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Illinois Farmers in Seed War

Posted on: Monday, 12 December 2005, 21:00 CST

By Steve Tarter, Journal Star, Peoria, Ill.

Dec. 13--PEORIA -- Agribusiness firms may be waking up to the fact there are problems in the heartland now that Illinois farmers have fired the latest salvo in the seed war.

A resolution passed at last week's Illinois Farm Bureau meeting called for the federal government to take a fresh look at seed patents.

"Many farmers like the technology but they're concerned about high-tech fees," said spokesman Adam Nielsen from bureau offices in Bloomington.

Biotech seed has become widely popular in Illinois and around the country. Roundup Ready soybeans, a patented product first marketed by the Monsanto Co. in St. Louis in the mid-1990s, is estimated to account for 80 percent of all soybeans now grown in the United States.

The farm bureau challenge to biotech policies is believed to be the first by a major soybean-producing state.

The 200-132 vote to pass the resolution "was not just something that squeaked past," said Nielsen. "Frustration over higher input costs bubbled over in St. Louis (site of the farm bureau meeting)," he said.

Farmers would like to see the statutes of the U.S. Plant Variety Protection Act govern seed research, said David Shupe, a farmer in Toledo and president of the Cumberland County Farm Bureau who argued the case for passing the resolution in St. Louis.

"The difference is that with the PVPA, other companies and breeders can do research on a specific seed. If it's patented, no one else can touch it," he said.

"They're patenting everything -- even non-GMO materials -- at an alarming rate," said Shupe, referring to agribusiness companies. "Some plant breeders have questioned whether some of the materials being patented even qualify for a patent." Shupe said one provision of the PVPA is an exemption for farmers who save seeds from one year to the next. Biotech firms have sought to eliminate seed-saving. In some cases, farmers have been prosecuted for the practice.

While the resolution doesn't change federal law, the move could have a major impact on agribusiness, said Mica DeLong, public affairs manager for Monsanto.

"Patent law insures innovation and that a company gets a return on its investment. Several things are coming for soybeans over the next 10 years. We're spending $500 million to bring this technology to market," said DeLong.

"Farmers have been keeping seed since the days of the Pilgrims. It's a common ag practice," said Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union in Washington, D.C.

What also bothers farmers -- not just in Illinois but around the country -- is the fact that in other countries, specifically major soybean-producing nations like Argentina and Brazil, farmers don't pay the same technology fees charged their American counterparts, he said. "The technology that costs, on average, $15 an acre for an American farmer is available to a competitor who gets to use it without paying a tech fee," said Buis.

Technology fees are charges set in addition to the cost of the actual seed. "These charges haven't gone the way of other technologies. Unlike the computer, which has gotten cheaper, technology fees on seed products have gone up," said Shupe. "In 1996, the tech fee on a 50-pound bag of Roundup Ready soybeans was $6.50. Now that same product carries a tech fee from $12 to $14." Monsanto conceded there were tech-fee problems in other countries. "We have had difficulty collecting for the use of our technology in South America which is just as frustrating for us as it has been for U.S. growers," said DeLong.

"We have shut down our soybean breeding business in Argentina because of the difficulty for the use of our technology there. We have publicly promised not to introduce new technology in Argentina until we can charge for it," she said.

The Illinois proposal now goes to the American Farm Bureau meeting set for January in Nashville, said Milton Smith, president of the Peoria County Farm Bureau.

As a seed dealer in Princeville, Smith has heard the arguments before. "I don't like paying the high tech fees but there are benefits to the technology," he said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Journal Star, Peoria, Ill.

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Source: Journal Star

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