News and Document archive source
copyrighted material disclaimer at bottom of page

NewsMinecabal-elitecorporatemonsanto — Viewing Item


Canadian farmer monsanto

Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
   http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/service18.htm

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/service18.htm

THIRD WORLD NETWORK INFORMATION SERVICE ON BIOSAFETY

20 April 2001

Dear friends and colleagues,

A Canadian federal court’s decision last month in favour of biotech giant Monsanto in its lawsuit against farmer Percy Schmeiser raises serious concerns for farmers worldwide. The following pieces look at the Monsanto vs. Schmeiser case, highlighting the complex issues and implications involved. The first article reports on the court’s decision and the details of the case, while the second piece is an opinion letter by E. Ann Clark, a professor of plant agriculture.

Schmeiser, a 70 year-old farmer from Saskatchewan, had no intention of growing Monsanto’s genetically engineered canola, but pollen from a neighbouring farm drifted and propagated on his farm. Monsanto brought Schmeiser to court because he did not enter an agreement to pay patent royalties to Monsanto for growing the GE crop. Under the court’s judgement, Schmeiser is required to pay Monsanto about $10,000 in user fees, and up to $75,000 in profits from his 1998 crop.

Farmers, scientists, and regulatory officials now acknowledge that it is extremely difficult to control the spread of GE crops, as cross-pollination and horizontal gene transfer will unavoidably occur between GE crops and non-GE varieties. Such natural processes cannot be prevented through the imposition of planting restrictions and artificial boundaries such as buffer zones. As Clark points out, “There is no way to build a fence high enough to keep pollen - whether from Starlink corn or from herbicide tolerant-canola - from moving into your land from neighbouring fields.”

Furthermore, the recent StarLink crisis revealed the inability of the US regulatory system to effectively segregate the GE corn from non-GE varieties, as it was not approved for human consumption. Given these facts and the accumulating evidence of the risks and hazards of GE, the option of a moratorium or a ban on the planting of GE crops (whether commercially or for field trials) and the release of any GE organism from strict laboratory containment in each country and worldwide is the only logical option. In almost all developing countries, agriculture production is currently GE-free and free of intellectual property rights constraints. Keeping this status is absolutely crucial to protect the right of farmers to keep and re-use seeds, as well as to ensure food security, environmental stability and food safety.

The Schmeiser case also raises pertinent questions about liability. When gene flow or regulatory mishaps occur, who pays for the mess? If, as in Schmeiser’s case, liability falls on farmer, the livelihood on which that farmer depends is destroyed. At the same time, farmers like Schmeiser face a loss of markets for their crops when they cannot guarantee consumers that their crops are GE-free or organic. In the end, the farmer pays the most.

The case also reveals fundamental contradictions that underlie the biotech agricultural model. While biotech companies claim that GE crops and food are “substantially equivalent” to conventional varieties and carry no special health and environmental concerns, they are rushing to obtain intellectual property rights over the GE organisms and the parts thereof on the basis that they are unique “inventions”.

The verdict from the Schmeiser case carries serious implications for farmers worldwide, where over 44 million hectares (about 109 million acres) were used to plant GE crops in 2000. With the rise in patents over crops and seeds, the global food supply is increasingly falling into the control of powerful agribusiness and biotech companies. In addition, the private ownership of seeds abolishes farmers’ fundamental rights to save and reuse seeds. Instead, farmers must pay royalties to biotech companies for planting their seeds. In Schmeiser’s words: “Basically, the right to use our own seed has been taken away.”

If the biotech companies have their way, their monopolistic property rights over biotech seeds would extend to farmers all over the world. The economic, social, cultural and ecological impacts of such monopolistic control by biotech companies would be devastating in the developing world, where farmers have been exchanging, saving and reusing seeds for centuries.

In the meantime, Schmeiser must find a way to pay Monsanto exorbitant amounts of money for the contamination of his crop by Monsanto’s GE canola. After the court decision, he was quoted as saying: “It will take totally all of my wife’s and myself’s retirement funds that we’ve worked for all our life. I’ve lost 50 years of work because of a company’s genetically altered seed getting into my canola, destroying what I’ve worked for, destroying my property and getting sued on top it.”

