Farmer v. Monsanto: biotech seed fight in Canada’s highest court

By Fred Bridgland

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, June 19 (ENS)— Farmer Percy Schmeiser has engaged in a David v. Goliath battle which could save farmers and consumers around the world from a genetically modified food nightmare beyond anything they have experienced so far.

Monsanto has accused the farmer of “stealing” its rape oil super-seeds. Schmeiser is counter-suing the giant American biotechnology company for £4.2 million for polluting his genetically modified (GM) free farmland without his knowledge.

The outcome of the landmark Schmeiser v. Monsanto case could influence how much control biotechnology companies like Monsanto and Advanta —the Canadian company which this year inadvertently distributed genetically contaminated rape oil seed in Europe— have over the world’s food supply in this century.

Schmeiser, who has grown oilseed rape, known as canola, on his 1,400 acres for 40 years, first detected trouble three summers ago. He sprayed a powerful Monsanto weed killer, called Roundup, around electricity poles and in ditches on the borders of his farm. The herbicide killed all the weeds except for a thin scattering of oilseed rape plants, which stubbornly refused to die.

Schmeiser had been crossbreeding his own oilseed rape for more than 30 years, saving seeds from each year’s harvest to replant his fields the following season —as farmers have done for thousands of years. Now, he wondered, had he accidentally created some kind of Frankenstein mutant?

Schmeiser mentioned his Frankenstein plants to neighboring farmers and next, unknown to him at first, private investigators arrived uninvited and snipped samples of his crops for DNA testing. Some of the samples tested positive for a gene Monsanto had genetically engineered into oilseed rape to produce an entirely new high yielding variety the company christened Roundup Ready canola. The new gene, taken from a bacterium, enabled Roundup Ready canola to survive Monsanto’s flagship Roundup weedkiller. The company patented the new gene and required farmers who bought the seed to sign a Technology Use Agreement preventing them from saving or re-planting the seed or selling it to others.

To get Roundup Ready canola’s advantages farmers have to buy new seeds from Monsanto every year. The agreement also states they must destroy any leftover seed each year and let Monsanto inspect their fields.

When Monsanto detected its gene in the samples taken from Percy Schmeiser’s fields, the company threw the book at him. Monsanto launched legal proceedings, accusing him of “stealing” its seeds and infringing its patent. Monsanto demanded compensation to the entire value of Schmeiser’s 1998 crop, plus punitive damages, court costs and his signature on a non-disclosure agreement requiring him to stay silent about the affair. Monsanto considered the case critical if it hoped to protect its patent rights.

Percy Schmeiser was outraged by Monsanto’s action and countersued for £4.2 million for trespass, crop contamination and defamation, accusing the company of “arrogant, high-handed and shocking conduct and callous disregard for the environment.” He said he had never bought Monsanto’s seed and, far from being a criminal who wanted to profit from stolen technology, he said he was a victim of that technology invading his property and crops uninvited.

If Monsanto is judged correct, the story becomes relatively simple: farmer obtains seed illegally and gets caught. But if Schmeiser is correct, it is a story with vast implications —biotechnology runs amok, polluting farmers’ fields, enslaving producers to corporate seed masters and threatening to pollute the world’s biodiversity.

“I think Monsanto is trying to make an example of me because other farmers have found unwanted GM seeds on their land. But I didn’t watch my grandparents clear the land and build this farm just to have the profits taken over by a big multinational corporation,” says Schmeiser.

“Never mind Microsoft,” said one of Schmeiser’s supporters, US farmer Vincent Moye. “Monsanto is the bigger and more dangerous monopoly. We’re all gonna be serfs on our own land.”

Germany to end nuclear power use

By Tony Czuczka

Berlin, Germany, June 15-- Germany’s government and its nuclear power industry agreed Thursday to end the country’s use of atomic energy, a plan officials said could take the plants off line beginning in 2002.

The deal, clinched by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and the nuclear plants’ bosses, after more than a year of haggling, envisages the last plant shutting down in about 20 years.

Schroeder’s center-left government took over in late 1998 promising to negotiate an end to nuclear power, an issue especially dear to his junior coalition partner, the environmentalist Greens party.

Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, a Greens leader who has tussled with nuclear plant operators, called the accord an acceptable compromise and urged his party to back it.

He said the first plant could shut down in late 2002, though he stressed that power companies had leeway with the start and end of the timetable.

“If that flexibility is not used, the first nuclear power plant would go off-line at the end of 2002,’’ he said in a radio interview.

The Greens have pressed for the phase-out to start before the next election in fall 2002 so they can present their voters with a major achievement.

By agreeing with the power bosses that the government would legislate a nuclear phase-out, the Greens had achieved their prime goal in the talks, Trittin said.

At an early morning news conference, Schroeder announced that the two sides had compromised on how quickly the phase-out would take effect, with the government allowing two extra years of running time.

Industry leaders said they regretted the early closures. “But we accept the primacy of the political system,’’ Ulrich Hartmann, chairman of the Veba utility, said after 4 hours of talks.

Germany’s 19 nuclear plants provide almost a third of the country’s electricity. But the country also has a large anti-nuclear lobby that regularly targets shipments of nuclear fuel or waste with massive, sometimes violent protests.

Schroeder, a Social Democrat, initially said his government would legislate plant closures after a year if a voluntary deal couldn’t be reached with plant operators. But the negotiations dragged on over 18 months and were marked by bickering between the partners over how quickly the plants should be forced off-line.

The final deal allows a total lifespan of 32 years for power plants, Schroeder said. He did not say exactly when the last nuclear energy production will end. But the newest German plants came on line in the late 1980s, which means their 32 years should be up around 2020.

Environmental activists, including some regional Greens leaders, charged that the phase-out was far too slow. The German Union for the Protection of Nature called the accord an affront.

Source: Associated Press