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DewDiligence

03/16/10 5:43 PM

#111 RE: Democritus_of_Abdera #110

As I mentioned in #msg-46578556, I believe that Monsanto’s disappointing results with RR2Y to date has been due to limited hybrid diversity and that this will resolve itself as hybrid number increases...

This is undoubtedly true in part. However, I wonder if part of the explanation for the slower than expected uptake of RR2Y is that some farmers understand the arithmetic trickery in the RR2Y-vs-legacy-RR calculation described in #msg-47858225, and hence these farmers are opting to stay with legacy RR all the way through to patent expiration in 2014.

One way of looking at this is that MON’s decision to allow farmers free unlimited use of legacy RR seeds after patent expiration is effectively a tax that MON chose to pay in order to lessen the demands of the voracious antitrust cops. If this is the correct interpretation, MON may have calculated that the consequent slowness in the commercial uptake of RR2Y was a relatively small price to pay.