| Author | Message | | gchq | | Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 3:01 pm Post subject: Monsanto & GM Crops |
| Monsanto produces more than 90% of crops worldwide. Another four companies, Syngenta, Bayer Cropscience, Dow and Du Pont produce the rest.
The fact that production lies in the hands of so few multinational corporations worries some who feel the companies will have too much control over world food production, can pressurise countries to buy their products and force more traditional farmers out of the market. (See the "Must Read" thread further on, "Monsanto -v- Percy Schmeiser ")
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Planting Lies
The agricultural biotechnology industry likes to portray itself as the future, a future under threat from superstitious opponents who are anti-science. In fact, what genetic engineering is based on is barely worthy of the name "science". It is a hit and miss process based on a discredited scientific paradigm. The industry upon which it is based is in deep financial trouble. Only a ruthless propaganda machine lies between the dead-end of genetic engineering and oblivion. Steve McGiffen reports.
A week ago, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve changes in the European Union laws which govern the export of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The changes are necessary to enable the EU to ratify the Cartagena Convention on Biosafety, the international agreement governing trade in GMOs. Next month, two further measures will complete, for the time being, the EU’s new legislative framework for products of agricultural biotechnology. We will still lack effective legal requirements to guard against contamination of conventional or organic crops by GMOs, and any real system for tracking the effects of GMO consumption on human health. EU member states will not have the right, moreover, to exclude GMOs from their territory, either to prevent their cultivation or to keep them off supermarket shelves, whatever their citizens may want. Nevertheless, provided these measures are passed in Strasbourg at the beginning of July, the EU and its member states will have the strictest system of control of agricultural biotechnology of any country or bloc in the world.
This will have been achieved in the face of perhaps the most sustained, ruthless and unscrupulous propaganda campaign which even the European Parliament, an institution which works in the face of relentless harassment from corporate lobbyists, has ever witnessed. This campaign, moreover, is not content with spreading lies and confusion amongst legislators in Brussels and other European capitals, it has also kept up a disinformation campaign which has led large numbers of people to believe the exact opposite of a number of clear truths related to GMOs and their dangers.
The industry claims, firstly, that if the EU does not jump headlong into GMO cultivation then Europe will be left behind, deliberately excluding itself from an exciting, expanding, cutting edge technology and the dynamic industry which has grown up around it. The truth, however, is that after over a decade of attempts by American multinationals to foist this novel and dangerous technology on the world, hardly anyone is using it. Around 70% of land devoted to genetically engineered crops is in the United States, with almost all of the rest in Argentina. Of other countries, only Canada has a really significant GM agriculture sector, with China and South Africa leading a pack of only ten other, minor participants. Everyone else has been put off by the potential risks, the absence of clear benefits and the consequent difficulty of marketing GM products. Worse still, to allow GMOs to be cultivated means putting all of a country's agriculture at risk of contamination, contamination which can make vital exports unsaleable.
This brings me to the second strand to the industry and US-backed campaign of disinformation, the claim that there is no evidence that GMOs are potentially harmful to human health and the environment. 300 million Americans, we are told, have consumed GM products for years without harmful effects. In fact, no-one knows what effects the introduction of GMOs into the American diet has had. Not a single epidemiological study of the consumption of GM foods has been conducted. In other words, no-one has looked for health differences between people who eat them and people who don’t. In the States, foods do not have to be labelled as containing GM products. The fact that consumers have no way of knowing whether what they are buying contains GM, makes absurd the idea that no health ill effects have been uncovered. Go to the doctor in the States with, say, a liver problem, and the doctor will ask you if you drink alcohol, if you eat a lot of red meat or dairy products, whether you smoke. She will not say a word about GMOs, and even if she did, you would be unable to answer, because you have no way of knowing whether you are eating them – unless you grow your own food and regularly test it for contamination. Moreover, only seven peer reviewed studies on the health effects of individual GMOs have been carried out, and four of these have shown negative results as follows: Flavr Savr tomatoes resulted in lesions and gastritis in rats; GM potatoes caused gut lesions in rats, representing damage to the immune system of their digestive tracts. (The industry routinely describes Dr Pustzai, who conducted this research and was sacked for publishing its results, as “discredited”, but this is simply part of their propaganda. The paper in question was peer reviewed six times and has been defended by many scientists since); and GM rapeseed fed to chickens led to increased mortality. Finally, BST milk-enhancing hormone derived from GMOs is used widely in the US but banned in the EU because of the clear threat it presents to human health and animal welfare.
At the end of 2002, the British Medical Association (BMA) went so far as to call for an end to GM crop trials, arguing that not enough had been done to ensure that they did not pose a threat to public health and that there should have been more public consultation. The BMA, whose membership embraces more than 80% of British doctors, declared in a submission to the health committee of the Scottish Parliament, that “Safety is a relative matter and is generally based on the results of a robust and thorough search for possible harm. There has not yet been a robust and thorough search into the potentially harmful effects of GM foodstuffs on human health.” The submission mentioned in particular the possibility that antibiotic resistance markers, which are used to help identify when an introduced gene has been successfully taken up, might find their way “into pathogenic organisms causing human disease”, and the danger of introduced genes provoking allergic reactions.
