What’s in a Monsanto Contract?

What's in a Monsanto Contract? via thefarmerslife.comI’m a family farmer, and I have signed a Monsanto contract.  I’m the 4th generation to work this land.  Somewhere along the line the idea corporations control farms or farmers are slaves to “Big Ag” came about.  People claim that we are beholden to corporations like Monsanto and have to sign unfair contracts to be privileged enough to use their seed.  They’ll also claim that the contracts rope us into buying other inputs like insecticides and herbicides from the same company.  We get a lot of our seed from agribusinesses like the “evil” Monsanto so I’d like to other you my thoughts on this issue.

Farmer Perspective

The Farm Aid website poses the question “What do GMOs mean for family farmers and our food?” and goes on to say:

Corporate Control. Farmers who buy GE seeds must sign contracts that dictate how their crop is grown – including what chemicals to buy – and forbid them from saving seeds. This has given corporations incredible control over the production of major staple crops in America.

Let’s examine this corporate control a little further and look at it from the family farm level.  My farm in particular.  When we buy Monsanto’s GMO seeds we sign a Technology/Stewardship Agreement.  Section 4 of the 2011 agreement I have on file covers everything the grower must agree to when purchasing these products.  Here’s a quick rundown of the requirements.

  • If we buy or lease land that is already seeded with Monsanto technology that year we need to abide by the contract.  Makes sense to me.  If I end up leasing ground in crop for some reason, I should honor the agreements it was planted with.  This would be a very odd thing too happen by the way.
  • Read and follow the Technology Use Guide and Insect Resistance Management/Grower Guide.  So Monsanto has ideas on how best to use their product.  Some of it is required by the EPA to make sure farmers like me understand how to steward the technology.   No big surprise there. Not to mention if you read the guides you’ll find a ton of good agronomic information. Monsanto and the other companies we purchase seed from send an IPM guide in the mail each year.
  • Implement an Insect Resistance Management program.  Shocking! Monsanto thinks controlling pests responsibly is a good idea, and if you farm insects are something you deal with regardless of what production method you use or crop you plant. This is important when growing a crop like Bt corn which we do raise on our farm.
  • We should only buy seed from a dealer or seed company licensed by Monsanto.  I’d want to do that anyway.  It’s for my own good.  Would you buy a brand new home entertainment system out of the back of some guy’s van parked in an alley?  Me neither. I rely on my seed dealers not just for the exchange of money for seed, but for the continued service year after year. They can help us both financially and agronomically. My seed dealers are part of a network of people from our John Deere dealer to our banker that help propel our business forward.
  • We agree to use seed with Monsanto patented technology solely for planting a single commercial crop. And don’t sell any to your neighbor either it says.  That’s right, we can’t save seed to grow the next year, and frankly I’m not interested in doing that.  For the critics who are not sold on GMO crops anyway do they really want farmers holding onto this seed and planting it without any kind of paper trail? Soybeans are a different story, but hybrid corn won’t produce the same seeds you planted anyway. And the modern planting equipment we use is happiest and most accurate when seed is very clean and sorted by size and shape. To maintain our planter’s performance I would need to get equipment to handle the cleaning, sizing, and sorting. Next time you get a chance look at a dried ear of corn. There are several sizes and shapes of kernels on one ear.

