The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

paraguay, brazil, argentina: the “united soy republic” 279Monsanto had just purchased. Royalties were set at $10 per ton for the firstyear and $20 for the 2004 harvest. When you consider that 30 percent ofBrazilian soybeans in 2003 were transgenic, amounting to about 16 milliontons harvested, the math is simple: for the first year alone, intellectual propertyrights brought in $160 million for Monsanto.In October 2004, it was the Paraguayan producers’ turn to pay up. Theydidn’t offer much resistance either, because in the end the official paymentof royalties confirmed their triumph. The agreement provided for an initialpayment of $3 per ton of soybeans, which was supposed to double withinfive years. As in Brazil, the fee was collected by dealers when the harvest wasdelivered, and they transferred it to Monsanto after deducting a commission.One week later, on October 22, 2004, Agriculture Minister AntonioIbáñez issued a circular authorizing the sale of four varieties of transgenicsoybeans belonging to Monsanto.“In this matter, in fact, the government just legalized the violation, didn’tit?” I asked Roberto Franco.“Well, let’s say we went along with it,” he said hesitantly. “The large producerswere the ones who negotiated directly with Monsanto. It wasn’t likein Argentina, where the government handled the issue of royalties from thevery beginning.”That’s true. And it can be said that in Argentina, Monsanto hit a snag thathas poisoned its relations with its loyal ally since 2004. It will be recalledthat when it launched its RR soybeans, the company demonstrated extraordinarygenerosity by agreeing that producers would not pay royalties on theseeds. Eight years later, it was estimated that only 18 percent of the seedsused were certified, that is, bought at the list price from dealers subservientto Monsanto through licenses; the rest were seeds that had been saved orbought on the black market. Monsanto did not move until January 2004,when it suddenly threatened to withdraw from Argentina if all the producersdid not pay the “technology fee.”At first Agriculture Secretary Miguel Campos didn’t bat an eyelid. Heeven offered to set up a royalty fund paid for by a tax the government wouldcollect from producers and turn over to Monsanto, the trifling sum of $34million a year. To enter into force, the measure had to be approved by theCongress, which dragged its feet for fear of antagonizing the agriculturalsector. “There is no question of our paying anything at all,” I was told in April2005 by Eduardo Buzzi, president of the Argentine Agrarian Federation.