The industry claims that GM techniques are no different to traditional cross-breeding methods in use for at least 10,000 years. The reality, however, is that whereas traditional cross-breeding involves selection from within the existing genome of an organism or a very close relative, in GM technology genes can be introduced which come not only from another species but from another “kingdom” – the highest and broadest taxonomic category: bacterial genes into animals, animal genes into plants, plant genes into fungi: there are simply no limits. The artificial insertion of a gene, in contrast with traditional cross-breeding methods, disrupts the orderly, heritable sequence of instructions contained in the parent organisms’ genomes, resulting in a loss of the control and balance which characterise their hereditary substance. The results are therefore difficult to predict, and the fact that the process involves poorly understood mechanisms makes what would in any case be difficult into an impossibility.
The industry claims that GMOs are good for the environment. In fact, although GMOs sometimes permit a temporary reduction in pesticide spraying, such reductions are short-lived and come at a cost. Farmers must abandon, for example, the accepted good practice of varying which pesticides they use. The result is that pests develop resistance and pesticides stop working. On the other hand, the environmental dangers are clear. They include the threat of genetic contamination of wild plants (and, eventually, fish and other animals), the danger of introducing alien species, which has always been a problem but which is compounded by GMOs, and the fact that GMOs can only encourage monoculture, with all its disastrous consequences for the environment.
The US government claims to believes that GM foods and their non-GM counterparts are “substantially equivalent”, and that there is therefore no reason why GM foods should have to be labelled as such. Whenever the matter is raised, the industry spends massively on ensuring that this status quo remains, helped by the ease with which US politicians’ support can be bought and a supposedly free press bullied by the threat of lost advertising revenue. Even the legality of labelling foods as “GM free” is in question, because to allow it would be to admit that there may be a difference, after all. The labelling and traceability regime currently before the European Parliament and Council of Ministers will ensure that all foods containing GM ingredients, or produced from them, whether imported or from EU sources, will be labelled as such. This will be the case even if they contain no DNA or proteins from the GMO used, so that oils and refined sugars will for the first time have to be labelled. Because of the difficulty of ensuring absolute purity, the presence of very small amounts of detectable GM residue in a product not labelled as containing GMOs will not be an offence. (This level is still under debate, with Parliament seeking a lower limit than the Council is prepared to accept, but the hope is that as detection techniques improve, it will be possible to lower it to close to zero.)
The insistence that foods such as oils and sugars, where no GM protein or DNA is present in the final product, must be labelled as derived from GMOs has been ridiculed in some quarters, seen as proof that opposition to GMOs is “unscientific”. This assumes that the only legitimate concern consumers may have is with their own health. This is not, of course, the case. Consumers often refrain from buying things because they believe them to be environmentally harmful, for example, or because of exploitative methods used in their production. The aim of companies such as Monsanto is to sell seeds which can be used only in conjunction with their own product. So Roundup Ready seeds can be used only with glyphosate, the pesticide branded as Roundup. Moreover, farmers wishing to use these seeds must enter into a contract which forbids them to reuse seed from plants grown from Monsanto’s. They must buy fresh ones each year, undermining millennia of good farming practice. This is part of the drive to dominate the world’s food supply by bringing farmers into a closed loop, where all inputs must be bought from a multi-national corporation. After the abolition of slavery in the US, farmers black and white were newly enslaved by the “crop lien system”, where all inputs had to be bought from the same “furnishing man” – who was consequently able to charge exorbitant prices. GMOs make possible a new version of this kind of bondage, one which would be bad enough in a relatively prosperous part of the world such as the EU but which, when applied to the Third World, will reinforce the subordinate relationship of poor farmers and the countries in which they live. Together with fears for their own and their families’ health, as well as the environment, consumers thus have every reason to boycott GMOs as a protest against exploitation.
The industry and the US government like to portray all opponents of genetic engineering as ignorant, superstitious people who fear and despise science. They like to portray biotechnology as cutting-edge science, giving the impression that its application is the future, the engine of prosperity which will dominate the next few decades. The truth, however, is that this is an industry in crisis, basing itself on a dangerous, untried technology which is in turn rooted in a discredited scientific paradigm. Predictable, safe genetic engineering might indeed be possible if the relationship between an organism’s genes and the organism itself were as simple as was believed before the Human Genome Project and subsequent studies discredited the idea that genes are stable entities, each of which performs a single function. We now know that this is not the case, that the genome is in fact a dynamic, complex mechanism whose exact workings depend on the interaction of thousands of components and in which an individual gene can perform very different tasks under differing circumstances. Whatever the genetic engineers may claim to continue to believe, genes cannot be removed or introduced like building blocks in a child’s toy. The process of genetic engineering is unpredictable and this fraught with risk. Perhaps, given further work, it may offer something useful to humanity. Clearly, however, given the current state of understanding the place for any such work is the laboratory.