  • If you want to plant seed to be used as seed you need to sign an agreement to do so with a seed company licensed by Monsanto.  We do this for two different companies with soybeans.  In fact we’ve actually worked with one company through several name changes long before GMO showed up. Back to when I was just a little kid  Why?  Because we can get a premium price for the soybeans we grow that will be used as seed by other farmers next year.  The premium accounts for the extra effort we put in to make sure our planting, harvesting, and storage equipment is extra clean to provide a pure product to the customer.
  • We can’t grow seed to be used for breeding, research, or generation of herbicide registration data.  That gets back to saving seed.  If we wanted to breed our own varieties I’m sure we could get into doing that, but I look at it right now as division of labor.  Seed companies are great at coming up with great products, and farmers are great at turning those products into a bounty of food, feed, fuel, and fiber.
  • Our farm has agreed to only export and plant these crops in countries that allow them.  OK that’s kind of a no brainer.  Not to mention we aren’t the ones exporting anything. However, this can be a tricky thing for seed companies gaining approval in various countries. Farmers need to know they don’t have to worry about their seed being accepted at the local elevator or grain terminal. China is known for playing some political games in this arena, and the recent acquisition of Syngenta by a Chinese company will be an interesting case to follow considering what played out with Sygenta’s Viptera corn a couple years ago.
  • Here’s the part where some people think family farmers become slaves to the corporations.  The part where GMO seeds force us to buy our chemicals from the same company.  But if you’ve got a Technology/Stewardship Agreement handy you’ll find that’s not true.  If I plant Roundup® Ready (RR) crops Monsanto would sure like me to use Roundup® herbicide on them, but I don’t have to.  The agreement says that for RR crops that I should only use Roundup® herbicide…………………OR another authorized herbicide which could not be used in the absence of the RR gene.  When I worked off the farm I sold a lot of generic brand glyphosate.  It’s just like buying your grocer’s private label brand of cough medicine instead of the name brand.  The only catch is if you have a problem you need to talk with the company who provided the herbicide.  If we spray Brand X and it doesn’t work it won’t do any good to go crying to Monsanto.  That sounds like pretty standard business practice to me.  Furthermore, I don’t even have to use glyphosate on my glyphosate tolerant crops.  This year we will have waxy corn from Pioneer and waxy from a local dealer who sells Monsanto products.  The latter will be RR, but the Pioneer variety won’t.  We will likely plant them in the same field side by side to see which one performs better.  If we spray glyphosate on those acres all the Pioneer corn will die!  Instead we will control weeds with a herbicide that all corn resists naturally. Actually for quite a while now we haven’t sprayed glyphosate on any of our corn acres RR or not. We do use it during the growing season on soybeans, but choose to rotate to other herbicides when a field is in corn. This goes back to that resistant management practice. We don’t want resistant bugs or weeds.
  • We have to pay for the seed.  Ridiculous isn’t it? Paying for something that gives value in return? Not really out of line is it?
  • We may have to provide documents supporting that we are following the agreement within 7 days after getting a request from Monsanto.  I’m not worried about that if I’m following the agreement anyway.  We’ve never received a request.
  • If Monsanto asks to do so they can inspect our land, storage bins, wagons, etc. Again I’m not worried.
  • And finally we agree to allow Monsanto to obtain our internet service provider records to validate an electronic signature.  If anything on this list is questionable it’s this one.  I’m just not sure electronic signatures are the way to go personally, but it’s becoming more common.  Even for the President.

The Monsanto Contract

If you want to see the exact wording of the contract, click to view a PDF of my 2011 Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement or enlarge the pictures below.

So there you have it.  That’s what we have to agree to in order to make use of Monsanto’s biotechnology on our farm.  I don’t see anything in there that hurts my farm.  Neither does Iowa farmer Dave Walton.  I don’t have to buy their herbicides, and I don’t have to buy anything from them next year if I don’t want to.  The biggest problem I have with seed companies is that it seems like they phase out a variety from time to time that is a really strong performer on our farm.  I understand the concern organic farms have with GMO crops in close proximity to their own.  Those farmers have worked hard and shown patience in getting an organic certification, and they don’t want to start over again.  Even though we don’t have any neighbors farming organically, it’s important that we are careful when making field applications.  We hope our neighbors do the same because our waxy corn generally isn’t RR and our popcorn definitely is not.  You could also have drift from any corn field do damage to soybeans next door, so even guys like me are sympathetic to the practices of other farms. We’ve had corn on the border a field hurt or killed by someone assuming our crop is RR just like theirs. We also have neighbors with a habit of texting me before they spray.

Pioneer Technology Use Agreement via thefarmerslife.com

Pioneer sends a similar package each year including the agreement and a product use guide.

