Supremo dos EUA dá razão ao grupo Monsanto em caso de patente de sementes
Por PÚBLICO e Agências
13/05/2013 - 23:35
Produtor norte-americano replantou sementes de soja patenteadas. Magistrados concordaram com decisões de primeira e segunda instâncias.
O Supremo Tribunal dos Estados Unidos deu razão à Monsanto no litígio que opunha a gigante norte-americana da agroquímica a um pequeno produtor do estado de Indiana acusado de violar a patente de produção de rebentos de soja da multinacional.
Vernon Hugh Bowman, um agricultor de 75 anos, foi processado em 2007 pela Monsanto por plantar e comercializar rebentos de soja derivados de sementes de origem do grupo agro-químico (geneticamente modificadas para tornar a soja resistente a herbicidas, por exemplo).
Os nove magistrados do Supremo consideraram por unanimidade que neste caso – popularizado como Bowman vs. Monsanto – foi posta em causa a protecção da propriedade intelectual, quando Bowman replantou “sementes já patenteadas”.
Quando comprou soja para germinar à Monsanto, e tal como outros agricultores, o produtor de Indiana assinou um documento onde se comprometeu a não guardar os rebentos de uma colheita para os plantar na época seguinte. A prática é comum na relação entre o grupo norte-americano e os seus clientes. Não só procura impedir que a patente seja violada (o que não aconteceu neste caso), mas é também uma forma de os produtores voltarem a comprar sementes à Monsanto, nota o New York Times.
Vernon Hugh Bowman perdeu o caso em primeiro e segunda instância; pediu depois recurso para o Supremo Tribunal, onde, na última audiência, em Fevereiro, sustentou não ter feito nada de ilegal ou que representasse uma ameaça para a Monsanto.
Garante que sempre respeitou o contrato, comprando novas sementes todos os anos, mas, admite que, de 2000 a 2007, guardou sementes do cultivo para as replantar.
A Monsanto exige mais de 84.000 dólares (cerca de 64.750 euros ao câmbio actual), sustentando que as sementes vendidas não podem ser replantadas sem o pagamento de direitos de propriedade intelectual a cada ciclo de plantação.
Foi esse o entendimento do Supremo Tribunal, sugerindo que, se a estratégia de Bowman fosse replicada por outros agricultores, a patente da Monsanto seria aniquilada.
Prince Charles: Save the world with organic farming
6:35 PM, May 4, 2011
by Philip Brasher / http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/05/04/prince-charles-save-the-world-with-organic-farming
Britain’s crown prince has a message for America: You don’t pay enough for your food. And the way you produce it is ruining the planet.
Fresh from his oldest son’s wedding, Prince Charles came to Washington to slam today’s conventional agricultural system as unsustainable because of its reliance on biotechnology and chemicals.
“The current model is simply not durable in the long term,” he told a food-policy conference hosted Wednesday by Georgetown University.
The prince, who has long been a virulent opponent of biotechnology, has devoted some of the royal lands to organic farming. He ran through a list of the challenges facing the globe – growing populations, rising commodity prices, increased demand for meat as incomes grow, a changing climate, and limited water supplies. He offered organic farming as the answer to those challenges because of its ability to maintain soil fertility without reliance on chemical inputs.
“Capitalism ultimately depends on capital but our capital ultimately depends on the health of nature’s capital,” the prince said. “Whether we like it or not the two are inseparable.”
He called for pulling subsidies from conventional farmers and increasing their energy costs to provide more economic incentives for organic agriculture.
However, he really didn’t address the key long-standing objections to organic agriculture – that it can’t produce as much grain on the same amount of land as conventional agriculture does, because organic farmers rely on long rotations to maintain soil fertility, and that adhering to organic methods would raise food costs beyond the reach of the poor.
“Questioning the conventional worldview is a risky business, believe you me,” the prince told his audience, which gave him a standing ovation when he finished. “The only reason I have done so is for the sake of your generation and the integrity of nature itself.”
The British broadside came the same week that a group of foundations announced a new initiative called AGree to bring conventional and organic sectors to work out a plan for increasing food production sustainably.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also spoke at the conference, which otherwise featured a long list of well-known critics of conventional agriculture, including author Wendell Berry.
During a question-and-answer session, Vilsack was pressed on issues such as biotechnology and animal antibiotics. He said the idea of labeling genetically modified was an “interesting concept” but didn’t endorse and instead digressed into a comparison with labeling of water-infused chicken. Critics of biotechnology have long sought labeling of biotech products as a way to stop the use of genetically engineered seeds.
“We need labeling,” said Gary Hirshberg, CEO of organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm and a leader of the AGree initiative. “If you are a (biotech) patent holder and you make money and profit from it at the expense of all others, you should be labeling so we can choose whether we want to support that system or not.”
The conference was sponsored by The Washington Post.
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