The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

the iron law of the patenting of life 211The case caused a stir, because it brought to light another of the company’sabusive practices: the technology agreements contained a clause providingthat in case of a dispute, proceedings were exclusively to be broughtbefore state or federal court in St. Louis. For victims around the country thismeant extra expenses in the conduct of their defense. Most important, itgave Monsanto what the Chicago Tribune called in 2005 a considerable“hometown advantage.” 19 Established in its domain for more than a century,the company was used to working with the same law firms, including Huschand Eppenberger. 20 It turns out that Judge Sippel, known for his hard lineagainst “pirates,” had begun his legal career at Husch and Eppenberger. 21It should also be pointed out that in 2001, when discontent was spreadingin American prairie farms against the patenting of seeds, John Ashcroft,then George W. Bush’s attorney general, who had also been governor of Missourifrom 1983 to 1994, asked the Supreme Court for a ruling on the question.On December 10, in an opinion written by Clarence Thomas (formerly,it will be recalled, an attorney for Monsanto) the court decided 6–2 in favorof the patenting of seeds. 22 Everyone Is Afraid“Patents have changed everything,” said Troy Roush, an Indiana farmer whowas a victim of the gene police, when I met him on his Van Buren farm inOctober 2006. “I really advise European farmers to think very hard beforethey get into transgenic crops. Afterward, nothing will be the same.” Hearingthis six-foot-tall rugged man say these words while holding back bothtears and anger was deeply moving.His nightmare began in the fall of 1999 with a visit from a “private detectivefrom Monsanto,” who told him he was “doing an investigation of farmerswho save their seed.” That year, Roush, who ran a family farm with hisbrother and his father, had planted five hundred acres of RR soybeans for aseed company with which he had signed a contract.* He had also plantedtwelve hundred acres of conventional soybeans with seeds that he had savedfrom his preceding harvest.*The company, which had inserted the gene into one of its varieties, paid him for multiplying theseeds the company would sell to other farmers.