LIST: WA. I-522 GMO LABELING LAW FOES

Secret list of food companies funding GMO-labeling opposition slush fund revealed after illegal activities of GMA exposed

Friday, October 18, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) As Natural News reported yesterday, the Grocery Manufacturers Association got caught red-handed violating Washington state fair election laws by running a money laundering slush fund designed to conceal the identities of food companies giving money to block I-522.

The CEO of the GMA, Pamela Bailey, reportedly told donors in an email that their identities would be hidden from the public, thereby shielding them from any public backlash even while their money would be used to try to buy the election and defeat GMO labeling (so that consumers would be left in the dark about what they're buying).

In response to this, the Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson accused the GMA of violating state law, and the AG's office asked a Superior Court to issue restraining order to force the GMA to comply with state election laws.

Just one day after this scandal surfaced, the GMA apparently decided to stop violating the law and disclose the list of companies that funneled money into its secret slush fund. That list is published below. You can also find the list at HeraldNet.com.

It goes without saying that all these companies are now subject to a lifetime boycott. The GMA itself has now destroyed its own credibility by engaging in mafia-style illegal activities that discredit itself as well as all its members. We have now entered an era where food companies will knowingly violate the law in their desperate attempt to block GMO labeling and hide genetically engineered ingredients in their toxic, disease-causing foods.

Secret slush fund donors revealed

The companies that funneled money into the GMA's money laundering slush fund are:

Abbott Nutrition
Bimbo Bakeries USA
Bruce Foods Corp.
Bumble Bee Foods, LLC
Bunge North America, Inc.
Bush Brothers & Co.
Campbell Soup Co.
Cargill Inc.
Clement Pappas & Co. Inc.
The Clorox Co. (owner of Burt's Bees brand)
The Coca-Cola Co. (owner of Odwalla)
ConAgra Foods
Dean Foods Co. (owner of Horizon milk)
Del Monte Foods Co.
Flowers Foods, Inc.
General Mills, Inc. (owned of Larabar)
The Hershey Co.
The Hillshire Brands Co.
Hormel Foods Corp.
The J.M. Smucker Co.
Kellogg Co. (owner of Pop-Tarts)
Knouse Foods Cooperative, Inc.
Land O'Lakes, Inc.
McCormick & Co., Inc
Mondelez Global, LLC.
Moody Dunbar, Inc.
Nestle USA, Inc.
Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.
PepsiCo, Inc. (owner of Naked Juice)
Pinnacle Foods Group, LLC.
Rich Products Corp.
Shearer's Foods, Inc.
Sunny Delight Beverages Co.
Welch Foods, Inc.

Share this list with others and encourage them to boycott all these brands, too. These are companies that actively participated in an illegal slush fund deception to try to buy the I-522 election by deceiving voters.

That the GMA would actively launch such a slush fund operation just proves that the conventional food industry in America has no ethics whatsoever and will actively pursue illegal activities in order to keep consumers ignorant and confused.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/042565_GMO_labeling_opposition_GMA_slush_fund_list_of_donors.html##ixzz2ilzJ8OnN

GMO LABELING FOES INIMPEDED BY WASHINGTON STATE JUDGE

GMO fight: Judge rejects request by Moms for Labeling to impound No on 522 campaign funds

