the choice of seeds for farmers and resulted in higher seed prices. In an 11-year period, the cost per acre of planting soybeans has risen 325 percent.

Our organizations interviewed hundreds of farmers across the nation for a recent report, "Seed Giants v. U.S. Farmers." They explained the high-adoption rate of genetically engineered seed is largely because the companies have stopped offering conventional seed. One way to recoup the high investment that Monsanto and others say is spent on genetic engineering is to ensure farmers have few other purchasing options.

When arguments from both sides have been presented, the Supreme Court justices will have to thoroughly consider the complexities of patent law as it pertains to self-replicating organisms. But taking a few steps back from the microscope and the law books, they may find there is a discussion to be had about a much deeper question: the appropriate role of ownership and control over the very elements of life.

George Kimbrell is the senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety and Debbie Barker is the program director of Save Our Seeds and the international director of the Center for Food Safety

They wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

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