- The resolution of the case of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser
against the agribusiness-biotech giant Monsanto could have global repercussions
for patent rights. The Canadian Supreme Court will hear the case in January
2004.
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- BROOKLIN, Canada - Canadian
farmer Percy Schmeiser will get his final chance in January 2004 to beat
agribusiness and biotechnology giant Monsanto, when the Canadian Supreme
Court is to issue a ruling that could affect farmers the world over.
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- At 72, Schmeiser has become a hero of the global anti-transgenics
movement for his legal battle over Monsanto's attempts to enforce its patent
rights over the genetically modified seeds the transnational company sells.
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- Five years ago Canadian law enforcement officials seized
Schmeiser's entire canola crop (also known as rapeseed, Brassica napus)
from his 1,030-acre farm in Bruno, Saskatchewan, after Monsanto filed a
legal complaint.
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- Monsanto said Schmeiser violated their patent rights
on the company's genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready canola by growing
it without paying for the seed and without signing a technology use agreement.
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- While Schmeiser agreed some of his fields contained Monsanto's
GM canola, he said they were contaminated the previous year by pollen from
a neighbor's fields and by seeds that blew off trucks on their way to a
nearby canola processing plant. The very tiny seeds move easily with wind,
bees or birds.
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- In a conversation with Tierram*rica, Schmeiser said he
simply planted seed saved from the previous year, as has been his practice
in 50 years of farming.
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- Careful seed selection had given him some of best yields
of any farmer in his area. He was unaware that some seeds collected in
1997 contained Monsanto's proprietary genetics and as proof points out
that he did not spray Roundup on his 1998 crop.
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- However, in 2001 a Canadian court ruled that it didn't
matter how the GM seed ended up in Schmeiser's field or if he benefited
from it. Simply growing and harvesting it was a violation of Monsanto's
patent rights. Fines and penalties were levied for around 143,000 dollars.
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- Since then Monsanto has asked for nearly 716,000 dollars
more to cover their court costs and has liens on all of his property and
assets Schmeiser said.
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- "It's an absurd situation, akin to someone dumping
junk on your land and then accusing you of stealing it," says Brian
Helweil, agricultural expert with the non-governmental Worldwatch Institute,
based in Washington.
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- "The outcome of the Schmeiser case will set an important
precedent for other countries," says Peter Rosset, an agroecologist
and co-director of FoodFirst/Institute for Food and Development Policy,
an organization that promotes food as a human right.
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- "It would be terrible for farmers if Schmeiser loses,"
Rosset told Tierram*rica.
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- The implications for agriculture worldwide will be profound,
agrees Helweil.
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- About 61 percent of Canada's 10 million acres (four million
hectares) of canola is planted in genetically modified varieties that are
herbicide tolerant and used mainly to produce processed food ingredients,
cooking oils, and livestock feed.
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- It has been a costly battle thus far, topping 214,000
dollars in legal fees. Monsanto "used every legal trick to prolong
this and make it more expensive," says Schmeiser who says he has spent
140,000 dollars of his own money, the rest has come as contributions.
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- "When I lost that really scared the world farming
community and donations started to pour in."
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- While a number of NGOs support his efforts, donations
are made through his website and at the many speaking engagements he does
around the world.
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- Without those, and his pension, he says he would not
have considered taking his case to Canada's Supreme Court.
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- Despite the heavy financial costs, he says, "I'm
the happiest I've been in five years about going to the Supreme Court."
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- "Monsanto will lose either way the case turns out,"
says Helweil. If Schmeiser wins, it means Monsanto cannot stop farmers
from saving seeds. If he loses then Monsanto must take responsibility for
its seed and the genetic contamination it is causing.
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- Anti-GM activists say the release of modified genetic
material into the environment could harm ecosystems and human health. To
date there are no conclusive studies on the impacts of genetically modified
organisms (GMOs).
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- Canadian farmers will be paying close attention when
the case begins Jan. 20, says Darrin Qualman, spokesman for Canada's National
Farmer's Union.
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- Contamination by transgenics is a big problem all over
western Canada, Qualman told Tierram*rica.
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- "One farmer's fields in Swift Current (Saskatchewan)
of premium non-GM canola were completely contaminated this year. An organic
farmer is about to lose his organic certification for the same reason."
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- Monsanto has maintained the problem is limited to one
or two dozen farms at most. It sends students to hand pick any of its wandering
GM plants.
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- "There's a tremendous reluctance among farmers to
report that they have unwanted GMOs in their fields," says Qualman.
After Schmeiser lost in 2001, no one is clear about what farmers' rights
and responsibilities are and there is a fear that "somehow you might
owe Monsanto money".
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- "Monsanto has built a culture of fear here",
agrees Schmeiser.
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- One of Monsanto's tactics he says is to send threatening
letters to farmers saying they might be illegally growing the company's
GM crops. If they pay the company 10,000 or 20,000 dollars, then they won't
prosecute. "It's bioterrorism," says the farmer.