Published: October 23, 2013 

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Reddit E-mail Print

Chris Wickham

FILE PHOTO — The Olympian

By Brad Shannon — Staff writer

A Thurston County judge rejected a request by the Moms for Labeling group Wednesday to freeze $3.5 million still unspent by the No on 522 campaign committee. The committee is trying to defeat Initiative 522, which would require labels on packages of genetically engineered foods and seed stock sold in Washington.
Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham said he did not know how he’d rule if the case went to trial and that there was not a clear enough case the Moms group had legal standing to seek the restraining order. At issue is the legality of spending $7.2 million that the Grocery Manufacturers Association gave to NO on 522 – money it solicited from food companies without first registering as a political committee, which Washington law requires.
GMA agreed to register as a PAC and identify donors last week after Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit alleging it broke state law in raising the funds.
Wickham also said “the issues that are raised in this case are significant and they are not clear cut. They are quite complicated.” Wickham said he also agreed with the Moms group that time was key and that their interest in winning labeling laws for genetically engineered foods could be damaged. 
Recent polling shows the race tightened dramatically over the past month as the No on 522 has spent heavily on television ads in a campaign that is already one of the most expensive ballot fights in state history. 
“They have swung the race 40 points already and the race is too close to call. The No on 522 and GMA are on the verge of stealing this election,” Moms’ lawyer Knoll Lowney told the court. Lowney said he understood “this is an unprecedented request in this state’’ to freeze the campaign funding, but he said the law lets a judge set aside an election result as well as to freeze accounts..
Attorney Michele Radosevich, representing No on 522, said the anti-labeling campaign had not done wrong itself and had no control over its donors – in this case the Grocery Manufacturers. Radosevich said that any action to restrain the campaign’s spending this late in the campaign would be an unfair and an unconstitutional “prior restraint” of speech. 
No on 522 has raised $17.2 million and spent about $13.5 million, while the Yes on 522 committee and other pro-labeling groups have spent more than $6 million. The Moms group, which first filed suit against No on 522 more than a month ago, is funded for its legal costs by a $26,095 contribution by Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps of Escondido, Calif., which is the major donor to the Yes on 522 campaign. 
In his lawsuit last week, Ferguson alleged the Grocery Manufacturers Association illegally collected funds by functioning as a non-registered PAC. After GMA filed as a PAC and revealed its donors on Friday, Ferguson said he still intends to seek penalties against GMA, but he has so far not shown interest in entering the fight led by Lowney over freezing campaign funds.
Faced with Ferguson’s lawsuit GMA filed as a political committee and disclosed its donors for the first time – topped by Pepsico, Nestle and Coca-Cola, which each gave more than $1 million. But Lowney said those donations remain  illegal – because the PAC collected money without first getting at least $10 from 10 different Washington residents, which state law requires such a PAC to do.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Ferguson said:

"The case against GMA involved concealing a record-setting $7.2 million worth of campaign contributions. We must deter these types of violations and ensure our elections remain transparent.   For this reason, disclosure is just one remedy we sought in the lawsuit we filed last Wednesday. We also continue to seek penalties, attorneys fees, and other relief for violating the Washington State campaign disclosure laws. While the GMA made the requested disclosures, there must be sanctions for violating the law and the case will move forward as filed.”    

The AG’s office has not said what kind of penalties it will seek or how soon.Radosevich said she thinks the judge’s ruling ends the case insofar as No on 522 is concerned. 
But in his court filings, Lowney said the illegal spending could open the door to a post election challenge seeking to overturn the outcome of the Nov. 5 vote.  Speaking after Wickham’s ruling, Lowney said he hopes Ferguson takes action to freeze the money.
But Lowney does not expect Ferguson to act and he does not expect anything else to happen on the campaign’s legal issues before the election is over.

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2013/10/23/2790519/gmo-fight-judge-rejects-request.html#storylink=cpy

TREAT YOUR KIDS TO NON GMO HALLOWEEN CANDY

"CLAIMED CONSENSUS ON GMO SAFETY DOES NOT EXIST"

Food Activist Slams Obama for Failure in GMO Labeling Fight

Follows new statement by group of scientists denouncing false 'consensus' on GMO safety

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron tour the White House's organic garden. (Photo: Obamafoodorama)Just two weeks out from a crucial Washington state vote over the labeling of genetically modified (GM) crops or products made with genetically modified organisms (GMO), a leading food sovereignty activist is slamming President Obama for his complacency in the labeling fight.
During a recent interview with The Hill, Dave Murphy, founder and head of Food Democracy Now, recalled how in his speech during the 2007 Iowa caucuses, Candidate Obama brought the GMO labeling initiative to the forefront. The Hill writes:

Murphy was working for the Iowa Farmers Union at the time, and he organized a summit to give the presidential candidates another chance to speak about agriculture.

