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Potato farmers cry foul as PepsiCo sues them
Just days after multi-billion dollar conglomerate PepsiCo sued four Gujarati farmers, asking them to pay ₹1.05 crore each as damages for 'infringing its rights' by growing the potato variety used in its Lays chips, farmers groups have launched a campaign calling for government intervention.
The case is coming up for hearing in an Ahmedabad court on Friday.
Warning that the case could set a precedent for other crops, farmers groups are pointing out that the law allows them to grow and sell any variety of crop or even seed as long as they don't sell branded seed of registered varieties.
The farmers want the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Authority (PPV&FRA) to make a submission in court on their behalf and fund legal costs through the National Gene Fund.
When asked for a response, a PepsiCo India spokesperson said: "Given the issue is sub judice, it would not be proper to offer detailed comments."
T.K. Nagarathna, the PPV&FRA registrar who has jurisdiction for vegetable crops, said that the case had come to the notice of the Authority and it was looking into it. "We can take action based on the court order," she told The Hindu.
"These farmers are small, holding around 3-4 acres on an average, and had grown a potato crop from farm-saved seed after they accessed the potato seed locally in 2018," according to a letter sent to the PPV&FRA by farmers groups. They alleged that PepsiCo hired a private detective agency to pose as potential buyers and take secret video footage, and collect samples from farmers' fields without disclosing its real intent. PepsiCo then filed suit, the letter said. It added that at least nine farmers in three districts have been charged since 2018.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 04 2019, @01:53PM (5 children)
No real loophole. The law states that farmers can use their own "seed" on their own property. Iraq was a fine example - whatever a farmer raised, was his to use however he saw fit. Iraqi farmers have strains that they've been growing for half of forever. Monsanto claimed "rights" to several of those cultivars. When we invaded, we fucked up farmer's lives, be declaring a lot of their crops to be "illegal". I guess Bayer owns all of those "rights" now. But, it's just a shakedown. People in the US decided that they owned something that no person or corporation can properly own, and they are extorting money from farmers around the world for using those cultivars.
These farmers in India a new members of a huge crowd of victims, albeit, Pepsi is the con artist buggering these Indians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @09:22PM (3 children)
We don't have a one world government yet... the law depends on where the event occurs.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:40AM (2 children)
Read the article. The article specifies the Indian law that these farmers under discussion relied on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:06PM (1 child)
Which is different than Iraqi law...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 05 2019, @02:58PM
I used Iraq as an example of unethical conduct of corporations. The Iraqis were in full compliance with Iraqi law, just as these farmers in India are in compliance with Indian law. American corporations don't like local law, so they try to impose US law on the locals. EU corporations sometimes do the same, but they aren't as bad as US corporations. I'm not sure how Bayer is going to be with the "rights" they got from Monsanto - they may or may not be as overbearing as Monsanto was.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday May 07 2019, @04:57AM
They have no choice. The only thing more important to them than keeping us happy is winning their elections. Because of course we had to at least pretend we are sort of living up to our own standards.
But that does mean they have to answer to their own people, every election cycle. Ideally in something that looks like a free election. This ideal soon winds up conflicting with the ideal that the government they elect is not actively nor passively hostile to us.
And we keep fucking that last part up.
Our overt hostility to Iran makes any long-term alliance with a democratic Iraq impossible. No matter how much money we give them in good faith, it's getting us nothing, unless we reverse our course with Iran.
Which we should. But we probably won't. Why not?
Because we're deeply tied to two of the most corrupt nations in the region, both of whom hate Iran with a passion and will lobby us to death over this.
Russia isn't even all that important anymore. We are seriously risking making them the martyrs, as we maneuver them into shallower corners every year. If we do eventually make them fight, the victory won't warrant much in the history books, they've already fallen from second to third rate in expenditures and are struggling to maintain some credible deterrence. Nonetheless, my analysis (quite possibly wrong!) indicates that at the moment they still have the capability to give NATO a lot more of a bloody nose than NATO is ready to take. This would likely first take the shape of a very large formation of strategic bombers flying from central asia through Persian airspace and then to launch long range hypersonic munitions at any US craft in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf, with saturation levels meaning that it's unlikely any significant US naval ship in the area would be salvageable. Excess missiles, which might well outnumber that group for all I know, would likely be targetted at Diego Garcia. Several more obvious targets are in the same circle should more targets be needed.
Diego Garcia https://www.google.com/maps/place/Diego+Garcia/@-7.3432227,72.3588798,12z is tiny little island in the middle of strategic south-central everywhere. The UK brutally forced the humans they found living there far away, and then sold the island the US. Every court with a whiff of legitimacy that's looked at it has said the US needs to get out and let the islanders return. Nonetheless, I am sure this does not shock most of you, no progress towards that whatsoever has ever happened, and it's currently nothing but a giant US military base used to assault anyone within range and thus "project power."
Destruction of every fleet in the area, plus Diego Garcia, within let us say 10 days, to be conservative. Assuming neither side decides to go full retard and initiates global thermonuclear war.
To be clear here, since Putin (the supposed expansionist bad guy) took power the Russian military has run pretty lean. He just barely managed to preserve most of their nuclear deterrent, however, and the one form of research that he gave absolute support to from the beginning no matter who was hungry, it was delivery systems for that deterrent.
So while he doesn't seem all that likely to initiate it, he *does* seem determined to go there rather than lay down completely. And he undoubtedly has the hardware to make good on the threat.
But, at this point, we're in much worse trouble. Because Putin *has* to ask Poo to join. Politically speaking, anything else looks like suicide. Poo has a MUCH larger and better financed military. They're really quite defensive in nature, for the most part (if only because that's the cheap way to do it) but they're huge and they have a lot more money than Russia.
And Poo isn't going to ignore the chance. He'll declare open season from Korea to Vietnam and Indonesia waters, at least. They might lose a lot of their force. But they're already at the point where they could lose a lot and win the battle, dominate the territory they consider their own, and really give the US the middle finger giving them local legitimacy as well.
To me, the worst part of this is what would happen to the RNC. If the US fleet is exterminated from the area, the RNC would likely be under immediate and heavy fire until they surrendered or the situation was somehow reversed later. It wouldn't be a good situation for them at all. Some of the greatest people on Earth are there.
Korea, Japan, Vietnam, lots of other countries might find bits suddenly torn off and no one powerful enough to matter particularly worried about it at the time.
If this turns into a global war, we aren't going to be happy with the results. With modern communication abilities, the ability of every naïve US citizen to travel abroad and report what they see, let us say... our foreign policy since shortly after the revolution becomes exposed for what it is, and untenable.
Is it not better for us to find our own flaws and to fix them, than to force the rest of the world to band together in order to bomb our cities into oblivion?
Please, if you're a USian and you support xenophobia, answer that last question at lest.
Good night.
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