The only reason that anyone thinks otherwise is that billions of dollars have been invested in what is turning to be a dead end, and at a time when the American economy is entering what with every day that passes seems more and more certain to turn out to be a major crisis. Even Nature Biotechnology – something of an industry house journal - was obliged to report, at the end of 2002, that “the clock is ticking for many small (biotech) companies; their funds are drying up and although venture capital is abundant, it is currently available only at valuations that are highly depressed compared with those at which some companies raised their last lot of money.” (1)
Agricultural biotechnology in its present form is a vast scientific and commercial error. The people who have invested their money, time an reputations in it cannot afford to admit this. Unfortunately, they will not be the ones that end up paying the heaviest price for their incompetence, greed and hubris. As usual, the bill will be met by those least able to afford it, and the currency in which it will be denominated will not be dollars or euros alone, but the health and livelihoods of human beings and the environment in which we live.
The author, Steve McGiffen, is editor of Spectre and an environmental adviser to the European Parliament United Left Group, the GUE-NGL. He is currently writing a book for Pluto Press on the regulation of biotechnology in the EU and beyond.
(1) “Pride comes before a fall (and a bloodbath)”, Nature Biotechnology, Vol.20, p.1173, Dec. 2002]
Last edited by gchq on Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:01 am; edited 2 times in total | |  | | gchq | | Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 3:46 pm Post subject: Dismay over GM licence |
| Dismay over GM licence
Wednesday February 25, 2004
The Guardian
As a former member of the Biotechnology Commission set up by the government to advise on strategy for GM use in agriculture, I am dismayed by its apparently cavalier attitude to the licensing of GM herbicide-tolerant maize. It was emphasised in our report, Crops on Trial, that we certainly did not consider the results of the farm-scale evaluations (FSE) were "the final piece of the jigsaw" in deciding on the whether GM crops should be grown commercially in the UK. Far more is at stake, as is patently evident from the widespread apprehensions expressed in the GM nation debate held last year.
Yet, if the leaked Cabinet Office minutes (Leader, February 20) are anything to go by, it seems that by treating the FSE results as the sole criterion, the government is totally ignoring the advice of its own advisers. Moreover, the deficiencies of the FSEs themselves - in comparing management of GM maize with that employing a herbicide (atrazine) soon to be banned in the EU - are inexplicably discounted. Given the recommendation of the advisory committee on releases to the environment that "further work be conducted to investigate the implications of the impending withdrawal of atrazine", a decision to licence would smack of irresponsibility. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the government's decision has far more to do with striking a political bargain with the US government than with a belief in the oft-cited "sound science".
Prof Ben Mepham
Southwell, Notts | | | | gchq | | Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 3:53 pm Post subject: Coming a cropper |
| Coming a cropper
The public is against GM crops being grown in Britain but the government will not rule it out. John Vidal rates this and other elements that could ruin the plans
Wednesday February 25, 2004
The Guardian
The environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, will shortly announce what everyone knows: that the government intends to keep the GM door open. But it has nowhere near resolved many thorny issues that individually or cumulatively may trip it up, seriously delaying planting or making GM practically impossible to grow.
1 The crop
The only crop in the British pipeline is Chardon LL (Liberty Link) T25, a maize developed by GM company Bayer to be tolerant of being sprayed with its best-selling herbicide, Liberty, and to be fed only to animals. But before it is planted commercially, it must get on the national seed list, and Chardon LL is in potential trouble. Friends of the Earth is preparing a legal challenge, arguing that it has not been rigorously assessed and could pose a risk to human health and the environment. There are question marks, too, over the marketing consent Bayer received for the crop. This was based on only one feeding study, on chickens. None were carried out on cattle.
Trip potential: * * *
2 The politics
The government must persuade a sceptical Scottish executive and a hostile Welsh assembly to give Chardon LL a listing. Both countries have the power to block it and are being lobbied fiercely by environment groups which argue that they stand to gain economically by remaining GM-free. Wales has already voted overwhelmingly to be GM-free.
TP: * * * *
3 The herbicide
Bayer must get a licence to use Liberty. This is not a problem but few farmers are likely to want to use Liberty because it is widely considered to be outdated. In the US, up to 80% of farmers growing Bayer's GM maize are thought to have switched to Liberty's more powerful cousin, Liberty ATZ. This is made with the chemical atrazine which is to be banned in Europe.
TP: * *
4 Insurance
No British company wants to cover the risk of GM crops polluting non-GM crops - an inevitability, according to all scientific studies. The risk of litigation is real, and not just from organic farmers who stand to be put out of business. In the US, a GM maize called Starlink was approved for animal feed, but made its way into tortillas. Courts made awards of over $100m, including $6m to individuals who said they had suffered allergic reactions. The National Farmers' Union hopes insurers will offer lower premiums to non-GM growers who take precautions. The government wants all farmers to take out insurance, but the industry refuses to underwrite the risks. No farmer will plant until this is resolved.
TP: * * *
5 The distances
The biotech industry has voluntary guidelines setting distances between GM and other crops but these are widely regarded as hopelessly inadequate. Research shows that fodder maize can cross-pollinate plants up to 800m away and that under certain conditions, can travel miles. The government can, but does not have to, set statutory distances. Government advisers argue that it should, but this would leave it financially and legally exposed if pollination occurs beyond the recommended distances.
