by Marc Loiselle

Cartoon by Geoff Olson

The Saskatchewan Organic Directorate has launched a class action lawsuit against Monsanto Canada and Bayer Cropscience for compensation after farmers lost canola as an organic crop and to halt introduction of GM wheat.

	July 2003: Yellow mustard field that was at risk of being contaminated by neighbouring RR canola.

Organic farming techniques have fed mankind for thousands of years. Organic farmers reject the philosophy that we must poison our environment or use radical genetic engineering of plants and animals to produce enough food.

Ever-increasing threats to organic food production and the livelihood of farmers because of the increasing use of genetic engineering by the biotechnology industry prompted Saskatchewan organic farmers to produce a Position Paper on Genetically Modified Organisms in 2001.The paper focuses on many aspects of the GMO issue, from liability and labeling to appealing to the precautionary principle and patenting.

Based on issues covered in the paper, Saskatchewan's organic farmers are seeking compensation for economic losses from Monsanto Canada and Bayer Cropscience after farmers were unable to grow certified organic canola because of the extent of contamination of seed stocks. A class action lawsuit based on this claim and others, including questions of liability, negligence, trespassing and ongoing contamination, is still pending certification hearings, scheduled for mid-May 2004. The Organic Agriculture Protection Fund was launched in 2001 to launch legal action and to collect money to fund this task.

This case is not only of great significance to the organic sector and all people concerned about GMOs, but it is also a precedent setting legal case for all Saskatchewan certified organic grain farmers, regardless of whether or not canola is what they grow. Because of the introduction of GM canola into the environment, the option to grow certified organic canola has been removed from crop rotations. The same can be said for other Canadian organic grains. Numerous incidents have been documented showing that GM canola seeds and plants have been transported, especially by wind, from field to field. Such contamination occurred when GM canola seed grew in organic field crops in the spring after it blew in over the winter or from neighbouring fields after swathing. This has necessitated extensive clean up and documentation to demonstrate the contaminating GM canola is purged from the organic fields to assure adherence to organic certification standards.

Why you should be concerned about GMOs

GM food products are made by genetic engineering using recombinant DNA and other transgenic techniques. Genetically modified (GM), genetically engineered (GE), genetically altered and transgenic all refer to recombinant DNA processes which are strictly prohibited for certified organic food and fibre production worldwide.

Effects on health and the environment by GMOs are largely unknown, but there is mounting evidence of negative health effects on humans, animals and soil and negative environmental effects such as creation of superweeds, displacement of species, destruction of habitat and loss of genetic biodiversity.

Genetic engineering is not a precise science as its promoters would have us believe; multiple outcomes produced by introducing foreign genetic material into an unrelated species can lead to unpredictable, and undesirable, results. Further, even the company's desired outcomes have not been proven to be harmless.

Actually, the need for the use of genetically modified crops in agriculture has never been justified. Farmers are led to believe GM crops outperform conventional varieties, by advertising and sales pitches, and are tempted to try them out. They then get caught up in constricting contractual obligations, only to discover that GMOs don't outperform conventional seed crops and actually cause more problems than they solve.

Polls have shown repeatedly that farmers and consumers reject GMOs in spite of sophisticated marketing targeted at them. The entanglement of biotechnology corporations with governments, universities and professional organizations makes a mockery of the independence of science in the interest of all citizens. (The State of Vermont and Mendocino County, California stand out as conspicuous counters to this trend.)

Agricultural scientists are being lured away from traditional crop breeding to embrace biotech as a fix-all solution. Instead of relying on the tried and true biodiversity model of crop research and development but for which there is less and less funding, researchers end up under the payroll of biotech firms, university departments and government agencies that appear to be blindly forging ahead without considering long term consequences.

In the US Midwest, conventional non-GMO varieties of corn or soybeans are almost nonexistent, and this is true for canola in Canada. From an organic food producer, processor and consumer point of view, the fact that there are acceptable agricultural industry tolerance levels in non-organic food for glyphosate (found in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup) or other toxic chemical residues is an unacceptable and disturbing food safety concern aside from the GMO issue.

Thrown into this picture is the fact that a major blight disease in wheat is now definitively linked to the use of glyphosate (Roundup). Instead of this putting a damper on Monsanto's hope of releasing its GM wheat and could definitely call into question other GM crops, especially soybeans and canola, Monsanto is showing no signs of giving up.

What is most disturbing is we now are questioning patenting life forms and introducing them into the environment through the courts; but patented GM canola has been in the Canadian environment since 1995! This questioning of patent rights on higher life forms, which includes plant life, and their unconfined release, needed to be done in a research period prior to this. Our governments have taken the irresponsible move of choosing to let the courts decide instead of proactively making law ruling the issue. The existing risk assessment and intentional premature release of GMOs is clearly unscientific and undemocratic.

It's equally disturbing to consider that transnational companies, with government support, want to monopolize what we produce, how we produce it, then hide the facts and risks to human health and overall environmental impacts with no disclosure, no labeling of products, and seemingly no significant risk to them because of supposed exemption from liability.

Precautionary approaches a must

The precautionary principle clearly indicates that we should not introduce GM plants, livestock, or other organisms into our biosphere. This means that protection of human health and the environment is taken in advance, not after the damage has occurred. An overdue approach is to have an overall moratorium on all GMOs until there is proof of their harmlessness.

It doesn't matter what promoted benefits a GM crop may present, the bottom line is there should be no release into the environment if the spread of its novel trait genes cannot be contained.

Victories on patent issues, farmer privilege on seed saving, and our class action suit, could put us back on the track of correcting the wrongs and setting undeniable moral and legal precedents for the future.

Organic farmers don't believe in the eventual domination of the seed and food industry by a few transnationals and they believe that you care about that too.