With best wishes,

Lim Li Lin and Pauline Fan
Third World Network
228 Macalister Road
10400 Penang
Malaysia

Email: twnet@po.jaring.my
Website: www.twnside.org.sg

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Doc. TWN/Biosafety/2001/B

Farmer Liable For Growing Biotech Crops

Court Says Canadian Used Company’s Plants

by Marc Kaufman, Washington Post, March 30, 2001

Correction

CLARIFICATION: A March 30 article about a Monsanto Co. lawsuit against a Canadian canola farmer failed to fully report the judge’s conclusions in deciding the case. Judge W. Andrew MacKay wrote that the amount of Roundup Ready canola in the farmer’s fields likely could not be explained by cross-pollination and the spread of seed from nearby fields and passing trucks, as argued in the farmer’s defense.

===============================================================

A judge yesterday ordered a Canadian farmer to pay the biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. thousands of dollars because the company’s genetically engineered canola plants were found growing on his field, apparently after pollen from modified plants had blown onto his property from nearby farms.

The closely watched case was a major victory for companies that produce genetically modified crops and have been aggressively enforcing agreements that require farmers to pay yearly fees for using their technology.

But the decision in a federal court in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was a significant setback for farmers who fear they will be held liable if pollen from neighboring farms blows onto their fields, transmitting patented genes to their crops without their knowledge or consent. Dozens of similar lawsuits have been filed against farmers around the United States, but the Canadian case is the first to go to trial.

The case also highlights growing tension between farmers and large agricultural biotechnology companies, whose high-tech crops are transforming the traditional ways growers tend their fields.

“I’ve been using my own seed for years, and now farmers like me are being told we can’t do that anymore if our neighbors are growing [genetically modified] crops that blow in,” said Percy Schmeiser, 70, the farmer from Saskatchewan who was sued by Monsanto. “Basically, the right to use our own seed has been taken away.”

Genetically engineered corn, soybeans, cotton and canola have become widely used in the United States, and recent evidence suggests that their pollen can spread to conventional crops. That means any farmer whose neighbors grow engineered varieties could find himself in the same situation as Schmeiser—especially farmers of easily windblown canola and corn.

A Monsanto spokeswoman in Winnipeg, Manitoba, said yesterday that the decision will help protect the intellectual property rights of the company and of thousands of farmers who pay for its technology.

“This is a clear win for Monsanto, and this is very good news for us,” said Trish Jordan, manager of public and industry affairs for Monsanto Canada. “What the judge found was that Mr. Schmeiser had infringed on our patent, and awarded us damages.”

In his ruling, federal Judge W. Andrew MacKay concluded that a farmer does not have the right to grow crops with a patented and genetically modified gene unless he has an agreement with the company that owns the patent. MacKay also ruled that it didn’t matter whether the farmer took advantage of the patented gene. In this case, Schmeiser did not.

The Monsanto canola contains a gene that protects the crop from the herbicide Roundup. With Roundup Ready canola, farmers can spray the herbicide more widely and control weeds more easily.

Seed companies representing Monsanto, and similar biotechnology companies, sell their modified genes to farmers under an agreement that they use them for only one season. Traditionally, farmers have stored their best seeds and replanted them.

Monsanto communications director Lori Fisher said yesterday that seed companies that license Monsanto technology will help farmers remove unwanted genetically modified plants in their fields. She called the Schmeiser case unusual and said that farmers support the company’s effort to protect its patent.

But a spokeswoman with the National Farmers Union, which represents 300,000 small farmers and ranchers in the United States, said the organization has been following the Schmeiser case with apprehension.

“We’re extremely concerned by what liabilities may unfold for the farmer, particularly with cross-pollination of genetically modified plants,” she said.

Margaret Mellon, director of the agriculture and biotechnology program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the ruling “stunning.

“This means that people who are in the neighborhood of genetically modified crops will have to pay royalties to the companies for products they never purchased and got no benefits from,” she said.

The decision prohibits Schmeiser from using his seed again and requires him to pay Monsanto about $10,000 for its user fees and up to $75,000 in profits from his 1998 crop. MacKay told the farmer and company that he would impose a financial settlement if they couldn’t work one out.

Schmeiser is a fifth-generation farmer in Bruno, Saskatchewan. In his trial last summer, he acknowledged he was aware that Roundup Ready canola had gotten into his crops in 1997. He said he used seeds from that crop for his next year’s planting—as he traditionally did—but with no intention of taking advantage of the genetically modified plants’ engineered trait.

Representatives of Monsanto Canada received reports from nearby farmers in 1998 that they believed Schmeiser was using Roundup Ready canola without an agreement. Private investigators collected samples from Schmeiser’s fields and confirmed the presence of the modified canola.