Another thing Farm Aid hits on is patents. They say GMO crops are patented and that’s restrictive. Well guess what. Conventional seeds can have patents too as evidenced by the patent info on the seed tags of the wheat we buy. Ornamental plants can have patents. Organic crops can have patents! The idea that only biotech seeds are patented is a misnomer. And patents expire. Arkansas has a public variety of a RR soybean now. Farm Aid also claims Monsanto has “famously sued thousands of individual farmers.” Really? I thought it was only 147 in the last two decades since GMO crops hit the market?

So I’ve laid it all out for you. A lot of people are concerned about these contracts farmers sign. You’ve got my take as a family farmer written here in my own words, and you’ve got a copy of and actual tech agreement pulled from my file drawer. I hope I’ve provided enough info for you to draw your own conclusions. I’d be happy to discuss them in the comment section!

Related Posts

Are Farmers Forced by Big Ag and Monsanto to Plant Seeds?
Do Farmers Have Choice?
Visiting Monsanto

Updated: December 6, 2016 at 4:29 pm
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Comments

  1. Sir:

    Russ Parsons, a man whose intelligence and every other good characteristic he’s got is a man whose opinion I value, linked to this post from Facebook, where we are friends, I need to tell you just exactly where you lost me.

    I came in, and read your words. Every tenth thought was, “I hate Monsanto. HATE. I honestly regard them as THE most evil corporation on earth, and that is no exaggeration. He’s going to trip up and reveal the cancer at the heart of Monsanto, I just know it.”

    And still, I read, and the “ah-HA!” did not come. Not for paragraph after paragraph.

    And then, here it is. You wrote these words:

    QUOTE: “If I plant Roundup® Ready (RR) crops Monsanto would sure like me to use Roundup® herbicide on them, but I don’t have to. The agreement says that for RR crops that I should only use Roundup® herbicide…………………OR another authorized herbicide which could not be used in the absence of the RR gene.”

    I know Russ Parsons lives in California, as I do. And I am not forgetting for one second that the state of California (the California Environmental Protection Agency) has legally come down with the warning that Round-Up (more specifically, glyphosate, which is Monsanto’s invention) causes cancer. And equally bad, is responsible for the decline of the Monarch butterfly. (I care. Do you? Most farmers appreciate butterflies.)

    http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/09/05/california-epa-moves-to-label-monsantos-roundup-carcinogenic

    And then there is the entire WHO (World Health Organization) that says Round-Up causes cancer.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-20/who-classifies-monsanto-s-glyphosate-as-probably-carcinogenic-

    So no matter what you think you’ve said with this article, it did not have the intended effect. Monsanto remains at the top of the worst companies on earth. They truly want to pillage planet for a profit. The greatest part of this misfortune, to me, is a host of religious and illogical and under-educated host of zealots who don’t care about the earth because they actually believe the Rapture is coming and that they don’t need to take of the beautiful green Eden that the Lord God gave us. (That is the part of loving God I don’t get from those hypocrites. You love the Lord, and you willingly and willfully turn His creation into a toxic, festering, unbalanced mess.

    You lost me at Round-Up. Bad stuff. Very very bad stuff.

    1. Tana, your first link is leading to an article about the “notice of intent to list” glyphosate. Did you know that Aloe vera has also been added to the “intent to list” by the California EPA? With that being said, it is ONLY a “Notice of Intent to List”. It does not mean that glyphosate, or Aloe vera for that matter, has been listed or even will be listed under Proposition 65 with the OEHHA.

    3. Tana, WHO’s IARC said glyphosate was a probable carcinogen which is much different than a known carcinogen. This puts glyphosate in the same class as working night shifts. I think Nathanael Johnson’s post over a Grist does a good job explaining this. It’s called “So Roundup “probably” causes cancer. This means what, exactly?”

      Andrew Kniss runs a great blog on all things weed control. He has some good info on this topic too at Control Freaks.

