GMW:_Monsanto's_viable_corporate_ownership_strategy

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GMW:_Monsanto's_viable_corporate_ownership_strategy

" GM_WATCH "

Sun, 6 Jun 2004 11:23:11 +0100

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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" This will come as shocking news to indigenous farmers in Mexico, whose maize

fields have been contaminated with DNA from genetically modified plants, and to

farmers everywhere who are fighting to prevent genetically modified organisms

from trespassing in their fields. "

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MONSKANKO!

Schnews - weekly newsletter

Friday 28th May 2004 | Issue 455

http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news455.htm

 

" Under this ruling spreading GM pollution appears to be recognized as a viable

corporate ownership strategy " Pat Mooney ETC Group

 

Imagine you're a gardener who likes to keep things neat and tidy, while you’re

next door neighbour’s idea of paradise is a bit more on the wild side. Their

weed seeds drift across the fence and plant themselves in your soil and start to

germinate. You lose the plot, and threaten to call the Council to get them to

issue an anti social gardening behaviour order. But before you know it, the

neighbours take you to court for stealing their seed! Ridiculous? But that’s

just what’s happened in Canada.

 

Last Friday the Canadian Supreme Court made a final ruling on a seven year legal

battle between the worlds biggest baddest biotech firm, Monsanto, and Percy

Schmeiser a Canadian farmer. The court ruled that Percy had infringed Monsanto's

patent rights by growing genetically modified Round-up Ready Canola (oil seed

rape) on his land. Forget the fact that Percy didn't plant any of Monsanto’s

seeds. That it was Percy’s seeds that got contaminated by GM canola and that he

didn’t even know that his crop was contaminated! Forget all that, Percy was

infringing Monsanto's " intellectual property rights " !

 

This strange twist of the law which persecutes people for having their own

property polluted goes back to a Canadian Federal law passed in 1991 which ruled

that patents have precedence over and above a farmer’s rights. The ruling means

that if a farmer has their crops contaminated with GM seeds then they could be

potentially liable to pay Monsanto for " benefiting " from their technology. Terry

Boehm, Vice-President of the Canadian National Farmers Union said “It moves us

further along the path where corporations will control seed and farmers will

lose the right to save seed.”

 

It wasn't all good news for Monsanto. The Supreme Court overturned an earlier

court ruling that said Percy should pay the profits of his 1998 crop – about

$20,000 Canadian dollars, because Percy didn’t knowingly grow GM Canola. Also he

doesn’t have to pay one cent of court costs to Monsanto as he did not profit

from using Monsanto’s technology. Percy believes he won the moral victory and

that Monsanto will “have a hard time in pursuing patent infringement against

other farmers. They are now going to have to prove that a farmer profited from

having RR canola in their field. The Court noted that my profits were the same

whether I had conventional canola or RR canola, so I find it hard to see how

Monsanto can say in any future case that the farmer made more money because of

their product. This decision may have removed the " teeth " from their patent. I

also believe that Monsanto will face huge liability issues down the road. The

Court determined that they have ownership to the plant and

that I infringed by having it in my field. With ownership comes responsibility

and I assume more lawsuits will be filed against them for the contamination of

farmer's fields. " But Monsanto is a splice and dice bully who like to reap and

sow their wild oats against farmers, and they may just decide to take on any

that speak out against them. Percy still has to pay his own legal fees and only

managed to carry on fighting thanks to supporters donations and remortgaging his

home; many farmers simply haven't got the time or money to fight a court case.

 

Percy has also lost a lifetimes work. For the past 50 years, he had been saving

seeds from his best crops, something that farmers have been doing for millennia

to produce a diverse range of high yielding crops suitable to local conditions.

Now his work has been contaminated with GM. And if you have to buy some new

seed, there is a high chance that you’ll buy seed from Monsanto who after years

of aggressively buying up seed companies are now the world's second biggest seed

company!

 

CHANGELING

Canola pollen can travel up to 26 km a year so this sort of genetic

contamination is spreading. In Canada Monsanto now have their own " police

force " , many of them ex-Royal Canadian Mounted Police who walk onto a farmers

land and take away some seeds of plants for testing to make sure that the farmer

isn’t using Monsanto’s seeds. If a farmer catches them they just say " if you

take us to court, we will drag you through the court system and you won’t have a

farm left. " They also send threatening letters to anyone they think might have

had their crops contaminated by Monsanto’s crops, threatening to sue for

$100,000-$150,000 compensation. The letters also stated that the farmers could

also be sued for revealing the threats to anyone else!

 

This pleasant company are now turning its attention to weaker opponents, taking

out newspaper ads in Mexico warning peasants that if they are found using GM

seed illegally, they risk fines and even prison! Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Mexico

says " This will come as shocking news to indigenous farmers in Mexico, whose

maize fields have been contaminated with DNA from genetically modified plants,

and to farmers everywhere who are fighting to prevent genetically modified

organisms from trespassing in their fields. "

 

One of the biotech companies long term strategies is that eventually GM

contamination will be so widespread that eventually the public will have to

accept GM is here to stay. The Canadian court ruling - ironically the day before

International Biodiversity Day - says that Monsanto now have the rights over

anything that its genes get into. Despite not managing to get money out of

anyone whose crops are contaminated Monsanto welcomed the judgement and claim

that the world needs GM crops: " Patent protection encourages innovations that

will lead to the next generation of value-added products for Canadian farmers. "

Showing that obviously farmers can’t be trusted with producing seeds and crops

and we’ve all got to leave it to the experts to produce " value-added products " ,

but just who is gaining the value? Monsanto pretty much admitted what it is

really interested in by saying. " This ruling maintains Canada as an attractive

investment opportunity. "

 

SchNEWS reckons it's up to people everywhere to make sure through direct action

and boycotts GM doesn't become an 'attractive investment opportunity' in their

neck of the woods.

 

* To read Percy’s full statement www.percyschmeiser.com

 

* To contact the excellent ETC www.etcgroup.org

 

* Seedy Sundays take the old idea of gardeners swapping seeds, an idea that has

spread through Canada and the US and is slowly gaining ground in the UK.

www.seedysunday.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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