They reported that the crop was made up almost entirely of genetically modified plants. Schmeiser denied that, and third-party tests found the presence of modified canola to be significantly less. He became something of a hero in farmer and anti-biotech circles for his fight against the company.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Canadian professor speaks out on Percy Schmeiser decision

March 30, 2001 -Cropchoice, USA opinion—E. Ann Clark, a professor of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, offers her perspective on the Canadian federal court ruling against Percy Schmeiser.

Editor:

To all the farmers and farm organizations that applauded the prosecution of Schmeiser two years ago, and have since sat back and watched him swinging in the wind waiting for judgment:

a. he was not found guilty of brown bagging or improperly buying or stealing Monsanto seed - indeed, those highly publicized allegations were dropped at the actual hearing stage due to a complete lack of evidence,

b. he was found guilty of having Monsanto genetics on his land,

c. it’s doubtful whether there’s a farm anywhere in western Canada that does not have Monsanto Roundup Ready canola seed in its soil,

d. if you have it, you are to call Monsanto and they are to come out and deal with it. How, pray tell, are they going to do this - by plucking out the offending plants one by one - for up to 10 years after each contamination event occurred (canola seed can remain dormant under western Canadian conditions including no-till) - during which time you are disallowed from growing canola because if you do, and volunteer Monsanto canola emerges, sets seed, and shatters, it all starts over again?

e. is Monsanto going to come out to your fields not just in the spring prior to planting, but throughout the season, because canola can germinate anytime? Are they going to absorb all costs of these service calls, or will they charge you for it?

f. if you have it, and you call Monsanto to come and clean out your Monsanto genetics, what is to stop them from prosecuting you, as they did Schmeiser?

g. if you do not join in an appeal of this decision - and ensure that the judge that hears the appeal has at least a rudimentary understanding of plant reproductive biology, and has heard of StarLink corn, and that a scientifically sound and defensible decision is made - then you deserve what will most surely happen to you and your neighbors.

To put this into a perspective that everyone can visualize, imagine that the government were to come up with a new law, stating a) that all male calves shall remain intact (not castrated), and b) that all fences must come down.

Imagine further that two-thirds of these calves carry a deleterious trait that reduces the valuation of their progeny. Consider the chaos that would result in the beef and dairy industries.

This is an apt analogy for what government has done by prematurely authorizing the release of transgenic, open-pollinated crops - like corn and canola. Pollen moves, as do bulls. There is no way to build a fence high enough to keep pollen - whether from StarLink corn or from herbicide

tolerant-canola - from moving into your land from neighboring fields. Pollen carries transgenic as well as natural traits, and two-thirds of the canola sown in Canada last year was herbicide-tolerant. Pollen has always moved, but for the first time in history, pollen carries deleterious traits - both because of the traits themselves but also, because the pollen carries proprietary genes.

Wake up folks, and see the writing on the wall, as revealed by this remarkably incomprehensible judgment.

Sincerely,

E. Ann Clark
Associate Professor
Plant Agriculture
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ont. Canada
N1G 2W1
phone: +1-519 824-4120 x2508
fax: +1-519 763-8933
e-mail:eaclark@uoguelph.ca




Biotech foods have unknown allergen risks
Canadian farmer monsanto
Contamination in canada { July 18 2003 }
Court rules against farmer in monsanto case { May 22 2004 }
EU ban lifted on genetically modified foods
Gates and rockefeller move closer to gmo in africa
Indian farmers target monsanto { September 11 2003 }
Judge rules out class aciton { October 1 2003 }
Lawsuit should proceed
Modified crops have unintended changes in allergens toxins { July 28 2004 }
Monsanto buys patent for indian wheat { January 31 2004 }
Monsanto demands soy licensing { June 13 2003 }
Monsanto GM corn causes abnormalities in kidneys blood
Monsanto retreats on biotech wheat { May 11 2004 }
Monsanto seed prices linked to india suicides
Monsanto sees seeds of food revolution in europe { March 19 2004 }
Monsanto vs schmeiser
Monsanto wants soy royalties brazil
Monsanto wins anti trust { October 1 2003 }
Nas urges greater scrutiny of genetically modified foods
Suit denied status as class action

Files Listed: 21



Correction/submissions

CIA FOIA Archive

National Security
Archives
Support one-state solution for Israel and Palestine Tea Party bumper stickers JFK for Dummies, The Assassination made simple