      And here’s a good read from Genetic Literacy Project.

      And this YouTube video does a fine job of showing what the different IARC classifications mean. What Does Probably Causes Cancer Actually Mean?

    4. Tana, i wish you would read more about the good monsanto does. Gmo corn with Bt has reduced the use of pesticides sprayed and applied at planting by millions of pounds. The pesticides in many cases were very toxic and do not have the greatest environmental profiles, not to mention the crop loss that resulted from insects like corn borers and corn rootworm. This also has eliminated exposure to farmers and farm workers by eliminating significant pesticide use on corn. You probably have little knowledge of how corn was grown before and after monsanto technology was introduced in corn. Ask any corn farmer and i think you will find that most have benefitted greatly by this technology. I can tell you a similar story about glyphosate tolerant crops, and how this has reduced use of herbicides like atrazine that has shown up in groundwater in many areas.

    6. Tana you need to learn what “probably carcinogen” actually means in toxicological terms and what “confirmation bias” means in scientific terms.
      You may also want to consider the established carcinogens you expose yourself to every day.
      Here is a great analysis by a bunch of scientists:
      http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2016/03/03/jech-2015-207005.full
      To quote: “The IARC WG concluded that glyphosate is a ‘probable human carcinogen’, putting it into IARC category 2A due to *sufficient evidence* [their emphasis] of carcinogenicity in animals, *limited evidence* [their emphasis] of carcinogenicity in humans and *strong* [their emphasis] evidence for two carcinogenic mechanisms.”

      Right, so lets assume it IS carcinogenic to humans. You know what else is?
      Sunlight. Gasoline / Petroleum products. Airborne particulates. Charred food. Worse worse stuff by your own definition (i.e. if probably carcinogenic is baaad, then established carcinogens must be worse).

      So how do YOU cope with living above ground, filling-up your car / vehicle, changing your oil, cooking your food or breathing air anywhere other than Antarctica?

      You take appropriate precautions against exposure, right?
      Sunscreen. Hats. Don’t drink petrol. Wash your hands. Don’t breathe smoke or smog.

      And the same can be true of glyphosate. With proper precautions and responsible usage you won’t be exposed to it.

  2. I see that I have a garbled sentence. Next time I’ll compose in an editable form before I post—on any website. Apologies for the poor English usage—the first paragraph is so lame. Ack.

  3. You don’t need internet service provider records to validate an electronic signature. It is not necessary, Proper cryptology does not require it. So the reason given here is false, but their desire to know what you are doing online is very real.

  5. If you take Farm Aid’s statement, the one you highlighted that goes:

    “Farmers who buy GE seeds must sign contracts that dictate how their crop is grown – including what chemicals to buy – and forbid them from saving seeds. This has given corporations incredible control over the production of major staple crops in America”…

    … well, I don’t see how any of the things you’ve listed contradicts what they say.

    The contract *does* dictate how your crops are grown to a large extent, and *does* indicate what chemicals to buy (as far as I can see, the statement doesn’t say it’s MS’ own chemicals that you must buy, only that the contract has some clause concerning what chemicals to buy, and you confirm it’s there). And it does forbid the saving of seeds.

    In all contracts, one relinquishes control over certain things, and loses a measure of freedom. Independently of whether that loss sits well with you or not, of whether you believe it’s good for your farm or not, it doesn’t change the fact that control over those things is lost, and given to Monsanto via a contract.

    I haven’t read Farm Aid’s other statements, and don’t know if they say untruthful things in other places, but this? I think they are right. And I think you confirmed it with your explanation.

    You simply said, “And I damn well agree with giving them control over these things ’cause I think it’s legit and good for us”. That’s fine.

    But it doesn’t contradict much in the initial statement.

    1. The contract does not dictate which chemicals to buy. I don’t have to use any from anyone if I choose not to. Once you open a bag of seed you’re pretty much on your own to grow a good crop or not. If I bought seed from somewhere with no patents and no contracts I would raise it just like I raise anything that falls under the contract above and sell it at the same places.

