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Farmers now plant generic GMO soybeans as Monsanto patent expires
Aug. 3, 2015
Monsanto Company
United StatesFollow
United StatesNow Monsanto no longer controls one of the biggest innovations in the history of agriculture. Some of its early patents are starting to expire, leading to the first “generic GMOs”—off-patent seeds that cost half as much and which farmers are free to save and replant.
Billy Maddox is a seed dealer near Jonesboro, Arkansas who works with conventional varieties. Maddox planted 100 acres of Roundup Ready soybeans this year without pay Monsanto. From the acres he planted he was able to collect thousands of bags of seeds genetically engineered to resist glyphosate, the weed killer Monsanto markets as Roundup.
The generic GMOs planted by Maddox were developed at the University of Arkansas by plant breeder Pengyin Chen, who spent several years mating plants in order to move the Roundup resistance gene, which originated in a bacterium, from Monsanto’s seeds into a different type of soybean in development at the university.The Arkansas seeds cost $25 a bag, half the price of Monsanto’s newer ones. University of Arkansas plans to file such a patent on its new soybean, but says it won’t stop farmers from saving seeds.
Other agricultural universities are launching their own generics, including in Kansas and Georgia. The University of Missouri, in Monsanto’s backyard, is preparing four knockoffs to sell this year.
Monsanto says it’s not worried about the patent expiration. Although it doesn’t sell the older Roundup beans anymore, Monsanto has said it will keep the regulatory files up to date through 2021. After that, keeping things on track may fall to an industry group set up to track expiring patents.It developed a new version, Roundup Ready 2, several years ago that it says works better and whose patents are still in force. A third generation is pending approval. They say the older trait had problems that led to lower yields and they caution that university varieties aren’t competitive.
China, which buys one in four soybeans grown in the U.S., asks that genetically modified traits be reregistered every three years, he says. In Europe, it’s every 10 years. Because of the way soybeans get mixed up in grain elevators and crushers, if approvals for older products lapsed, all exports could be compromised.
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