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It's the pesticide on our dinner plates, a chemical so pervasive it's in the air we breathe, our water, our soil, and even found increasingly in our own bodies. Known as Monsanto's Roundup by consumers, and as glyphosate by scientists, the world's most popular weed killer is used everywhere from backyard gardens to golf courses to millions of acres of farmland. For decades it's been touted as safe enough to drink, but a growing body of evidence indicates just the opposite, with research tying the chemical to cancers and a host of other health threats. In Whitewash, veteran journalist Carey Gillam uncovers one of the most controversial stories in the history of food and agriculture, exposing new evidence of corporate influence. Gillam introduces readers to farm families devastated by cancers which they believe are caused by the chemical, and to scientists whose reputations have been smeared for publishing research that contradicted business interests. Readers learn about the arm-twisting of regulators who signed off on the chemical, echoing company assurances of safety even as they permitted higher residues of the pesticide in food and skipped compliance tests. And, in startling detail, Gillam reveals secret industry communications that pull back the curtain on corporate efforts to manipulate public perception. Whitewash is more than an exposâe about the hazards of one chemical or even the influence of one company. It's a story of power, politics, and the deadly consequences of putting corporate interests ahead of public safety.--AMAZON.

Biotechnology crop production area increased from 1.7 million hectares to 148 million hectares worldwide between 1996 to 2010. While genetically modified food is a contentious issue, the debates are usually limited to health and environmental concerns, ignoring the broader questions of social control that arise when food production methods become corporate-owned intellectual property. Drawing on legal documents and dozens of interviews with farmers and other stakeholders, Corporate Crops covers four case studies based around litigation between biotechnology corporations and farmers. Pechlaner investigates the extent to which the proprietary aspects of biotechnologies—from patents on seeds to a plethora of new rules and contractual obligations associated with the technologies—are reorganizing crop production. The lawsuits include patent infringement litigation launched by Monsanto against a Saskatchewan canola farmer who, in turn, claimed his crops had been involuntarily contaminated by the company’s GM technology; a class action application by two Saskatchewan organic canola farmers launched against Monsanto and Aventis (later Bayer) for the loss of their organic market due to contamination with GMOs; and two cases in Mississippi in which Monsanto sued farmers for saving seeds containing its patented GM technology. Pechlaner argues that well-funded corporate lawyers have a decided advantage over independent farmers in the courts and in creating new forms of power and control in agricultural production. Corporate Crops demonstrates the effects of this intersection between the courts and the fields where profits, not just a food supply, are reaped.

This paper examines relations between the state and capital in Argentina with respect to agricultural biotechnology. Argentina is one of the world's leading exporters of genetically modified (GM) crops and is a key player in the global politics of biotechnology. Whereas in other parts of the world, including other countries in Latin America, active civil societies and some governments have rejected the technology, Argentina has adopted it as a central accumulation strategy. The desirability of this strategy has been secured in material, institutional and discursive arenas of power, producing a particular expression of ‘bio-hegemony’. Looking at the role of business in the political economy of agricultural biotechnology is revealing both of the extent and forms of corporate power and contributes to an understanding of hegemony in practice. Síntese: Este artigo examina as relações entre Estado e o capital na Argentina no tocante à agricultura biotecnológica. A Argentina é um dos líderes mundiais em exportação de safras geneticamente modificadas (GM) e nas políticas globais acerca da biotecnologia é um participante chave. Enquanto em outras partes do mundo – inclusive em outros países latino-americanos – sociedades civis ativas e alguns governos têm rejeitado essa tecnologia, a Argentina a adotou como uma estratégia central de acúmulo. O atrativo dessa estratégia foi assegurado em fóruns de poder materiais, institucionais e discursivos, produzindo a expressão particular “biohegemonia”. Analisar o papel dos negócios na política econômica para a agricultura biotecnológica é revelador tanto sobre a extensão quanto às formas do poder corporativo, e contribui para um entendimento da hegemonia na prática. Palavras-chave: agricultura, Argentina, biotecnologia, GMOs (Organismos Geneticamente Modificados), safras GM (Geneticamente Modificadas), soja, corporações multinacionais, Monsanto, Gramsci, hegemonia. Resumen: Este artículo examina la relación entre el Estado y el capital en Argentina con respecto a la biotecnología agrícola. Argentina es uno de los principales exportadores de granos genéticamente modificados (GM) y juega un papel clave en la política global de la biotecnología. Mientras que en otras partes del mundo, como en otros países latinoamericanos, movimientos de la sociedad civil y algunos gobiernos han rechazado dicha tecnología, Argentina la adoptado como una estrategia central de acumulación. La viabilidad de tal estrategia ha sido afianzada en círculos de poder materiales, institucionales y discursivos, dando como resultado una particular expresión de “bio-hegemonía”. Al ver el papel de los negocios en la economía política de la biotecnología agrícola resultan reveladoras tanto la extensión como las formas de poder corporativo y contribuye al entendimiento de la hegemonía en la práctica. Palabras clave: agricultura, Argentina, biotecnología, GMOs, granos GM, soya, corporaciones multinacionales, Monsanto, Gramsci, hegemonía

