Hat tip to Cory at Madville Times for keeping me posted on SDSU’s doings–yesterday, SDSU and the Board of Regents announced they are suing five producers for “brown-bagging” hybrid wheat seed that is the intellectual property of the University.
By themselves, these suits do not send up much of a red flag to me–if the producers were taking the hybrid wheat seed they bought and repackaging and selling it–well, that’s illegal.
It would concern me much more if the suit were against producers who had grown out and saved seed from their crop, and then were sued for selling the fruits of their labor–which is what Monsanto has done–even when the seed was the producer’s own to begin with, but had been contaminated with their neighbor’s GMO strains.
Right now there’s WAY too little information available on these suits–especially from the producers’ side–to make an informed call on what exactly is going on.
But it is worthwhile and troubling to note that a day after the suit’s announcement appeared in AgWeek, another announcement came my way via Twitter: the Wall Street Journal reports that Monsanto is once again moving into GMO wheat research and development after having abandoned the project in 2004.
Of course, many of my readers already know that South Dakota State University’s President, David Chicoine, now sits on Monsanto’s Board of Directors, an appointment that has caused outrage and dismay among many small (and some large-scale) farmers in South Dakota.
One has to wonder if the bulk of Monsanto’s new GMO wheat development project will be pursued in Brookings. There may be some who think that’s something to applaud–South Dakota needs more research and development funding.
But in a state with an overly business-friendly government unwilling to listen to the concerns of its citizens, the news is troubling, indeed.
Flying Tomato Farms 
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