Wilmington, Delaware
May 5, 2009
Monsanto is trying to deny farmers access to alternative
technologies at a time when farmers are struggling with weeds
that are increasingly resistant to current Monsanto products,
said Jim Borel, DuPont group
vice president.
“The litigation filed [March 5] by Monsanto is more of what we
have come to expect from them,” said Jim, in response to the
filing of a lawsuit by Monsanto in federal court in St. Louis,
Mo. “Monsanto has a long history of using litigation and
aggressive tactics to preserve their monopoly and attempt to
intimidate customers, seed partners and competitors. DuPont™
Optimum® GAT® soybeans that include the RR1 trait are better
products, and we believe our customers should have the right to
plant them. On this issue, we will stand with American farmers
and fight Monsanto’s efforts to deny them access to competitive
products.
“DuPont has been delivering innovation to the marketplace for
years, such as Y series soybeans, and we are seeing positive
response from farmers. Our pipeline is full of innovative
products that will improve productivity of the world’s farmers,
and we think it’s only appropriate that farmers can see some new
options that can benefit them.
“We are disappointed Monsanto chose litigation and inflammatory
public statements over civil discourse. The lawsuit incorrectly
claims that Pioneer and DuPont may not combine (‘stack’) the
innovative Optimum® GAT® trait with any soybeans already
containing a Roundup Ready® trait. Monsanto’s so-called
‘stacking’ restriction is one of many practices that Monsanto
engages in to limit the availability of competitive products. In
2008, the U.S. Department of Justice required that Monsanto
abandon similar ‘stacking’ restrictions it imposed on its
licensees producing Roundup Ready cottonseed as a condition to
its acquisition of cotton seed company Delta & Pine Land.
“It is DuPont’s belief that competition in the seed industry,
U.S. growers, and ultimately, consumers, would be best served by
a public policy that allows independent seed companies to
assemble the best combinations of traits and germplasm for each
of their customers. To that end, seed companies should be able
to offer combinations of traits and germplasm without
restrictions imposed by trait providers that attempt to limit
those combinations.” |
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