KBIA Local
(2010-01-14)
KANSAS CITY, MO
(KBIA) -
The Justice Department has sharpened its anti-trust investigation into Monsanto. The St. Louis based biotech company is under scrutiny for allegedly monopolizing the seed industry with its Roundup Ready genetic traits. Frank Morris reports from Kansas City.Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybean seed is genetically modified to withstand powerful herbicide, and it's popular. More than nine out of ten soy seeds planted in the United States carry the trait. Monsanto's pay a lot, half a billion dollars a year by one estimate, to license the technology, but Monsanto controls the way they use it. Pioneer seeds filed an anti-trust complaint last year alleging that control amounts to monopoly. The Department of Justice launched an investigation, and recently escalated it, compelling Monsanto's full cooperation. Chris Holman teaches law at the University of Missouri Kansas City.
"It indicates that this is serious, that it's something the DOJ is taking seriously to the extent that they are not going to simply rely on the candor of Monsanto."
A Monsanto spokesman says the company's products compete in an open marketplace, that it's been cooperating with the investigation all along, and will continue to do so.
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