TP: * * *
6 The law
Conservative MP Gregory Barker, supported by Friends of the Earth, has introduced a private member's GM bill that would set stringent separation distances to prevent cross-contamination, a strict liability code and would force industry to compensate farmers affected. Many believe the bill would make it impractical to grow most GM crops. It will be debated in parliament next month but is unlikely to get government backing.
TP: *
7 The retailers
The Chardon maize will feed cattle and will not be on sale to the public, but supermarkets are coming under pressure to refuse to sell dairy products of cows that are fed on GM products. Only Marks & Spencer has agreed this policy so far, but Greenpeace believes that if just one more caves in, the rest will follow - rendering the crop ungrowable. Last week, protesters dressed as pantomime cows invaded Sainsbury's flagship outlet in Greenwich, and promises were made that many others would be targeted.
TP: * * * *
8 The public
The government plans a major campaign to swing public opinion, which is largely against GM products, and will be lobbying its friends in the food and drink industry. The push could easily backfire as the anti-GM lobby fights back.
TP: *
9 Democracy
The government will have to counter the growing number of regions applying direct to the EC to become GM-free zones. Some parts of Austria applied last year but failed because they tried to get protection under the Treaty of Rome. Legal advice for Friends of the Earth, however, suggests that if regions apply under the deliberate release directive they are more likely to succeed. So far, 40 British counties, unitary authorites, one national park and many district councils have voted to prevent GM being grown on land that they control. Half of these are likely to go on to apply for complete GM-free status. Hundreds of regions, communities and districts in mainland Europe are also exploring ways to legally stop the crops being grown and are exchanging information and strategies.
TP: * * *
10 The anti lobby
The first farmers who grow the crop will become targets of the 2,500 activists who have pledged to destroy the crops or support those who do. While there will be no public register of GM farms, protesters believe it will not be hard to identify growers or to deter the vast majority.
TP: * * * | | | | gchq | | Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 4:09 pm Post subject: Monsanto -v- Percy Schmeiser |
| Monsanto -v- Percy Schmeiser
By Percy Schmeiser
Related story: Who is Percy Schmeiser?
I’ve been farming since 1947 when I took over from my father. My wife and I are known on the Prairies as seed developers in canola and as seed savers. Hundreds of thousands of farmers save their seed from year to year.
I was also a member of the provincial legislature. I was on many agricultural committees, both on the provincial level and representing the province on the federal level. I was mayor of my community and a councillor for over 25 years. So, all my life I’ve worked for the betterment of farmers and rules, laws and regulations that would benefit them and make their farming operations viable.
The whole issue of GMOs can be divided into three main categories: the first category is the issue of the property rights of farmers versus the intellectual property rights of multinationals like Monsanto. The second issue is the health and danger to our food with the introduction of GMOs. The third issue is the environment.
Over this last year there have been other very important issues. The GM wheat issue, and what I think is one of the worst things: the pharmaceutical issue of GM plants producing prescription-type drugs, which I’ll touch on later. I want to concentrate on the issue I’m involved with: Property rights of farmers vs. the intellectual property rights of multinationals.
In August 1998 I received a lawsuit document from Monsanto. Up to that time I never had anything to do with Monsanto’s GM canola. I’d never bought their seed or gone to a Monsanto meeting. I didn’t even know a Monsanto rep.
There were a number of items in the lawsuit. First of all, they said I had somehow acquired Monsanto’s GM canola seed without a licence, planted it, grew it and therefore infringed on their patent. They went on to say that it was 80 or 90 percent contamination that I had in a roadside ditch and so on.
When we were sued my wife and I immediately realized that 50 years of research and development on our pure canola seed that was suitable and adaptable to certain conditions on the Prairies, climatic and soil conditions and especially diseases that we had in canola, could now be contaminated. We said to Monsanto at the time, "Look, if you have any of your GMOs in our pure canola seed you are liable for the destruction of our property and our pure seed." So, we stood up to them.
I think at that time there were two main issues. We lost 50 years of research and development and we felt that if farmers ever lose the right to use their own seed the future development of new seeds and plants suitable to their local climatic and soil conditions would be stopped. Those are the two main reasons we stood up to Monsanto.
It took two years of pre-trial and in those two years Monsanto withdrew all allegations that I had ever obtained seed illegally. They even went so far as to admit the allegations were false.
But, they still found that the fact that they had found some of Monsanto’s GM canola plants in the ditch along my field, not even in the field, meant I violated the patent. So, it became a patent infringement case. I had no choice where it would be heard. Patent laws are federal, so it was before the federal court of Canada immediately, with one judge. It went to trial in June 2000 and lasted two and a half weeks.
That ruling is what brought my case to international attention. These are some of the main points:
1. It does not matter how Monsanto’s GM canola or soybeans or any GM plant gets into a farmer’s field. The judge went on to specify how this could happen: cross-pollination and direct seed movement. Believe me that’s a primary cause - wind, birds and bees, because we have a lot of wind on the prairies.