Reading Obama’s prepared remarks the night before, Murphy saw the section in support of labeling genetically altered foods.
“I thought, ‘This is a big staffer error,’” he said. “I couldn’t believe they were going to allow a candidate, a senator from Illinois, to go on stage and say that.”

Murphy said that, although the speech "jump-started" the GMO labeling movement, the now-President exhibits an "incredibly heartbreaking failure" to lend any support to the national debate.
Politicians including Obama frequently rely on the false assumption—propagated by the GMO industry—that there is a "scientific consensus" on the safety of GMO crops, as a means for staying out of the debate.
This criticism of Obama follows a Monday statement by a group of international scientists refuting what they say is a "misleading" and "misrepresentative" claim of scientific consensus on GMO safety.
“The claimed consensus on GMO safety does not exist,” they write. Moreover, they assert that claims made by the "GM seed developers and some scientists, commentators and journalists" encourage a "climate of complacency that could lead to a lack of regulatory and scientific rigor and appropriate caution, potentially endangering the health of humans, animals, and the environment."
This statement comes just two weeks ahead of a key vote in Washington state on legislation that requires the labeling of GMO food or products. Initiative 522 has become a national David versus Goliath battle between organic farmers, consumers and food sovereignty activists and the corporate food and biotech giants—such as Monsanto and Syngenta—who fund the opposition.
“We’re just asking for openness and transparency in the marketplace,” Murphy told The Hill.
“Prop. 37 woke people up," he said, referring to the 2012 California vote where big money defeated a labeling measure by a scant 350,000 votes. "People are waking up all over the country.”

_____________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

SOURCE:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/22-4

OBAMA SAFETY AND TREATMENT OF LIVESTOCK OVERSIGHT A FAILURE

Published on Tuesday, October 22, 2013 by Common Dreams                                         

Food Animal Industry Abuses 'Worsened' Under Obama Admin: Report

Despite documented dangers, no efforts to curb antibiotic use in US livestock

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

(Photo: Farm Sanctuary/ Flickr)The abuses of the farm animal production industry are well-documented, from restrictive cages to the overuse of antibiotics to environmental degradation. Lesser known is that under the Obama administration, these "unsavory industry practices" have flourished. Fingering Congress and other regulatory authorities, a new report issued Tuesday by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), slams the administration for the perpetuation of these conditions as well as the misleading legislation that has enabled them to do so.
The report, Industrial Food Animal Production in America: Examining the Impact of the Pew Commission’s Priority Recommendations, is a follow-up five years after a Pew Commission issued a series of recommendations to address the detrimental impact of industrial food animal production (IFAP) on public, animal, and environmental health.
“There has been an appalling lack of progress," said Robert S. Lawrence, MD, director of CLF. "The failure to act by the USDA and FDA, the lack of action or concern by the Congress, and continued intransigence of the animal agriculture industry have made all of our problems worse.”
Half of the 24 recommendations made by the April 2008 panel fell under the umbrella of public health concerns with five of those dealing with antimicrobial use in livestock, which has gross consequences for the efficacy of antibiotics in humans. The FDA estimates that 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in this country are fed to food animals.
According to the report, Congress has killed every effort to legislate a ban on feeding farm animals antibiotics that are important in human medicine. As Reuters explains:

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has altered its guidelines to say antibiotics should be used only under the guidance of a veterinarian for prevention, control or treatment of disease, the Johns Hopkins report said there was a loophole. Drugs can be approved for disease prevention on the proviso that they are not being used as part of livestock production.

