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Percy Schmeiser vs. Monsanto
17 July, 2004

In May a globally significant Canadian court battle came to an end. That battle is the battle between Saskatchewan canola farmer Percy Schmeiser and Monsanto, an enormous corporation that dominates agricultural business, and that leads the pack in the field of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Three years ago, a court in Saskatchewan ordered Schmeiser to pay $140,000 to Monsanto for improper use of their patented GMO Roundup Ready Canola. But Schmeiser claimed that the seeds were blown onto his fields and he didn't willingly infringe on Monsanto's patent. Schmeiser also complained that Monsanto's GMOs contaminated his own seeds which he had developed through years of meticulous farming.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Monsanto's favour, decreeing that Monsanto's patent on RR canola was legitimate. At the same time, though, the court supported Schmeiser's claim that he did not profit from Monsanto's product, and ruled that Schmeiser did not owe Monsanto any money.

This court case is globally significant because agricultural business giants such as Monsanto are fighting very hard to take control of agriculture away from independent farmers around the world.

Critics of GMOs state that tinkering with genetic structures is basically playing with fire. How can we know what long-term consequences will result from such experimentation? How can we determine that GMOs are safe for human consumption in the long term? What long-term effects will arise from the introduction of GMOs into ecosystems?

This manufacture of life forms also brings about ethical questions. How safe is it to grant someone ownership of a life form? The Supreme Court has ruled that genes can be patented and that with control of the gene comes control of whatever life form that gene is in. When will human genes be patented, and human beings become owned commodities?

Farmers (many of whom are organic farmers) are now filing class action lawsuits against Monsanto, complaining that GMO seeds patented by Monsanto have contaminated their crops and polluted their soil, as few things are less organic than GMOs.

(This is hardly the first time Monsanto has been accused of large-scale pollution. The company has been accused of polluting the town of Anniston, Alabama with PCBs over decades. See www.chemicalindustryarchives.org.)

The process of seed saving, which is thousands of years old, involves years of developing one's own seeds and plants to suit local climatic and soil conditions. Seed saving maximizes agricultural efficiency naturally by customizing one's seed supply to the specific environment in which it is planted. Control over one's own seeds is crucial to seed saving. If a corporation owned the seeds used in farming, farmers would have to "rent" the seeds from companies, and localized seed saving would be reduced.

According to Schmeiser, the point of Monsanto's RR canola-which is designed to be resistant to Roundup, the company's own herbicide-is simply to help Monsanto sell more Roundup and make farmers dependent on a Monsanto product.

The agricultural world was shocked when the courts ruled that unlicensed use of patented seeds is infringement regardless of how the seeds were introduced into the farmer's field, because this meant that overnight, an ill-fated wind could rob farmers of control over their own carefully developed seed stock, and make them suddenly indebted to a giant corporation.

Monsanto tried to seize Schmeiser's house, his land, and all the profit from his crops. They did not succeed, and Schmeiser has called the ruling a personal victory. Still, this happened in Canada, and we should be paying attention. The threat to local farmers posed by corporate GMOs should equally scare both democratic and conservative Albertans.

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