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- Two Saskatchewan organic farmers are fighting back. They
filed a class action lawsuit in 2002 against Monsanto Co. and Aventis SA
on behalf of the more than 1,000 organic farmers whose farms represent
about one million acres (405,700 hectares) in the province.
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- The legal action is seeking compensation because they
have lost their markets for organic canola because of contamination by
the GM canola and pollen.
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- The lawsuit is also aimed at halting Monsanto's plans
to introduce GM wheat in the region in 2004 or 2005.
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- Organic farmers aren't the only ones upset about GM wheat.
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- An unlikely coalition of more than 200 anti-GM activist
groups, small and large farmers, grain handling and food processing companies
as well as the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) that markets all of Canada's
wheat have been standing shoulder to shoulder against GM wheat over the
past two years.
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- "The same thing that happened to canola will happen
to wheat," says Schmeiser who is not an organic farmer.
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- "It's been very stressful but if I don't continue
to fight someone else will have to."
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- * Stephen Leahy is a Tierram*rica contributor. --- Excerpt
from: A fanciful tale... On the Appeal of the Schmeiser Decision E. Ann
Clark, Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON http://w
ww.uoguelph.ca/plant/research/homepages/eclark/judge.htm
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- *Once an individual plant, or even a single kernel on
an individual plant, has been pollinated by pollen carrying Monsanto's
patented genes, the whole plant becomes the property of Monsanto
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- *Once plants in a field are found to carry Monsanto's
patented genes, the proceeds of the whole field become the property of
Monsanto.
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- *How many plants in a field need to be contaminated in
order to cause the entire crop to become Monsanto's property was not stated
in the judge's decision, but in principle, could one be enough?
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- *This entire situation resulted directly from the decision
to allow individual genes to be patented. It could never have happened
with conventionally bred varieties, because it is the variety and not an
individual transgene that is 'owned'. A seed company's 'owned' variety
might cross-pollinate with a neighboring field, but the resulting seed
would be a cross - not the owned variety, so the company would no longer
own it.
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- *Of all the life science companies, only Monsanto has
chosen well publicized litigation as its method of preference for enforcing
patent rights. There are other, equally effective alternatives, as has
been amply shown by the other companies that are just as protective of
their investment in patented genes. Thus, protection of intellectual property
is clearly not the only, or perhaps even the main reason for Monsanto's
strategy in threatening to bring thousands of farmers into court. The purpose
is to generate fear, and hence, compliance, in order to force the purchase
of more GM seed.
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- *The consequences of being 'caught' with Monsanto's genetics
on their land or personal garden will be too great for many growers to
accept, particularly after watching the reputation and livelihood of Percy
and Louise Schmeiser of Saskatchewan, the Rodney Nelson family of North
Dakota, the Troy Roush family of Indiana, and other large and successful
farmers being systematically destroyed by well publicized allegations of
patent infringement. --- Excerpt from: On the Implications of the Schmeiser
Decision Published in Genetics Society of Canada June 2001 Bulletin E.
Ann Clark, Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON http://www.uo
guelph.ca/plant/research/homepages/eclark/percy.htm
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- Like the StarLink debacle which continues to haunt US
corn growers, marketers, consumers, government officials, and the seed
trade itself, the guilty verdict in the case of Percy Schmeiser illustrates
some of the shortcomings of applying GM technology to field crop agriculture.
Far from making food cheaper, GM technology will necessarily make food
more expensive - and particularly - but not solely - for those who have
chosen not to grow GM crops.
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- *Why should non-GM growers be obliged to adjust their
rotation and herbicide schedules and field design in order to protect their
own crops from contamination from neighboring GM crops?
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- *Why should non-GM growers have to absorb costs of coping
with gene flow that is unwanted, involuntary, and unavoidable - or face
prosecution?
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- *Why should those who have managed their crop specifically
for the high-premium GM-free market be forced to lose the premium because
of contamination from neighboring land?
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- *Why should any farmer be forced to accept GM contamination
in the seed they sow on their own land?
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- *Why should taxpayers be obliged to support the mushrooming
government infrastructure needed to monitor, regulate, and negotiate to
keep GM crops in the marketplace, and the virtually endless costs of recalling
contaminated seed and food products from the market?
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- *Why should consumers have to pay more for food that
is worth no more (and arguably, less to them) because the costs of dealing
with unwanted GM both on the farm and in the marketplace must, necessarily,
be passed on to the consumer?
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- *Why should all growers be penalized by plummeting crop
prices incurred because a minority of growers chose to grow GM, causing
traditional clients to refuse to buy GM-contaminated grain and instead
to patronize off-shore sources?
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- *Since when do importing countries have to buy GM grains,
just because we want to grow them?
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- *What happens when the traits that move are not HT, but
vaccines, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and industrial enzymes?
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- *When is the Canadian government going to stop promoting
the commercialization of a technology which has so clearly been released
prematurely into the marketplace, and which so clearly externalizes its
true costs of production involuntarily and unavoidably to its own citizens?
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- http://www.tierramerica.net/english/2003/0825/iarticulo.shtml
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