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By A.B. Hansen
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Percy Schmeiser fights to protect the rights of family
farmers from transgenic pollution.
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The Saskatchewan farmer accused by Monsanto Canada of possessing its patented
canola transgenes, had his appeal heard by the Supreme Court in Ottawa on January
20. In front of an overflow crowd, the nine judges cross-examined lawyers for
Monsanto whose answers shifted back and forth, according to observers.
It may take up to six months for the country’s top judges to render a decision
on whether or not former MLA Percy Schmeiser infringed on this multi-billion dollar
corporation’s GMO patent.
Testing by independent agricultural scientists across the Prairies shows that
in many areas, a majority of what was thought to be non-GM canola is now contaminated.
Percy insists the GMO spread into his crop from such varied sources as birds,
seed spilled from trucks and from wind pollination originating with neighbors’
GM canola crops. In the first lawsuit Monsanto withdrew allegations that Percy
had deliberately grown its transgenic canola. (Any non-GM plant pollinated by
a GM plant produces transgenic seed because the GM trait is dominant. Canola pollen
travels great distances and cannot be controlled.)
Last month’s court case is an appeal by Percy of two earlier lower court
decisions which held that Monsanto’s patent rights supercede a farmer’s
right to save seed from year to year. Detectives working for Monsanto sampled
volunteer canola growing in a ditch on a main road adjacent to his farm and later,
samples of his canola they obtained from his seed cleaner and some they took from
his fields.
Schmeiser’s case has become a cause celeb for farmers world-wide whose crops
are being contaminated by various corporations’ gene-spliced plants and
new GM superweeds. The Supreme Court of Canada will be the final arbiter on this
case, which is expected to produce a new interpretation of Canadian patent laws.
One of the interveners on Percy’s side is the Ontario government, which
may be facing lawsuits regarding patent transgenics used in laboratory testing
for such diseases as breast cancer. (N.B. The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that
the Harvard mouse used for cancer research cannot be patented in Canada.)
At the January trial, lawyers for Monsanto seemed confused and changed their minds
when the judges repeatedly asked them what it was the company claimed a patent
to. Was it the seed, the plants, the cell or the genes? asked the judges. After
regrouping, Monsanto lawyers stated that it was the insertion of a bacterial gene
resistant to the herbicide Roundup into a canola plant gene that constituted the
patent.
Common Ground has learned that a Monsanto lawyer used the analogy of an automobile
manufacturer. A patent holder on a new type of steel doesn’t claim to own
the cars being built by the manufacturer, but does own all the steel. Therefore,
someone buying such a car can only purchase the use of this car, but never owns
the steel it is made of.
Schmeiser has another court case coming up where he is suing for economic losses
and for legal costs, which have run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Asked by reporters in Ottawa if he would do it again, the feisty 73-year-old Percy
said he would, because he realizes that the the dangers of GMOs are now a worldwide
problem foisted on innocent people.
For more information from agricultural scientists or to assist financially with
the legal challenge facing Percy, please go to www.percyschmeiser.com or send
your contribution to Fight Genetically Altered Food Fund Inc., Box 3743, Humboldt,
SK, S0K 2A0. To support the (SOD) Saskatchewan Organic Directorate’s GMO
lawsuits against Monsanto and Aventis see www.saskorganic.com.
Read Common Ground for further updates, and for more on the battle to
halt the spread of GMOs check the November 2003
and January 2004 issues of Common
Ground.
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