It’s been mentioned now by several people, and I haven’t posted about it yet. This is big news, especially for those of you in the US I think.
Most major OP/Heirloom seed companies (more than 60 plaintiffs) in the US have gotten together to pre-emptively sue Monsanto to prevent being held liable if genes from Monsanto’s new GM varieties should end up in seeds belonging to others. In addition, they are challenging the validity of some of Monsanto’s patents.
Notable in their absence is the Seed Savers Exchange, who has better things to spend their money on then suing Monsanto (with about $800,000[updated] cash on hand according to recent financial filings):
I appreciate the discussion here. As a non-profit, Seed Savers Exchange uses its limited resources to maintain our collection and seed bank here at Heritage Farm and promote participatory preservation through our membership. This is a full time job. We leave advocacy and policy work to other organizations, such as Organic Seed Alliance and ETC Group, two groups that we often partner with. We believe our mission speaks for itself and offers a counterpoint to the agribusiness model, which is at the heart of the litigation you speak of.
John Torgrimson
President and Executive Director
Seed Savers Exchange
Have a look at the page Baker Creek put up about the lawsuit for more information.
What do you think? Is it going to help? Will they win?
A very minor correction, which does nothing to answer your questions.
Just a note that the $6 million is not cash on hand, it’s total assets. The cash is about $800K. There is a difference between cash and assets.
Thanks Jeremy. That’s an important point to get straight. I missed that in the discussion.