{"id":2101,"date":"2012-02-28T18:29:41","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T00:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/realfoodhouston.com\/?p=2101"},"modified":"2012-02-28T18:29:41","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T00:29:41","slug":"new-york-judge-sides-with-monsanto-against-organic-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/2012\/02\/28\/new-york-judge-sides-with-monsanto-against-organic-farmers\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Judge Sides With Monsanto Against Organic Farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"corn<\/a>I heard\u00a0Dan Ravicher\u00a0speak on a panel at the last Farm & Food Leadership Conference in Austin, TX. He is the lead attorney in the organic farmers’ lawsuit against Monsanto that was just dismissed by\u00a0New York federal judge, Naomi Buchwald.\u00a0\u00a0He is the Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation, PUBPAT, and a Lecturer in Law at Cardozo Law School.\u00a0\u00a0 He’s been called a ‘Robin Hood’ of patent law by Science magazine.\u00a0 I learned a lot about patent law and the\u00a0difficulties of challenging a huge biotech company like Monsanto.\u00a0I was impressed by his dedication to helping organic farmers find relief from the company’s oppressive tactics.\u00a0 Although I’m disappointed that the New York\u00a0judge\u00a0has dismissed the lawsuit, the plaintiff’s are considering an appeal.<\/p>\n

The group (83 in all) of farmers and other supporters had filed the lawsuit in hopes of stopping Monsanto from suing farmers whose crops had accidentally been contaminated with genetically engineered patented seeds.\u00a0 Since more than 80% of all soybeans, corn, cotton, sugar beets, and canola\u00a0in the U.S. are grown from Monsanto-patented genetically engineered seeds, it is becoming more difficult for organic farmers\u00a0to avoid contamination and keep their organic certification.\u00a0 The farmers had also wanted a reexamination of Monsanto’s patents; however, the judge did not address the legality of the patents.<\/p>\n

Dan Ravicher\u00a0said that he believes the judge made an error. “Her failure to address the purpose of the Declaratory Judgment Act and her characterization of binding Supreme Court precedent that supports the farmers\u2019 standing as ‘wholly inapposite’ constitute legal error. In sum, her opinion is flawed on both the facts and the law.”\u00a0 I’m hoping that all of the members of the group suing Monsanto will appeal the decision and will be looking for it.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Organic farmers’ case against Monsanto thrown out by judge<\/a>
\nJudge Dismisses Organic Farmers’ Case Against Monsanto<\/a>
\nOrganic Farmers Succeed Despite Federal Court Defeat<\/a>
\nA \u2018Robin Hood\u2019 Declares War on Lucrative U.S. Patents<\/a>
\nProfile of Dan Ravicher<\/a>
\nPublic Patent Foundation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I heard\u00a0Dan Ravicher\u00a0speak on a panel at the last Farm & Food Leadership Conference in Austin, TX. He is the lead attorney in the organic farmers’ lawsuit against Monsanto that was just dismissed by\u00a0New York federal judge, Naomi Buchwald.\u00a0\u00a0He is …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,63,59,19],"tags":[48,405,100,122,31],"class_list":["post-2101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-real-food","category-food-safety","category-gmos","category-real-food","tag-farfa","tag-gmos","tag-monsanto","tag-patent-law","tag-sustainable-farming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70SEj-xT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2101"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2116,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions\/2116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}