"This means that while antimicrobial approvals may change... antimicrobial use may not," notes the report.
The authors note that "despite the sizable body of literature supportive of a decision to eliminate antimicrobial use outside the context of veterinarian-diagnosed disease," since the initial recommendations to restrict their usage "little progress has been made to change the patterns of use."
Further, the report notes that under the Obama administration there has been scant improvement in the food animal production industry as a whole.
"In fact," they write, "regulatory agencies in the administration have acted regressively in their decision-making and policy-setting procedures."
The report singles out the House of Representatives for stepping up the "intensity of its attacks on avenues for reform and stricter enforcement of existing regulations, paving the way for industry avoidance of scrutiny and even deregulation, masked as protection of the inappropriately termed 'family farmer.'"
Further, the report notes that regulation tactics have shifted to "the implementation of policies such as 'ag-gag,' agricultural certainty and right-to-farm laws, all of which are designed to further shield unsavory industry practices from the eye of the public and the intervention of regulators."
“In 2008, the recommendations were heralded by many in the agriculture community, the agencies and Congress as the catalyst they needed to make vital changes to a food supply that has been criticized as unsustainable and in some cases unsafe,” said Bob Martin with the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP) which released the initial report. “Inaction was inexcusable five years ago, now it is unconscionable.”

_____________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/22-10

THE HOUR IS LATE

World Food Day: Cook Organic, Not the Planet 

• By Ronnie Cummins
  Organic Consumers Association, October 16, 2013
  

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Organic Transitions page and our Agriculture and Climate Resource Center page.

“Here's the single most important thing you need to know about the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report: It's not too late. We still have time to do something about climate disruption. The best estimate from the best science is that we can limit warming from human-caused carbon pollution to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit - if we act now. Bottom line: Our house is on fire. Rather than argue about how fast it's burning, we need to start throwing buckets of water.” - Michael Brune, Director, Sierra Club, Sept. 27, 2013

Michael Brune is right. Our house is on fire. We’d better start throwing buckets of water.

Today, World Food Day, I urge everyone who wants to help put out the fire to take a close look at the food you eat. Where did it come from? How was it grown or raised? What did it take to get it from the farm to your table?

These questions are rarely part of the climate-change debate. Yet they should be.

Transportation, manufacturing and energy corporations are considered major greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters. Climate scientists agree that if we want to cool the earth, we have to build solar arrays and wind generators, instead of fracking wells and coal plants. We have to retrofit homes, commercial buildings, factories, transportation and electrical grids. We need to walk, carpool, ride bikes, trains and buses, instead of mindlessly cruising the highways in gas-guzzling cars, trucks and SUVs.

But few people understand that the worst U.S. and global greenhouse gas emitter is "Food Incorporated." The global food and farming system of today, with its intense dependence on biotechnology, chemicals and fossil fuels, is destroying the natural capacity of plants, trees and soils to sequester the excess greenhouse gases that are cooking the planet.

The fastest route to averting a climate disaster is to drastically reduce emissions from industrial agriculture and forestry, and start sequestering billions of tons of greenhouse gases in our plants, forests and soil.

This “Great Transition” must be driven by a mass consumer rejection of factory-farmed and industrial/genetically engineered food, coupled with mass demand for products that are organic, sustainable and climate-friendly.

Most serious threat ever faced by humans

As the most recent scientific report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) bluntly warns us, global warming and climate change now pose the most serious existential threat that humans have ever faced in our 200,000-year evolution.

At 395 parts-per-million (ppm) of CO2 (and 434 ppm of all GHG), and an additional 10 billion tons of carbon per year (36.7 billion tons CO2) in annual emissions from burning fossil fuels, non-sustainable agricultural practices and deforestation, we now have the most CO2, methane and nitrous oxide polluting the atmosphere that the Earth has experienced in the past three million years.

This excess of GHG pollution has already caused a significant increase in average global temperature, a rapidly warming and acidic ocean, a great extinction of countless living species, and an increasingly menacing disruption of “normal” weather patterns.

As Dr. James Hansen and other prominent climatologists warn us, global society must drastically conserve energy, reduce fossil fuel use, and naturally sequester as much GHG pollution in our soils and forests as possible, in order to bring atmospheric concentrations of CO2 back down to a safe level of 350 ppm. According to Hansen, “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current [level] to at most 350 ppm.”