The judge said it doesn’t matter how it gets into a farmer’s field, destroying or contaminating your crop, it all becomes Monsanto’s property. You no longer own your crop. That’s what startled people all over the world; how an organic or conventional farmer can lose a crop and seeds or plants overnight. He also went on to say that all the seeds and plants that my wife and I had developed over half a century go to Monsanto.
2. The other issue was that my entire crop from all our canola fields in 1998 goes to Monsanto. He also ruled that I was not allowed to use my seeds or plants again. So, all our research and development was gone and Monsanto got our crop for nothing.
We went to the federal Court of Appeal, which took over a year. Then I had three judges, but at the appeal court they only address the issues of facts of law, points of law or where the first judge erred in law. The viability issue and the property rights issue were never addressed.
After so many days of trial the federal Court of Appeal stated that although the judges did not agree with all of the first judge’s decisions they upheld his ruling. All three judges ruled against me.
Next was the Supreme Court of Canada. Now it was a pretty depressing time because we didn’t know what our chances would be that the Supreme Court would hear it. We applied in November 2002 and in May 2003 we received the best news in five years of legal battle when the Supreme Court ruled that it would indeed hear the case. That was a tremendous victory for us.
I’d like to explain the main issues of what the Supreme Court will be addressing. I will concentrate on four or five facts out of many.
1. Can living organisms, seeds, plants, genes and human organs, be owned and protected by corporate patents on intellectual property?
2. Who is responsible for the genetically modified traits of noxious weeds that then become resistant to weed killers? We now have these super weeds.
3. Can farmers’ rights to grow conventional or organic crops be protected?
4. Can farmers keep the ancient right to save their own seed?
5. Who owns life?
The first trial judge said it doesn’t matter how it gets there, even when he specified how this could happen. I think that’s what really alarmed farmers and property owners in North America and right around the world, how quickly you could lose your rights as a farmer.
Another issue that you never hear about in GMOs is the issue of corporate control of contracts that exist on the Prairies of North America. You would say to yourself that this can’t happen in a free country like Canada, but it has happened and is happening even today.
Besides the environmental, food, health and contamination issues, there is the issue of contracts. To me this is one of the most vicious contracts on the face of the Earth, taking farmers’ rights away.
These are some of the main points in a contract with Monsanto:
1. A farmer can never use his own seeds.
2. You must always buy seeds from Monsanto.
3. You must only buy your chemicals from Monsanto.
4. If you commit some violation of this contract, and they fine you, you must sign a non-disclosure statement that you cannot talk to the media or to your neighbours about what Monsanto has done to you. Monsanto often says there have only been a few cases, but we don’t really know because farmers have to sign this non-disclosure statement.
Another point. You must pay Monsanto $15/acre per year licence fee for the privilege of growing GMOs and in the 2003 contract they’ve added another clause - you can no longer sue Monsanto for whatever reason. You can never take Monsanto to court. That is their contract.
Another important issue, you must permit Monsanto’s detectives to come onto your land or look in your granaries for three years after you sign this contract, even though you may only grow it one year. And who is Monsanto’s police force? They’re former RCMP officers. They go under the name of Robinson Investigation Services of Saskatoon and they cover all of Canada. In the US it’s the Pickerton Investigation Services.
In Monsanto’s advertisements they say that if you think your neighbour is growing GM canola or soybeans without licence you should inform on them. If you do this you get a free leather jacket from Monsanto. Believe me, there aren’t many people on the prairies now wearing a new Monsanto jacket.
What happens when Monsanto gets this tip or rumour? They immediately send out two of their detectives. We call them gene police on the Prairies. They’ll go to the farmer’s home or farmyard and say to him or his wife that they have this tip. But, first of all, they’ll always say they are ex-RCMP and a lot of times the farmers don’t hear the "ex." They only hear police. It’s a form of intimidation.
They’ll say they have a tip or a rumour that you’re growing GM canola without a licence and the farmer will say No, that he or she has never had anything to do with it and doesn’t want to grow it. The farmer is often told that he is lying and if he doesn’t confess Monsanto will drag him through the courts and the farmer won’t have a farm left. So, it’s real harassment and intimidation of farmers by these gene police.
Now what do you think happens when these detectives leave the farmer’s home? The farmer will wonder which neighbour caused him the trouble. So, now we have the breakdown of farmers not trusting one another and afraid to talk to one another. We have the breakdown of our rural farm culture and society where farmers are not working together or trusting one another.
My grandparents came from Europe in the late 1890s. I’m a third generation farmer and our families had to work together to build our society, our infrastructure, our schools, our roads and our hospitals. Now you have that breakdown of working together and I think this is one of the worst things that could happen with the introduction of GMOs.
Now, Monsanto doesn’t even stop there. Believe me, on this issue I’ve had I don’t know how many farm wives crying on the phone after Monsanto’s police have been there saying, "What can we do? They’ve threatened us." And I’ll try to get them proper legal advice. That’s the whole fear culture where farmers are even scared to talk to one another.
The other means of control is what can be considered extortion letters.
This has been done all across America. We don’t know how many thousands of these letters have been sent out; I have quite a number of them. The letters state: we have reason to believe that you might be growing Monsanto’s GM canola or soybeans without a licence. We estimate you might have 200, 300 or 500 acres. In lieu of us not taking you to court send us $100,000 or $200,000. I’ve got one here for $190,000. This one here is for $30,000 because they think someone might be growing GM canola.