      There are of course stipulations in any contract, but in this instance they aren’t really keeping me from doing anything I would do otherwise.

      1. Apologies for having misinterpreted wording concerning the herbicides; double-checking it now, I understand that “authorised” doesn’t equal “authorised by MS”, but by the US Government, I guess.

        (Just to be clear, my intention wasn’t to say the contract’s limitations don’t make sense for a farmer, or even that they differ from what you would choose to do regardless of the contract.

        I simply highlighted the fact that –with the exception of the bit about the chemicals, with misleading wording– Farm Aid’s statement isn’t untrue, and this despite the fact that for many farmers it’s convenient to go into GM crops because they’re totally fine with the restrictions imposed by the contract.)

    2. Please understand that he is purchasing a seed with genetics that’s gives him the husbandry option of applying glyphosate as a weed control option. It does not dictate that he do so. It does not require him to use Roundup if he chooses to, but merely advises him that Roundup is a compatible product and advises him of other glyphosate products not made by Monsanto that are compatible. Nothing binds him to purchase seed with the same trait from Monsanto next season, nothing binds him to purchasing any other Monsanto seed, and he is under no obligation to purchase any ge traited seed from any other company. The best analogy I can think of is a vehicle lease contract. In exchange for the leasing company providing use of a vehicle, you agree to certain terms, like what grade of fuel you use, that you will not make modifications, that you will perform regular maintenance, and that you will return the car at the end of the lease period.

      Why do we not become incensed that leasing companies are dictating how their customers drive? Because we understand that adults are capable of making a decision whether leasing a vehicle is of value despite the restrictions imposed by the lease agreement. We understand that one would not bind themselves with a lease agreement rather than buying a new vehicle, making do with your old vehicle, utilizing public transportation, etc. unless there were advantages to leasing. Why then do we assume that the farmer does not or cannot make the same value calculation. Perhaps Brian chooses to enter the tech use agreement to because the value he gets in return more than offset the contract restrictions. The genetics he gains access to allows him to utilize no till, saving him fuel, depreciation of tractor and machinery, reduces losses to erosion, reduces labor costs, and improve soil, as well as proving a cost efficient insurance that he doesn’t lose yield or quality due to weed pressure. That is an economically rational choice to make. Why is it a good thing to deny him that chioice. And the restriction on seed saving is not as onerous as you think. Even if ge did not exist, Brian explains that he prefers to purchase seed inputs annually anyway. Farming was trending toward universal adoption of annual seed purchase long before ge arrived, and if ge and tech use agreements were outlawed tomorrow, few farmers would return to saving seed in the major row crops. There are pros and cons to relying on seed saving that I won’t go into, but purchasing seed is not an economically irrational choice.

      Farmers like Brian would not prefer to purchase seed unless there were advantages to doing so, and no one would invest in research and supplying improved genetics unless there were economic incentive to do so. Why is that inherently a bad thing?

      1. Oh, I don’t think it’s inherently a bad thing, and my intention hasn’t been to imply that choosing GM crops is an irrational choice, or that everybody should save seeds because that is The Best Way to do things. I am not a farmer, and although I may have my personal and professional views on GM crops, I wasn’t truly commenting on that.

        I was simply highlighting that if someone attacks MS contracts on the grounds of “it restricts a farmer’s freedom of choice”, as FarmAid appears to be doing (and leaving chemicals out of the question; I apologized to Brian for misinterpreting), one cannot really say “it’s not true”; but something on the lines of “for me, committing to these contractual obligations makes a lot of sense, and I would’ve chosen to do so regardless”.

        1. Thanks for that response. I agree, FarmAid’s claim is not without an element of truth. But, as you might ascertain, I consider FarmAid’s characterization of the agreement as “dictating” how a farmer farms to be a fairly liberal spin on the truth.

