5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion
Anthony Gucciardi
NaturalSociety
June 5, 2012
NaturalSociety
June 5, 2012
Launching a lawsuit against the very company that is responsible for a farmer suicide every 30 minutes, 5 million farmers are now suing Monsanto for as much as 6.2 billion euros (around 7.7 billion US dollars). The reason? As with many other cases, such as the ones that led certain farming regions to be known as the ‘suicide belt’,
Monsanto has been reportedly taxing the farmers to financial shambles
with ridiculous royalty charges. The farmers state that Monsanto has
been unfairly gathering exorbitant profits each year on a global scale
from “renewal” seed harvests, which are crops planted using seed from
the previous year’s harvest.
The practice of using renewal seeds dates back to ancient times, but
Monsanto seeks to collect massive royalties and put an end to the
practice. Why? Because Monsanto owns the very patent to the genetically
modified seed, and is charging the farmers not only for the original
crops, but the later harvests as well. Eventually, the
royalties compound and many farmers begin to struggle with even keeping
their farm afloat. It is for this reason that India slammed Monsanto
with groundbreaking ‘biopiracy’ charges in an effort to stop Monsanto from ‘patenting life’.
Jane Berwanger, a lawyer for the farmers who went on record regarding the case, told the Associted Press:
“Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production.”
The findings echo what thousands of farmers have experienced in
particularly poor nations, where many of the farmers are unable to stand
up to Monsanto. Back in 2008, the Daily Mail covered what is known as the ‘GM Genocide’, which is responsible for taking the lives of over 17,683 Indian farmers in 2009 alone.
After finding that their harvests were failing and they started to
enter economic turmoil, the farmers began ending their own lives —
oftentimes drinking the very same insecticide that Monsanto provided
them with.
As the information continues to surface on Monsanto’s crimes, further lawsuits will begin to take effect. After it was ousted in January that Monsanto was running illegal ‘slave-like’
working rings, more individuals became aware of just how seriously
Monsanto seems to disregard their workers — so why would they care for
the health of their consumers? In April, another group of farmers sued Monsanto for ‘knowingly poisoning’ workers and causing ‘devastating birth defects’.
Will endless lawsuits from millions of seriously affected individuals be the end of Monsanto?
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/5-million-farmers-sue-monsanto-for-7-billion/#ixzz1x7GjxvQB
SOURCE: http://naturalsociety.com/5-million-farmers-sue-monsanto-for-7-billion/#ixzz1ww5EwAwk
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