Can you imagine the fear in a farm family when they get a letter from a multibillion dollar corporation asking for many thousands of dollars so the company might not take them to court?!
Another clause: You’re not allowed to show this letter to anyone and you’re not allowed to tell anyone that you’ve received this letter from Monsanto or what Monsanto has done to you. So, a total suppression of farmers rights, freedom of speech and expression.
If they can’t find a farmer at home and they don’t know his mailing address, they can go to the local municipality and get the location of his land. They will then use a small airplane or helicopter and drop a Monsanto Roundup herbicide spray bomb on the field. It covers about 30 feet in diameter, in the centre of a canola or soybean field.
About 12 days after Roundup has time to activate, they’ll fly back. If the crop, which was hit by the spray, has died they’ll know the farmer has not been using Monsanto’s Roundup, but if it hasn’t died, God help the farmer.
These are the tactics. I’m talking about Canada and the US. This is what a multinational corporation is doing here.
I’ve talked about our rural social fabric being broken down and how our freedom is threatened as farmers. Two other very important issues come out of this.
First, with the introduction of GMOs always remember there is no such thing as containment. Once you introduce a life form, a life-giving form, into the environment there is no calling back. You cannot contain the wind. You cannot contain the seed movement through cross-pollination - birds, bees, and other animals. You cannot contain it and it will spread as it has on the Prairies.
The other important issue is there is no such thing as co-existence.
Believe me, as a farmer for half a century, I know that once you introduce a GMO gene into the environment, into any seed or plant, it’s a dominant gene. It will eventually take over whatever species of plants it gets into. You can’t have GMOs in the country and have organic or conventional farmers.
It will all eventually become GMOs. That is the danger. There is no more choice left. Believe me, organic farmers on the Prairies no longer can grow soybeans or canola. All our seed supply is now contaminated with GMOs. Those choices have been taken away for both conventional and organic farmers.
The other issue to remember is canola comes from the brassica family, which includes close cousins such as radishes, turnips and cauliflower. It is now cross-pollinating into the close cousins.
Therefore, we’re again destroying many crops that organic farmers no longer can raise.
The other issue is wheat. If GM wheat is ever given regulatory approval, which is before the federal government right now, it will totally destroy the organic farmers because wheat comes from the grass family and again will cross-pollinate into both the close and even the distant cousins in canola and wild mustard. So, remember there’s no such thing as containment or co-existence.
When Monsanto or the other corporations that promote GMO say they’ll make buffer strips of so many feet, half a mile or a kilometre or so - there’s no such thing as a safe distance. A whirlwind or especially all the geese and ducks we have on the prairies. It passes through these birds after they eat it and they may fly 50 or 100 miles.
I get asked a lot why farmers ever started to grow GMOs when they were introduced in 1996. At that time Monsanto told farmers, among other things, that it would be a bigger yield, that it was more nutritious and used less chemicals. I think the third point is really what caught the farmers’ ears because on the prairies since 1946-47, after the Second World War, farmers started using chemicals by the hundreds of tons each year. A lot were highly potent and farmers realized the damage being done to the environment, human health and animals.
There were other things Monsanto said and you’ll hear the same thing today: We’ll now be able to feed a hungry world. We’ll always have sustainable agriculture. Well, believe me, to feed a hungry world doesn’t take the Monsantos of this world. What it takes to feed a hungry world is politics, transportation and economics.
When I speak to farmers in Third World countries - Africa, India, Bangladesh and so on - I tell them at least they have a choice left. We don’t have a choice left for many of our grains in Canada. It’s all contaminated. And we didn’t have anybody to come and tell us what could happen. We believed Monsanto, but worst of all we believed our own federal government and they let us down on the introduction of GMOs.
They were developed in government agricultural research stations across the Prairies, so Ottawa is fully responsible. They also worked with Monsanto to develop GM wheat on government test plots and research stations. Now it has been reported that if GM wheat is introduced and the government gives regulatory approval the government will get a royalty from Monsanto on every bushel.
We’re saying that if the government is going to receive royalties from Monsanto on GM wheat how much has it already received on sales of GM canola all these years? So it’s coming out that the government has been in bed with Monsanto giving them regulatory approval and worked for them to develop the GMOs.
In a statement to the media Chris Jordan, Monsanto’s communications manager for Canada, based in Winnipeg, stated that all these millions of dollars that they collected from farmers is given to charities, they don’t keep it. So, the question has been asked of Monsanto to name one charity they have given the money to from fines. They have not replied.
Within two to three years after the introduction of GM canola on the Prairies, through cross-pollination, our regular plants became a super weed.
Monsanto wasn’t the only company at that time selling GMOs, so, there were now the GMOs from three companies combined in one canola plant which now took at least three chemicals to control and kill. All Monsanto said was, "No problem. We’ve now come up with a new, more super-toxic chemical to kill the new super weed." So everything they said about less chemicals turned out to be false. Now their yield is down about 6.4 percent on canola. The US Department of Agriculture has admitted that soybeans yield is down at least 15 percent. So now we have less yield.
