The biggest, most valuable new technology on Midwestern farms these days is a new family of soybean seeds. But some farmers say they're buying these seeds partly out of fear.
A new lawsuit claims that the company Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, violated antitrust laws when it introduced the seeds. Bayer is asking the court to dismiss the complaint.
The seeds go by the trade name Xtend. They're worth an estimated billion dollars a year to Bayer.
For those who don't want to read or listen to the story, the short summary is as follows: Dicamba is an herbicide used as a weed killer. It is thought to spread far outside its targeted area. (Many academics and scientists say that is proven fact, Bayer disagrees, but irrespective of the truth of the matter, many farmers think it does.) Therefore after one farmer decides to use these seeds and herbicide, their neighbors need to use the same seeds out of fear of losing their crop to dicamba. Now this farmer can use dicamba as well and has no reason not to, so they do so, and the cycle repeats.
Resistance is... futile?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 08 2019, @12:52AM (8 children)
If Monsanto wasn't, for very good reasons, up with Big Cable in the hate rankings, we'd consider a simple question : How much do crop yields improve by using Dicamba ?
The second question would be : "wait, didn't the Trump China Trade war cause a soybean market glut?"
Both question would help us evaluate whether the actual risks caused by the excessive volatility of Dicamba, and the uncertainty about toxicity (because the predecessor patent-expiring RoundUp does turn out to cause cancers, surprise surprise), are worth the risk.
I'm tempted to think the the answer to that last point is no. But I'm sure people will disagree.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Friday February 08 2019, @01:07AM (3 children)
Well, it appears that Dicamba is most toxic when ingested, so no worries :) /s
Of course coffee is either bad for you or good for you depending on the day so I'm not sure we'll ever know the truth.
I do realize, as you've pointed out, that there are trade offs with respect to technology and the benefits it brings vs. the damage that can be done. When the decisions are made by those who control the purse strings (lobbying, court action, etc.) I tend to be skeptical as hell. I wonder if Bayer shouldn't team up with Dow Chemical and create something truly worthy...
(Score: 2) by black6host on Friday February 08 2019, @01:08AM
Sorry, forgot the link re: Dicamba
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/dicamba_gen.html [orst.edu]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 08 2019, @01:21AM
Monsanto-Dow-Comcast (MDC?)
"No more fearing the illegal Chinese organ harvesters, our products rot of all your insides"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday February 08 2019, @04:16PM
Why can't coffee be both good for you and bad for you? Ok, as a net positive / net negative, who knows for sure. The one thing I do know is that you're likely much better off to give it up, if you have high blood pressure. Otherwise, it should be fine in modest quantities. I.E. Too much caffeine can make your heart "explode", just like any other stimulant.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 08 2019, @02:59AM (3 children)
Dose makes the poison. I see once again that we're considering the harm of a chemical without considering if one is likely to be exposed to quantities of it that matter.
And there's also the matter of utility. Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is by far the most lethal chemical out there with 157k deaths documented by the UN [unisdr.org] from uncontrolled releases of DHMO over a recent two decade period (1995-2015). Guess we better ban it right?
Similarly, herbicides are going to be toxic almost by definition. Pretty much anything toxic in small quantities to weeds will have some toxicity to humans as well. That's why there are so many rules on handling and using such chemicals rather than banning them outright.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @08:31AM
The problem, and evil bit, is that the other stuff in roundup is worse than the glyphosate, but Monsanto keeps deflecting any studies of roundup into studying pure glyphosate and then claiming there is no harm.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 08 2019, @05:24PM (1 child)
Don't be too daft, you know better.
DHMO exposure is hard to avoid, and only lethal at high doses (kg in pulmonary tract, m3 in blunt form). Hg, Pb, Po, RoundUp exposure in tiny quantities is known to be high detrimental to humans, yet the first three do not get many defenders, while a lot of people will take money to say you should let farmers put the fourth on your food. Utility vs risk : my original point about actual yield improvements vs toxicity, and the need of those extra bushels beyond extra farmer cash (see the Europeans massively discarding their overproduction a few decades back).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 09 2019, @01:54AM
Fortunately, I anticipated your concern by providing yet another quality post to raise the intellectual level of this thread.
Except, of course, when the use of those metals is valuable such as various sorts of solder alloys or nuclear battery construction. The use is regulated to reduce human exposure, of course, because golly, these things are toxic.
Sorry, that's not a valid use case. There's no reason to massively hose down my steaks from the supermarket with herbicides, if only because weeds don't grow on refrigerated meat. You're speaking of application of herbicides much earlier in the season and exposure to trace amounts of residual herbicides in the agricultural products which is a very different situation. There we need to consider the dose, not merely babble that toxins are toxic.
Or those Europeans could fix their agricultural subsidies without having anything to do with herbicide usage. BTW, extra farmer cash is a strong indication of the utility of an approach.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Friday February 08 2019, @01:01AM (1 child)
In summary, it seems that Monsanto-by-another-name is aiding and abetting pollution of the environment, and extorting money out of the victims.
Yup, that's the Monsanto we all know and love.
Is Bill Gates still an investor (via his oh-so-humanitarian "charitable" foundation)?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @02:29AM
Monsanto is now owned by foreign interests, so it is open season on them in the courts now.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @01:05AM
public risk
private profit.
...
profit!
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday February 08 2019, @03:38AM (2 children)
Monsanto's been up there for years now, but I was unaware of this particular bit of work by them.
Threatening the globe's ability to produce food without bending the knee to Monsanto surely puts them up there as winner of EvilCorp?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday February 08 2019, @03:59AM (1 child)
Common-sense would say: yes, you're right.
In reality: as long as they didn't do anything illegal, nope, they are the most ethical corporation there is.
Because they are taking good care about the primary and utmost important duty of a corporation: delivering value (even maximizing it) to their shareholders.
Reaffirmed again and again, last time in 2010 [harvard.edu] (in layman terms: eBay vs Craigslist [forbes.com]).
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @02:05PM
Profits and shareholders are king. Fuck everyone else.
(Score: 2) by CZB on Saturday February 09 2019, @03:08AM
Not sure if there is any point commenting about this, even though I know the technical details of crop and herbicide choices. Does anyone actually want to hear about how herbicides are regulated and used?