The Arithmetic of Human Survival

Industrial farming and food production account for at least 35 percent of U.S. and global GHG emissions. (The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ridiculously low estimates range from 7 percent to 12 percent, while some climate scientists believe the figure could be as high as 50 percent or more).  Agriculture- and biofuels-driven deforestation and draining of wetlands accounts for another 20 percent.

That makes non-sustainable agriculture and forestry practices the number one cause (55 percent) of global warming and climate disruption.

We now have 800 billion tons of carbon (the equivalent of 3200 billion tons of CO2) supersaturating the atmosphere and disrupting the climate.  If we’re going to survive, we have to reduce that number.

We can start by conserving energy, reducing fossil fuel use and increasing biochar production.  But that’s just one side of the equation. We also need to suck 100 billion tons of carbon (through plant and tree photosynthesis) from the atmosphere and store this excess carbon in its natural sink or repository—in the plants, trees, perennial grasses, and soil.

Though it rarely comes up in the climate debate, soil has tremendous potential to store CO2. And the way to get the CO2 out of the atmosphere, and into the soil, is through organic and sustainable land management (farming, ranching, and forestry) practices.

The heretofore unpublicized "good news" on climate change, according to soil scientists, is that transitioning from chemical-, water-, and energy-intensive industrial agriculture practices to organic farming and ranching, on a critical mass of the world's 3.5 billion acres of farmland and 8.2 billion acres of pasture or rangeland, could sequester thousands of pounds-per-acre of climate-destabilizing CO2 every year, while nurturing healthy soils, plants, grasses, trees and animals that are resistant to drought, heavy rain, pests, and disease.

And as millions now understand, organic farms and ranches provide us with food that is more nutritious, richer in vitamins, anti-oxidants and essential trace minerals, and free from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), pesticides, antibiotics and sewage sludge, than the food supplied by industrial farms and ranches.

Facilitating the Great Transition

How do we mobilize the global grassroots to force the thousand or so multi-billion-dollar corporations and 200 national governments who control the world to reduce, much less reverse, global warming?

To facilitate a mass transition to organic we must force the U.S. Congress, local and state governments, and major corporations to move away from business as usual, while we simultaneously build an organic and sustainable economy in our local communities and regions. We must also start planting and nurturing several trillion trees on the 10 billion acres of forestland that remain.

Thousands of U.S. farmers and ranchers have already made this transition. Over five million backyard, market and community gardeners are now utilizing organic practices. Millions more need to do the same.

If we’re going to cool the earth, we must:

•    Phase out factory farms, junk food and industrial-scale, genetically engineered agriculture, and replace them with non-chemical organic farming, and non-factory-farm carbon ranching, where free-range animals are rotationally grazed on deep-rooted, carbon-sequestering perennial grasses. Not caged or intensively confined and fed genetically engineered grains.

•    Prepare more organic whole foods at home, and reject fast-food outlets.

•    Replace our lawns with urban gardens.

•    Reduce excess consumption and recycle our wastes—all our wastes, rural and urban, including food, crop, and yard wastes - to make compost and eliminate the hazardous use of sewage sludge and nitrous oxide-polluting chemical fertilizers.

•    Halt the deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture, especially in tropical and sub-tropical areas, and rapidly scale up the production of biochar, a special type of charcoal that sequesters carbon and increases soil fertility and moisture retention.

•    Educate ourselves and mobilize a grassroots army to transform marketplace practices and public policy.

•    Create a globally coordinated Works Project Administration to train and employ a massive “Johnny Appleseed” green corps of students and the unemployed to plant a trillion trees on public and private land, restore desertified areas, and create the green infrastructure of a post-carbon economy.

•    Start incorporating the science of biochar into our agriculture and climate-stabilizing practices.

On World Food Day let’s pledge to do all of the above. Let’s commit to the Great Transition. Let’s organize at the local level and coordinate our efforts with North American networks such as the Organic Consumers Association and www.350.org

The fate of human civilization and the living Earth lies in our hands. The hour is late.
Ronnie Cummins is national director of the Organic Consumers Association.