The third issue of nutrition is that what they’re not saying is the quality is way poorer, maybe half, of conventional canola. I won’t go into why that is, but it’s primarily with the erucic acid content, the greens in canola, which makes it more bitter for cooking.
So, now we have less yield, more chemical use, a new super weed and the quality is much poorer.
I’ll say that if anything is going to lead to starvation or hunger it’s the introduction of GMOs around the world.
I haven’t touched on the economic issue. We as Canadians cannot sell one bushel of canola to the EU, so one-third of our markets have gone and our prices have dropped. Now they want to introduce GM wheat where even the Canadian Wheat Board said we would lose over 80 percent of our market.
I was in Japan a couple of months ago and I have a statement by the millers, the processors and the consumers of Japan and South Korea which says what contracts will be cancelled if we introduce GM wheat. That’s how serious it is.
I mentioned a bit about pharmaceutical plants. That is the worst curse that has come in with the introduction of GMOs. I went through the whole 50 years of the development of chemicals after WWII and then GMOs since the ‘80s. Now the introduction of prescription drugs from GM plants - there were about 300 test plots in North America last year.
In the US there are six major drugs now being produced by plants. I’m told by scientists from universities in Indiana, Ohio and Nebraska that there is already cross-pollination with close cousins of these species. The pharmaceutical plants are primarily sunflowers and corn, or maize. Some of the prescription drugs being produced by plants are vaccines, industrial enzymes, blood thinners, blood clotting proteins, growth hormones and contraceptive drugs. These are all prescription drugs now being produced by plants which are in the open.
I can’t believe that our governments are permitting prescription drugs to be produced in the open. Plants are a cheap way of producing drugs compared to laboratories.
What if someone has major surgery and then eats a food laced with a blood thinner, or if a pregnant woman eats a food laced with a contraceptive? The introduction of what they call pharma-plants, or prescription drug plants, is the worst curse that is coming. Whether it’s GM wheat or soybeans these prescription drugs are something we should all be concerned about.
What can we do? I think all of us must contact our MPs and members of the cabinet as they have done in Europe and Japan. We have the right to know what we’re eating. If people knew what they were eating, 90 percent of the Canadian people would not eat GMO foods.
I haven’t spoken on the environmental issues or the issue of the safety of food, but in Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and England, extensive testing has been done on the health dangers of eating GMO products.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency did not do one bit of testing. They only used the data supplied to them by Monsanto. Japanese and Netherland governments are now saying that the CFIA reached a fraudulent conclusion.
I forwarded these documents to the CFIA two weeks ago. I haven’t had a reply. I also discussed it with them on the phone. What results we’ll get I don’t know.
To give you another example, before I came here to Vancouver I received a call from Germany. On German national television on Monday night there was a story about a farmer who had illegally grown GMOs. I don’t know if it was soybeans or corn, but he had fed it to his cattle and his cattle all died. He contacted me to ask if he could use some of my documents that were submitted to the Supreme Court.
He said the reason it’s just coming out now is because he didn’t say anything to the authorities. He’d been growing it illegally. One of the GMO companies had gotten him to do it. When his neighbours heard that his cattle had died there was an inquiry and he finally admitted he had grown GMOs. That is just one example.
I can give you all kinds of examples from the US where pigs fed GM soybeans will not reproduce. Once they are off that feed they start to reproduce again.
However, my emphasis is really on farmers’ rights, the rights to use one’s own seed from year to year. The judge in my first case ruled that although farmers in Canada have the right by federal law to use their seed from year to year, Monsanto’s patent law is over and above all farmers’ rights. Farmers do not have any rights over patent law.
Another issue is that I never used Monsanto’s patent and in Canada patent infringement is when you use a patent. To use their patent I would have had to spray their chemical Roundup on my crop and I never did that. The judge ruled that that was immaterial. He said the fact that plants were growing in the ditch along my field meant the patent was violated.
At that time I had two scientists pull samples from all my fields. I had eight fields of canola in 1998. These were sent to the University of Manitoba and they tested the seeds and found that two of my fields had no contamination. Others had one percent, some had two percent and one had eight percent. In the ditch along the fields where we first noticed it, contamination was around 60 percent.
The judge said it didn’t matter. Even with the fields that had no contamination he said because I was a seed saver and was using my seed from year to year there was a probability there could be some of Monsanto’s GMOs in those fields also, so the crop all goes to Monsanto.
So, even on a probability you can lose your rights overnight. That’s why my case became so well known worldwide. Remember, it’s a total control of the world’s seed supply they’re after and whoever controls that will control the food supply. In many Third World nations whoever controls the food supply controls the nation.
I have a lot of confidence in the Supreme Court of Canada and I’m sure they’ll rule in favour of the rights of people to use their own seed from year to year.
I have photos to show you how fields have been contaminated and of Monsanto’s gene police in farmer’s fields. These detectives go into any fields they choose to without permission and steal seeds or plants to check on them. If a farmer catches them trespassing they will laugh at the farmer and make threats.
When farmers hear what my wife and I have gone through with five years of legal battles and about $300,000 in court costs and legal fees how can any farmer stand up to them?