          “but something on the lines of “for me, committing to these contractual obligations makes a lot of sense, and I would’ve chosen to do so regardless”. ”

          That was essentially the point I was trying to make, that Brian is capable of making the assessment whether entering the contract is worthwhile for him or not, and that he has entered the contract freely and fully informed. I am not disputing that FarmAid is incorrect in saying that when a farmer signs a tech agreement, they are contracting away some of their freedoms and acquiring some obligations. I only dispute the inference of FarmAid’s statement that the tech use agreement is inherently bad for the producer because it is possible that the value gained more than offsets those costs, and additionally a farmer would not enter the agreement unless there were advantages to the farmer in doing so. Additionally, some of those obligations like following the refuge requirement is a very sensible thing as well as enforcing the refuge through the contract is necessary for the seed company to comply with conditions for deregulation of the trait. I personally believe that resistance management should be a condition of release of any trait like herbicide tolerance and PIP (plant incorporated protectant) traits like the bt trait whether that trait is acquired via biotech or any other means.

          I will say that I do not believe it is a given that access to the ge traits will always be beneficial enough to justify the price of the seed or taking on the contractual commitments, e.g. if the traits lose effectiveness, if he has access to premium markets for non-ge traited varieties, etc. But nothing would prevent Brian from deciding next year or any year that it was more economically advantageous to choose varieties that do not require entering a tech use agreement.

          I am putting words in Brian’s mouth. Perhaps he would be willing to speak to pros and cons of entering the agreement himself.

          1. I too would love to read Brian’s thoughts on pros and cons of entering the agreement (mostly because I agree with all the thoughts you so eloquently expressed, and there’s little I’d like to add myself that you haven’t already said! I definitely agree that FarmAid apparently wants to turn all farmers into MS’ hapless victims, and that’s indeed far from the truth, as oversimplifications often are. And I wholeheartedly agree that resistance traits bred into crops, whether via GE or “conventional” breeding, needs a resistance management plan regardless).

            1. Thanks for the continued discussion, Aina. Honestly there aren’t any real sticking points for me in these contracts. I’m with you that Farm Aid seems to want to make farmers out to be helpless victims without choices. That’s just not the case. We get booklets every year from the seed companies we buy from with recommendations for their products on Integrated Pest Managment (IPM). Bt corn needs a 20% refuge of non-Bt within a certain distance of the Bt plants. In the last few years refuge in a bag (RIB) products have become very popular. Plus I think it’s a way for the industry to self police versus hoping every farmer plants a refuge. In parts of Illinois and Iowa they have resistant corn rootworm populations linked to continuous corn production and not using different Bt traits or stacked traits year after year. There currently is no known resistance where I farm in Indiana. RIB products have a percentage of corn in a bag of Bt corn that has no Bt traits. See my blog post Spot the Refuge Corn for more info.

          2. We have been cutting some costs the last couple of years in an effort to drop our cost of production. The price of corn is nearly half of what it was just a couple of years ago. We’ve cut back on Bt traits as the main way we have cut seed costs for corn. Right now we just don’t have economic levels of the pests controlled by Bt. I think this is a combination of how effective Bt has been, the weather hasn’t favored the pests in spring lately, and Indiana for the most part is on a pretty good corn/soybean rotation which breaks the life cycle of the bugs. We grow waxy corn which is about half of our corn crop. Most years it happens to be non-GMO because there aren’t always traited options in waxy. It’s a relatively small market. We get a $.55/bu premium for waxy corn over the market price of the first 180bu/acre of contracted acres. The place we take waxy to now wants only non-GMO. The premium is still the same as before. Going to non-GMO usually saves money on seed cost, but the main variety we wanted last year was quite high for conventional seed at $261 a bag. However, it did perform better than a cheaper variety we bought.

  7. “We can’t grow seed to be used for breeding, research, or generation of herbicide registration data. ”

    That is not just about seed but also prevents anyone from doing “research” on the effect of the herbicides or pesticides used to produce a crop.

    What this amounts too is no one can legally conduct independent research on the effects of growing or using such a crop. This would include environmental or health impacts of the pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers used as well as any health studies on the consumption or effects of use of the crop.