BRAZIL KICKS MONSANTO'S ASS - AGAIN!

Brazilian judge rules in Favour of Farmers against Monsanto 

A judge in Brazil has blocked Monsanto's attempt to make farmers sign restrictive agreements before they can gain access to the company's new GM seed, RR2 Intacta soybeans.

The legal case was brought against Monsanto by the farmers’ union Sinop Rural Union and applies to all farmers in the state of Mato Grosso.

The background to this story is that last year the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that Monsanto had collected royalties from farmers illegally for its RR1 soybeans and that the company must refund the farmers.http://www.nature.com/news/monsanto-may-lose-gm-soya-royalties-throughout-brazil-1.10837

Monsanto then reached a deal with Famato and other farmers’ unions. The deal was that farmers who wanted to plant RR2 Intacta soybeans would sign an agreement with Monsanto at point of purchase, waiving their rights to a refund of the illegally collected royalties.

Any farmer who signed the agreement would also be signing away other important rights. He would grant Monsanto the right to enter and inspect his property at any time. The farmer would be left completely vulnerable to ANY decisions the company might make, including royalty fee increases or having part of his harvest confiscated – and he would agree not to sue Monsanto at any time. At the same time, the company does not guarantee a yield increase from RR2 Intacta.

The farmer would also agree to "the declaration of principles that recognise the intellectual property rights on agricultural technologies". This contravenes Brazilian seed law, which protects farmers' rights to save seed and to use or sell the products of their own cultivation. In short, the agreement put Monsanto’s interests above Brazilian law and deprived farmers of their rights.

In the latest ruling on 11 October, the judge blocked Monsanto's demands that farmers sign the agreement as a condition to buy RR2. The judge said that Monsanto is unfairly taking advantage of its favorable position in the market as the only technology provider of Intacta RR2, in forcing farmers to "to comply with clauses that are burdensome, if not illegal" as a condition of purchasing the product. In addition, the judge said that Monsanto’s agreement may contravene Brazilian consumer law.

A Brazilian source told GMWatch that Monsanto is experiencing growing resistance to its methods in Brazil: “As in the USA, farmers who prefer to cultivate non-GM soybeans to avoid the complications are frequently accused of delivering GM-contaminated soybeans. A test is made by a Monsanto technician when the soybeans arrive at the silos. If the result is positive, the farmer can’t verify the accuracy of the test.”

If GM contamination is alleged, then not only does the farmer have to pay royalties to Monsanto, but he loses the premium for his non-GMO soy harvest.

The source added that despite the company’s struggles to consolidate its products and set aside the legal disputes, RR2 is still far from being the “product of choice” for farmers: “In recent TV interviews, farmers said they will go back to non-GM soy varieties with a higher yield than RR2. They also say this avoids a lot of trouble.

“Although many are still led to believe Monsanto is a partner, more and more are becoming aware of the abusive practices. As a result, not as many farmers will go for RR2 in 2014.”

For those who read Portuguese, latest court decision is reproduced here:http://bit.ly/17lWaCD
The Google translation into English is here:http://bit.ly/1gzbnqV

And here's a draft of the Monsanto agreement, again in Portuguese, with the interspersed remarks of an unimpressed Famato attorney in red, here:http://www.sistemafamato.org.br/site/arquivos/05022013043646.pdf
The final agreement is here:http://www.aprosoja.com.br/sistema/modules/servicos/uploads/files/Acordo_Licenciamento_PRODUTOR.pdf

As a postscript, the judge's summary of the legal complaint brought by Sinop Rural Union (item 2 below) gives an interesting account of the circumstances in which RR2 Intacta was introduced in Brazil. Monsanto's launch of RR2 Intacta followed close behind the arrival of a convenient plague of caterpillars, of a type that RR2 Intacta was specifically engineered to kill.

