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Regarding the article about Monsanto (“Seed company may be squeezing little guys,” Dec. 14), I wanted to expand on the conversation a bit.

Monsanto buys seed companies in order to have a monopoly over the seeds that are on the market. They have a “terminator seed” that can be used only once, and then the farmer has to buy the seeds over again for the beginning of the year. One can easily see the increased cost for the small farmer.

Monsanto has sued a Canadian farmer whose fields were inadvertently contaminated from a nearby farm that had used Monsanto’s Round-Up-Ready Canola. The “offending farm” was sued for the technology fee associated with the Round-Up-Ready Canola. Monsanto has also sued a dairy farmer in Maine because he was advertising that his milk was RGBH-free. RGBH is a steroid given to cows, and it has been banned by every industrialized nation except the United States.

Remember that Monsanto is one of the companies that supplied Agent Orange, which was sprayed in Vietnam. It still claims it to be nontoxic. We need to protect the small farmers, not drive them out of business.

Jason Roberts
Greensboro