Which corporation is genuinely "evil"? Why?

There are plenty of reasons to hate Monsanto, however two of the reasons you bought up are rather problematic.

Their seeds must be replanted annually (aka guaranteed annual sales)

This is common practice in the seed industry, it's not unique to Monsanto.

It's actually mostly down to the genetics of F1 hybrids. They have more conistant good quality at the expense of their offspring being infertile. This has a number of vital advantages to the grower too, mostly due to F1s being a more consistant crop making a far eaisier product to sell to supermarkets that demand perfection.

Most farmers buy seed, and that seed is bought on a license that restricts them to growing them a single time. Having worked in the seed industry (not for Monsanto), it is far more cost effective for farmers to rebuy the seed each harvest than run the equipment, extra land, and extra hands they need in order to create their own seed crops.

If you want to beat Monsanto, you have to stop caring if your carrots are always perfectly straight and your cucumbers are all exactly the same diameter, because until then F1 hybrids are going to be what farmers need to buy to keep selling their produce.

will overpower crops in neighboring fields and then they charge the neighbor for the crops that grew in his field, even though he didn’t want them there in the first place.

Presumably you're referring to this case. What's often omitted when the argument is bought up is that the farmer was found to have deliberatly and knowingly harvested the patented crop for seed, and then sold the seed.

There has never been a case of Monsanto (or any other company) suing a farmer for the accidental harvest of crops - there's no way that could ever be policed or enforced.

If you want to get angry at something over that case, I feel your anger would best be directed at the patent system, which the court acknowledged has shortcomings when it comes to biological products.

/r/AskReddit Thread