1. Intacta: Judge rules in favour of Sinop Rural Union of farmers, against Monsanto; ruling covers whole of Mato Grosso
2. Public Civil Action No. 42947-12.2013.811.0041 (id: 838240): Decision by judge Alex Nunes Figueiredo
---
---
1. Intacta: Judge rules in favour of Sinop Rural Union of farmers, against Monsanto; ruling covers whole of Mato Grosso
Notícias Agrícolas, 11 Oct 2013http://bit.ly/17lWaCD (Portuguese original)
Google translation into English: http://bit.ly/1gzbnqV
Rough translation below (shortened) by Google/GMWatch

The judge of the Specialized Court for Civil Actions of Mato Grosso/Cuiaba, Alex Nunes Figueiredo, on Friday 11 ruled in favour of the farmers of Sinop Rural Union and against Monsanto. The company was demanding, at point of sale of Intacta [RR2 soy], that the farmers waive their right to a refund of the royalties charged illegally for RR1 technology.

According to the lawyer for Sinop Rural Union, Orlando Caesar, this decision applies only to the state of Mato Grosso; however, it opens the door for other states to launch a similar action. "The first similar action happened in Bahia with the union of [the city of] Luís Eduardo Magalhães, and then with Sinop." Actions can be collective or individual, according to the lawyer.

Caesar also states that this decision is known as anticipation of the effects of an action. "The judge predicted illegal actions by Monsanto and in an attempt to prevent further injury [to famers], decided on these precautionary measures."

These actions [by Monsanto] have been going on in various parts of Brazil, such as Bahia, Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Rio Grande do Sul, and Mato Grosso, in an attempt to block court orders for the repayment of improper collection of royalties already defined [in a ruling] by the Court of the First Instance.

Along with the waiver of the refund of royalties, Monsanto also demanded the signing of an agreement for use of technology that would allow employees of the company to monitor cultivations and to enter farms to control planting on the grounds of preventing the spread of this new technology.

According to information from technicians[?], Monsanto aims to prevent farmers from saving seeds and reproducing them individually, according to the law of cultivars [which allows this practice]. [The company is] even pushing MPs to change the law to end the right of farmers to save seeds.

Below is the position of Monsanto on the issue:

"Monsanto has received no official notification from the Court of Mato Grosso. In case of such notification, Monsanto will take appropriate legal steps." …
---
---
2. Public Civil Action No. 42947-12.2013.811.0041 (id: 838240): Decision by judge Alex Nunes Figueiredo
Plaintiff: Sinop Rural Union
Defendant: Monsanto Brazil Ltda
10 October 2013
Ruling in Portuguese:http://bit.ly/17lWaCD
Google translation into English:http://bit.ly/1gzbnqV

This is a public civil action for an injunction filed by Sinop Rural Union against Monsanto Brazil Ltda, alleging in essence that it began to market the required patented technology Intacta RR2 Pro using unfair practices, and by taking advantage of its absolute [monopoly] control over the technology.

The plaintiff states that in the 2012/2013 harvest the caterpillar of Helicoperva armigera drastically affected soybean crops in the country, proliferating at exponential rates.

Concurrent with the appearance of this pest, Intacta RR2 Pro technology, which has resistance to Helicoperva armigera, was launched, meaning that this technology was to become the object of desire of many farmers.

However, the plaintiff states that the defendant placed conditions on the purchase of this product--the signing of terms of agreement containing numerous clauses that are abusive and illegal.

In conclusion, arguing the presence of the authorised requirements for a preliminary injunction, [the plaintiff] pleaded for approval of the measure in the following terms:

"a) to cause the defendant to refrain from requiring the signature of documents called "Technology License Agreement" and "Agreement on Technology Licensing and General Discharge as a condition for improvement of contracts for the purchase and sale of Intacta RR2 Pro seeds for cultivation; b) suspend the effectiveness of the agreements already signed; and c) extend the decision to all producers of Mato Grosso."

Source:  http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15107-brazilian-judge-rules-in-favour-of-farmers-against-monsanto