    Such a clause is inserted to “protect from competition” but what it does is keeps control of any data limited to Monsanto authorized research. If an independent researcher was authorized but found negative results, Monsanto could chose not to publish based on it potentially damaging effects of helping competitors (not health to farmers/consumers).

    1. So it becomes a “fox guarding the hen house” issue.

      No one but Monsanto has a “right” to investigate any negative effects.

  8. Follow the money….Dow Chemical following in shadows of Monsanto. Sorry but it’s an evil company. Sleep well after reading this!

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/dow-chemical-agent-orange-crops_b_4810311.html

    Monsanto is corporate villain number one, providing PR cover for these other companies that do the same thing with far less public attention. That is about to change. There is one company that may even be worse than Monsanto. And unless we act soon, that company is going to start contaminating our farms and our food in ways we have never seen before. Meet the Dow Chemical company.

  9. There is only one item missing in this excellent article busting the myth of farmers being slaves to Monsanto- there is a large group of the public who believe that once a farmer signs a seed contract, that they are either beholden to grow GM seed to eternity, or that their land is useless for any other crop but GMO.
    Can you please address this misinformation as well? Thanks for your amazing talent in communicating the facts!

    1. Interesting. Definitely myths of people think that. Our wheat and popcorn isn’t GM because of course there is none available. About half the corn we grow is also non GMO.

      1. Brian, you defend MS because you too are an opportunist to the worst degree. As long as these gm crops make you more and cost you less, customers health be damned. You promote, defend, and buy from one of the worst companies known on the face of this earth. To call yourself a farmer, with no honor at all to those you feed, is disgraceful. What you suffer from is called cognitive dissonance. You so want to believe what youre doing is okay, that you promote, and defend a vile company so that others will feel better about following your disillusioned path. Do your research and realize that you contribute to the demise of 3rd world farmers being able to have a job, and provide food, year after year like they use to. GM crops are being pushed, to blanket the world in untested foods, that you have no idea or proof is healthy for anyone.

  10. “If we buy or lease land that is already seeded with Monsanto technology that year we need to abide by the contract. Makes sense to me. If I end up leasing ground in crop for some reason, I should honor the agreements it was planted with. This would be a very odd thing too happen by the way.”

    This is to prevent some slimy sleazy person from planting the crop, then selling or leasing the land to a buddy or relative who then harvests the seeds and because they have not signed any contract with Monsanto, proceeds to propagate the traited seeds.

    It’s kinda like selling a leased house – the new owner has to respect the terms of the old leases until they run out.

  11. I think Allowing companies to opt out of on package disclosure is just another industry giveaway aimed at keeping consumers in the dark about what is in their food. A national labeling law that doesn’t require on package labels just doesn’t pass the straight face test. And in apromera.com know that.

  13. Roundup stays in the soil and is accessible to plants for 3 years after it has been sprayed on land. It also makes you very sick when you are sprayed by it and are around it afterward. It stays around for a couple weeks. Me,my house and property was sprayed supposedly on accident.

    1. Round Up doesn’t stay in the soil for 3 years. It is a contact spray for plants. Water or rain as the case may be will disperse it. It also will NOT make you sick. Well, unless you are allergic to it, but there would be very little probability of that. You obviously don’t know what Round Up is because, unlike other chemicals, Round Up is odorless. Round Up is less harmful to people than coffee or salt. Get your facts straight before you spout off.

      1. I left the “3 years” comment and, upon further review, it appears I was mistaken. Thank you for inviting me to “get my facts straight.” It appears I was grossly misinformed by the ideologues who I had been obtaining my GMO “facts” from.

  14. the question that I am asking is where the web site that you go to apply for a certificate to purchase ready round up corn seed and soybean seed. Roosevelt K. Clark

    1. Your seed dealer should set you up with a certificate when you make an order. I used to work at a farm and home store that sold some Roundup Ready corn. People had to fill out a form there at the store if they didn’t already have a Monsanto number.

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