Canadian Court Rules Chemical Corp Monsanto Can Steel Small Farmers Crops Via Genetic Contamination

international | environment | news report

Monday May 31, 2004 14:14

by Barry Finnegan

john.finnegan3 at mail dot dcu dot ie

We must make this an EU Election Issue! Ask Candidates What They Think Of This Ruling.

Of course ... EU Parliamentarians have NO power in this area. Due to the Treaty Of Nice, the EU Commission asks the EU Council of Ministers for permission to negotiate intellectual property issues (eg: GMOs) at the WTO, a qualified majority of Ministers says ‘yes’ and off they go - no legal requirement to inform the public of content of negotiations, no legal requirement for EU Parliament to vote on EU-WTO GMO issues. Anyway, the story continues ... over to Schmeiser in Canada:

Brief summary:

This 70 something-year-old Canadian farmer, Percy Schmeiser, unknown to him, had Monsanto private detectives trespass on his land about five years ago and take samples of his canola crop. Then their lawyers sent him an ultimatum. He could choose:

(a) to agree that he had stolen Monsanto's intellectual property, sign the Monsanto-Farmer agreement (which includes provision for Monsanto to say when and how one harvests, to whom you sell and for how much, and of course that you will not collect any seed, oh and that you will pay a royalty for use of 'their' seed);

or,

(b) to see Monsanto in court where they would 'prove' that he 'stole' their intellectual property.

Schmeiser says he planted conventional regular seed and that the birds and the bees, the wind or a passing GMO laden truck must have being the cause of the presence of Monsanto’s canola in his fields.

Anyway, the health implications of eating GMOs is one debate. Of much more urgency is this quite explicit corporate take-over of the means of the production of food.

Obviously, if these toxic pesticide herbicide chemical weapons corporations plant enough of their seed (or drop it out of planes or let it drift off the top of trucks etc) then it will mix with all available conventional crops and they will quite simply own the patent to all staple crops in the world. Every farmer would have to pay them royalties and all the people in the world will have to pay whatever price they demand for food. To say: 'Total control of the global food supply is the corporations goal' is a realistic statement. To say otherwise is to live in an Alice In Wonderland Type Capitalism!

NO to anti-democratic corporate control of the global food supply.
YES to small-farmer sustainable agriculture.

COURT RULING INFO LINKS BELOW:

"Canada Rules in Favor of Monsanto over Seed Saving Farmer Percy Schmeiser
Monsanto Wins Key Biotech Ruling

By KIRK MAKIN
Globe and Mail Update (Canada)

May. 21, 2004

The Supreme Court of Canada made biotechnology history Friday with a 5-4 ruling that a Saskatchewan farmer violated a patent Monsanto Canada Inc. held on genes of genetically engineered canola seeds.

The ruling is considered to have global importance to the biotechology industry, farmers, health care and any other field where genetic engineering has made inroads. With the ruling, Canada follows the U.S. Supreme Court in deciding on patent issues involving plants and seed genes."

Full Story:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/schmeiser.cfm
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Percy Schmeiser Responds to Monsanto Court Victory on Plant Patents: http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/replies052404.cfm

Percy Schmeiser’s website: http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

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Comments (1 of 1)

Juries decide fact

by Mike

Tue Jun 01, 2004 14:08

I our system of justice, the purpose of the jury in trials is to hear the witnesses and decide matters of fact. I think we all need to look more closely at this case if we want to understand what happened.

Monsanto won a tactical victory (won damages from Schmeiser) but suffered a strategic defeat. Unfortunately, so did organic farmers whichc I will explain later.

The case had phases, and initially the Monsanto lawyers were arguing that IT DIDN'T MATTER, Didn't matter HOW their patented genes got into Mr. Schmeisers rape fields, they would still "own" their patented plants. They LOST on this, for them, vital part of the case. So Mr. Schmeiser 's lawyers were allowed to put forward his defense "Schmeiser says he planted conventional regular seed and that the birds and the bees, the wind or a passing GMO laden truck must have being the cause of the presence of Monsanto’s canola in his fields."

The jury didn't agree. Look, I was not sitting there in the jury box and neither were you. Did not listen to the testimony while watching to the faces of the witnesses trying to tell who was tellign the truth and who was lying. I don't know why this jury decided "it was no accident" but that was what happened. Mr. Schmeiser, rightly or wrongly, was not believed about how the GE rape genes got into his fileds.

OK -- but there was also the counter suit and here organic farmers lost big time. Monsanto, and presumably other GE producers was held not liable IF their products escaped to contaminate neighboring fields. Since for many plants, especially those species pollinated by wind, required isolation distances can be great, and so organic farmers won't be able to save their own seed if anybody in the area is growing GE versions of the same species.

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Canadian Court Rules Chemical Corp Monsanto Can Steel Small Farmers Crops Via Genetic Contamination

Comments (1 of 1)