Bowman asserts once he buys soybeans from the elevator he can do with them whatever he wants. Baise says there’s a problem with that thinking.
“The soybean is a self-pollinating plant and so that one soybean and the 60, 70, 80 beans it puts on that stalk replicates identically that bean that went in the ground. That’s got a patent in it. That patent belongs to Monsanto. Mr. Bowman violated that patent by recreating, or in essence just like Pioneer, or BASF or Syngenta, any of them that reproduce soybeans take Monsanto’s patent and pay for that. Mr. Bowman tries to get by without paying for that.”
Baise believes the Supreme Court will rule rather quickly and in favor of Monsanto.
During the research process he started uncovering some great history about the soybean and realized he hadn’t known as much as he thought. Some of that history is rooted in Indiana.
“Henry Ford and some Indiana farmers actually started what is now the American Soybean Association in Camden, Indiana. I want to say it was in 1925, and that great soybean farmer Henry Ford of Dearborn, Michigan had the American Soybean Association annual meeting, in I think it was 1932, 33 or 34, at his farm of soybeans in Dearborn, Michigan. He was telling the Indiana soybean guys, who were really beginning to start growing this crop, how many pounds of soybean based products he was going to be putting in those Model T or Model A cars he was building at the time.”
Baise specializes in agricultural and environmental issues at OFW Law in Washington DC.