This year, Percy and Louise Schmeiser are the recipients of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. The award was conceived by Jakob von Uexkul in 1980. The award celebrates and supports people of vision – people who have ideas and apply them in concrete initiatives for the public good. The 2007 Right Livelihood Awards highlight solutions to global challenges and are shared between four recipients who show that there are practical solutions to pressing global challenges. With their fight against Monsanto’s abusive marketing practices, Percy and Louise Schmeiser have given the world a wake-up call about the dangers to farmers and biodiversity everywhere. The Jury honours the Schmeisers “… for their courage in defending biodiversity and farmers’ rights, and challenging the environmental and moral perversity of current interpretations of patent laws.” The prizes will be formally awarded at the Swedish Parliament on December 7.

In 1998, Percy Schmeiser and his wife received a letter from the US agribusiness giant Monsanto claiming that they had used Monsanto seeds without a licence in planting their 1997 crop. However, the Schmeisers had never bought Monsanto seed nor did they ever intend to have it on their land. It turned out that some Monsanto Roundup Ready genetically modified canola (rape) seeds had blown over from the Schmeisers’ neighbour or from passing trucks. Thus, genes that Monsanto claimed to “own” under Canadian patent law had ended up in the Schmeisers’ seeds.
Monsanto threatened to sue the Schmeisers for “infringement of patent,” seeking damages totalling $400,000 (CAD), including about $250,000 in legal fees, $105,000 in estimated profits from the Schmeisers’ 1998 crop, $13,500 ($15 an acre) for technology usage fees and $25,000 in punitive damages. At the same time, Monsanto offered to withdraw the legal challenge if the Schmeisers signed a contract to buy their seeds from Monsanto in the future and to pay the technology use fee. (Common Ground covered this story in January 2004.)
But the Schmeisers neither gave in nor did they accept this blackmailing attempt. They contested the case up to the Canadian Supreme Court, whose ruling supported Monsanto in its claim to own the gene. Thus the Schmeisers lost their breeding research, which they had built up for decades, and the varieties that they had painstakingly adapted to their local environment for years through cross-pollination, because they now contained the Monsanto-“owned” gene.
The case eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Ultimately, Percy was partially successful in his defence as the Supreme Court ruled he did not benefit, nor profit, from the use of the patented material that had arrived in his fields.
Since the first court case, the Schmeisers shifted their agricultural business from canola to wheat, mustard, peas and oats in order to avoid future problems. But they soon found genetically modified Monsanto canola plants on their land again. They called the company and demanded that they be removed. Monsanto conducted tests and confirmed that these were their Monsanto Roundup Ready plants. Monsanto agreed to remove them if the Schmeisers signed a document with a non-disclosure statement and an assurance that they would never take Monsanto to court. The Schmeisers did not sign this statement and again demanded that Monsanto remove the plants from their land. When Monsanto did not react, they paid some workers to remove the plants and sent Monsanto a bill for $600. When Monsanto did not pay, the Schmeisers sued them in a provincial court. In May 2007, a mediation attempt failed and the trial date is now set for January 23, 2008.
The Schmeiser case was one of the first and most prominent cases involving a company claiming to own patents on life. It revealed how traditional seed economics and treatment is currently giving way to a dependency on only a few big multinational enterprises, such that in the end the whole food production chain could be dominated by a few giant food enterprises, relying on very few genetically engineered crops. This would drastically reduce the genetic diversity of staple crops and the economic autonomy of farmers, especially in developing countries.
Monsanto’s treatment of the Schmeisers is the company’s standard practice. According to a 2005 report by the Washington-based Center for Food Safety (CFS), as of 2005, Monsanto, with teams of full-time investigators out in the field, had filed lawsuits for patent violations (often, as with the Schmeisers, because of drifted seed) against 147 farmers and 39 small farming businesses in half the states of the US. Farmers have so far paid $15million (USD) to Monsanto (mean payment about $400,000). The CFS report concludes: “No farmer is safe from the long reach of Monsanto. Farmers have been sued after their field was contaminated by pollen or seed from someone else’s genetically engineered crop; when genetically engineered seed from a previous year’s crop has sprouted in fields planted with non-genetically engineered varieties the following year; and when they never signed Monsanto’s technology agreement but still planted the patented crop seed. In all these cases, because of the way patent law has been applied, farmers are technically liable. It does not seem to matter if the use was unwitting or a contract was never signed.”
In Canada, there is still no specific law regarding patents on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) so the Schmeiser case was decided under the old patent laws, enacted before GMOs existed. But in its verdict, the Canadian Supreme Court called on the Canadian Parliament to enact a specific law. This process is currently under way and it may be expected that Monsanto will lobby lawmakers vigorously for a legislation that serves the company’s interest.
Because of the nature of the case, and its wide ranging implications for Canadian farmers, Percy has chosen to become an advocate and champion for farmers and their rights; not only in Saskatchewan, but across Canada and the world. In recognition of this work for the protection of the rights of farmers, he has received numerous awards and special recognition from organizations such as the Council of Canadians and Bioneers. He also received the Mahatma Gandhi Award for the betterment of humankind in a non-violent way.
It is very gratifying to Percy is that his efforts in speaking about farmers’ rights have not been in vain. In 2003, the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee, established by the Canadian federal government to advise on a wide range of issues, released a series of recommendations on higher life forms and The Patent Act. Recommendations included that a “farmer’s privilege” provision be included in The Patent Act, specifying that farmers are permitted to save and sow seeds from patented plants.
The committee also concluded that The Patent Act must include provisions to protect innocent bystanders from claims of patent infringement. Percy’s defence of this patent infringement case brought these issues to light at a critical time and were fundamental in the advisory committee’s recommendations.

Information provided by John Schmeiser and www.rightlivelihood.org