Minnesota Farmers Union

(November 12, 2010) - As is well known in farming circles, Monsanto is in the process of rolling out their Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybean varieties. Monsanto’s marketing task is to persuade farmers to switch from planting soybean varieties using the original Roundup Ready technology—a technology that farmers will be able to access for free after its patent expires in 2014—to the new version that would require continued payment of a fee to Monsanto. While the issue is not quite that simple (see our January 22, 2010 column,http://agpolicy.org/weekcol/495.html), the expiration of their patent does present Monsanto with a significant challenge.

Were farmers to continue to grow soybeans with the original Roundup Ready, Monsanto could see a significant drop in income. To entice farmers to switch to Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans, Monsanto has advertised that the new soybeans have an increased yield of 7-11 percent over similar varieties of the original. The new seeds were first available for the 2009 crop year.

(January 22, 2010) - The impending loss of Monsanto's patent on its Roundup Ready soybean in 2014 raises a number of important policy issues in addition to those raised in DuPont's anti-trust case against Monsanto and the opening of an antitrust investigation of Monsanto by the US Department of Justice.

Monsanto's Roundup Ready genetics is used in 90 percent of all soybeans grown in the United States. Other major crops containing the Roundup Ready genetics are corn and cotton.

The advent of this technology in soybeans in 1996 spelled the end to bean walking and bean bars as a means of controlling weeds in soybeans. Spraying glyphosate on soybeans with the Roundup Ready gene killed the weeds while allowing the soybean plants to continue growing and providing farmers with a superior weed-control technology.

While the technology did not affect yields appreciably, it saved farmers time and effort. The Roundup Ready technology also provided weed control for no-till agriculture.

One of the contractual obligations farmers accepted in buying Roundup Ready soybeans was a prohibition on the saving of seed as had been common among soybean farmers before the advent of the technology. In addition to paying a higher price for the seed, farmers pay a technology fee.