Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.
With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts....
Associated Press, via boingboing.net
Awarding patents on genes is pretty gross- what happens when corporations own the genes that can fight disease or improve life in humans? It sounds a little far-fetched, but the idea that you can own a naturally occurring process doesn't sit well with me.