On 16 April 2019, the Supreme Court of Argentina rejected a claim filed by Monsanto, seeking patent protection for genetically modified (GM) seeds in Argentina. The decision is based on article 35 of the Argentine Patents and Utility Model Law No. 24.481 (Patent Law), which stipulates that any patent granted under this law shall have a non-renewable term of 20 years, starting from the filing date of the application. Monsanto had filed its claim in February 1996, i.e., more than 22 years ago. Without getting into the substantive issues of the legal action, the Supreme Court decided to dismiss Monsanto's claim on the basis of the expiration of the maximum possible period of validity of a patent.

In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Alabama began a legal fight against the agrochemical company Monsanto over the dumping of PCBs in the city's historically African American and white working-class west side. Simultaneously, Anniston environmentalists sought to safely eliminate chemical weaponry that had been secretly stockpiled near the city during the Cold War. In this probing work, Ellen Griffith Spears offers a compelling narrative of Anniston's battles for environmental justice, exposing how systemic racial and class inequalities reinforced during the Jim Crow era played out in these intense contemporary social movements.Spears focuses attention on key figures who shaped Anniston--from Monsanto's founders, to white and African American activists, to the ordinary Anniston residents whose lives and health were deeply affected by the town's military-industrial history and the legacy of racism. Situating the personal struggles and triumphs of Anniston residents within a larger national story of regulatory regimes and legal strategies that have affected toxic towns across America, Spears unflinchingly explores the causes and implications of environmental inequalities, showing how civil rights movement activism undergirded Anniston's campaigns for redemption and justice.

Under the doctrine of patent exhaustion, \"the initial authorized sale of a patented item terminates all patent rights to that item\" and confers on the purchaser \"the right to use (or) sell\" the item as he pleases, but not to make identical new items. In some tension with this principle is the conditional sales doctrine, which allows the patentee to limit exhaustion of its patent rights through contractual terms. Last Term, in Bowman v. Monsanto Co, the Supreme Court held that patent exhaustion doctrine did not allow a farmer who purchased self-replicating, genetically modified seeds to reproduce them through replanting without the patentee's permission. The Court reached the correct outcome but via the wrong route. The Court should have applied the conditional sales doctrine -- a doctrine better suited to address the unique challenges posed by self-replicating technologies -- rather than decide the case on exhaustion grounds and obfuscate the function of the licensing agreement.

In view of new developments in genetic engineering and in the context of a globalized economy, in which what sacrifices one, is won by the other, the law assumes a role of settling and balancing these overlapped interests. This article aims to present a concrete analysis of the European Court of Justice Decision of July 6, 2010, that established the spatial and temporal application of the Article 9 of the European Directive 98/44/EC. This rule determines that the protection conferred by a patent for a DNA sequence, integrated with other products, depends on the exercise of the function for which it was patented. A decision in this direction has a major influence on innovation impulse by allowing the appearance of new scenarios caused by different uses of the protected sequences. The rights of big knowledge innovators such as Monsanto, must be surrounded by a clear legal framework concerning the extension of the protection conferred; otherwise, the commercialization, development and creation of new products would be limited in excess. Adapted from the source document.