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-   -   Five Million Brazilian Farmers Take on Monsanto and Win $2 BillionFive Million Brazil (http://www.discussworldissues.com/forums/general-discussion/196272-five-million-brazilian-farmers-take-monsanto-win-%242-billionfive-million-brazil.html)

chechokancho 06-15-2012 06:31 PM

Five Million Brazilian Farmers Take on Monsanto and Win $2 BillionFive Million Brazil
 
Five Million Brazilian Farmers Take on Monsanto and Win $2 Billion

http://wakeup-world.com/wp-content/u...rs-300x300.jpg15th June 2012By Subodh Varma - timesofindia.indiatimes.comFive million Brazilian farmers have taken on US based biotech company Monsanto through a lawsuit demanding return of about 6.2 billion euros taken as royalties from them. The farmers are claiming that the powerful company has unfairly extracted these royalties from poor farmers because they were using seeds produced from crops grown from Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds, reports Merco Press.In April this year, a judge in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, ruled in favor of the farmers and ordered Monsanto to return royalties paid since 2004 or a minimum of $2 billion. The ruling said that the business practices of seed multinational Monsanto violate the rules of the Brazilian Cultivars Act (No. 9.456/97). Monsanto has appealed against the order and a federal court ruling on the case is now expected by 2014.About 85% of Brazil’s massive soyabean crop output is produced from genetically engineered seeds. Brazil exports about $24.1 billion worth of soyabeans annually, more than a quarter of its total agri-exports.Farmers say that they are using seeds produced many generations after the initial crops from the genetically modified Monsanto seeds were grown. Farmers claim that Monsanto unfairly collects exorbitant profits every year worldwide on royalties from “renewal” seed harvests. Renewal crops are those that have been planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest. Monsanto disagrees, demanding royalties from any crop generation produced from its genetically-engineered seed. Because the engineered seed is patented, Monsanto not only charges an initial royalty on the sale of the crop produced, but a continuing two per cent royalty on every subsequent crop, even if the farmer is using a later generation of seed.The first transgenic soy seeds were illegally smuggled into Brazil from neighboring Argentina in 1998 and their use was banned and subject to prosecution until the last decade, according to the state-owned Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research (EMBRAPA).The ban has since been lifted and now 85 percent of the country’s soybean crop (25 million hectares or 62 million acres) is genetically modified, Alexandre Cattelan, an EMBRAPA researcher told Merco Press. Brazil is the world’s second largest producer and exporter of soyabean. China is one of its biggest buyers.“Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production,” Jane Berwanger, lawyer for the farmers told the media agencies.Source - timesofindia.indiatimes.com

GustavM 06-15-2012 06:54 PM

Holy cow!!! Five million brazillion!!!!! That's a really big number.

sStevenRitziI 06-15-2012 07:04 PM

How much is a brazillion?

GustavM 06-15-2012 07:07 PM

Quote:

How much is a brazillion?
It's a lot man, a lot!

chechokancho 06-15-2012 07:07 PM

http://adsoftheworld.com/files/image...lianBeauty.jpg

BqTyG9eS 06-15-2012 07:10 PM

I'll take a couple, if they're cheap enough! Your avatar likes it too!

sStevenRitziI 06-15-2012 07:13 PM

Quote:

It's a lot man, a lot!
So, divide the court winnings by the number of claimants and you get, what, $0.0001 per farmer?

Zzvukttz 06-15-2012 07:41 PM

this is a job for big number calculator...
http://www.omnicognic.com/Support/51/Big_Number_Add.png

chuecafressds 06-15-2012 08:03 PM

http://www.rense.com/1.imagesH/monsansplash1.jpghttp://www.rense.com/


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