There is no justice for an average person. You cannot stand up to a multibillion-dollar corporation in court. I would not have been able to do it without people from all over the world, organizations and foundations. To give you an extent of the ruthlessness of Monsanto, about a year ago they took me back to court on the issue of their costs.
They sued me for $1 million this time because they said I was arrogant, stubborn and didn’t do what they wanted.
So, what did the judge rule on that case? He ruled that I have to pay Monsanto $153,000 for their court costs.
I think there was some humour in this because they had to itemize what some of that million dollars was comprised of. There was $1,100 for a digital camera they said they used in court - well, you know, you can’t use a camera in court in Canada. The other issue, which I found slightly humorous, was $1,500 for light entertainment of Monsanto’s lawyers while the court was on. I couldn’t help but ask what light entertainment the lawyers had.
After the judge awarded them the $153,000 what did they do? They then put a lien on all our land and even our house so I could no longer borrow any more money to fight them. They tried to stop me financially. They tried to break us down mentally. They would come into our driveway and sometimes park all day. When my wife came out of the house they would take off. They watched us day after day when we worked in our fields.
They try to intimidate us. A farmer in North Dakota, who they also had a lawsuit against, said they even followed his children to school as a means of intimidation and harassment to bring people down. As I said, this is what’s happening in North America.
In conclusion, why did we stand up to Monsanto? My wife and I are 72 and 73. We don’t know how many good years we have left and we look at it this way: as a grandfather I ask what kind of legacy I want to leave to my grandchildren. My grandparents and parents left a legacy of land. I don’t want to leave a legacy to my children of land, air and water full of poisons. I’m sure all of you tonight feel the same way.
So, we will go on fighting for the rights of farmers all over the world to be able to use their own seed.
From a speech by Percy Schmeiser December 10, 2003 at Vancouver’s central library sponsored by Council for Canadians
www.canadians.org
===========================================
Further Reading
Govt directed to file objections to Monsanto Wheat Patent
Upcoming Schmeiser/Monsanto Court Case | | | | gchq | | Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 7:13 pm Post subject: Milk is Deadly |
| Milk is Deadly
Stuart Wilde
February 19th, 2004
I have always had a pathological abhorrence for milk. It’s far too white for my liking. Healthy things are black, like coffee and Guinness.
About ten years ago, Monsanto started pumping cows with bovine growth hormone to increase milk yields. It hurts the cows. They get puss in their teats, which winds up in the milk and it also gives them bone cancer. BGH is a bit deadly to humans as it is thought to causes prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women.
In a very amusing little book called, “50 Things You Are Not Supposed to Know”, I read of a secret that has been kept from consumers for years. Cows suffer from a type of leukemia known as BLV. Eighty-nine percent of all herds in America have BLV and it is especially bad in the Southeast region where 99% of herds have the tumor-causing bug.
In theory the virus is killed when the milk is pasteurized and in fact, no one knows if that is true or not. Several medical studies have found a correlation between higher milk/beef consumption and leukemia or lymphoma.
Latte, cappuccino, anyone? I don’t know, might not be a good idea.
© Stuart Wilde 2004
www.stuartwilde.com | | | | gchq | | Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2004 1:36 pm Post subject: Starved of the truth |
| Starved of the truth
By George Monbiot
10 Mar 2004
The question is as simple as this: do you want a few corporations to monopolise the global food supply? If the answer is yes, you should welcome the announcement that the government is expected to make today that the commercial planting of a genetically modified (GM) crop in Britain can go ahead. If the answer is no, you should regret it. The principal promotional effort of the genetic engineering industry is to distract us from this question.
GM technology permits companies to ensure that everything we eat is owned by them. They can patent the seeds and the processes that give rise to them. They can make sure that crops can’t be grown without their patented chemicals. They can prevent seeds from reproducing themselves. By buying up competing seed companies and closing them down, they can capture the food market, the biggest and most diverse market of all.
No one in her right mind would welcome this, so the corporations must persuade us to focus on something else. At first they talked of enhancing consumer choice, but when the carrot failed, they switched to the stick. Now we are told that unless we support the deployment of GM crops in Britain, our science base will collapse. And that, by refusing to eat GM products in Europe, we are threatening the developing world with starvation. Both arguments are, shall we say, imaginative; but in public relations, cogency counts for little. All that matters is that you spin the discussion out for long enough to achieve the necessary result. And that means recruiting eminent figures to make the case on your behalf.
Last October, 114 scientists, many of whom receive funding from the biotech industry, sent an open letter to the prime minister claiming that Britain’s lack of enthusiasm for GM crops "will inhibit our ability to contribute to scientific knowledge internationally". Scientists specialising in this field, they claimed, were being forced to leave the country to find work elsewhere.
Now forgive me if you’ve heard this before, but it seems to need repeating. GM crops are not science. They are technological products of science. To claim, as Tony Blair and several senior scientists have done, that those who oppose GM are "anti-science" is like claiming that those who oppose chemical weapons are anti-chemistry. Scientists are under no greater obligation to defend GM food than they are to defend the manufacture of Barbie dolls.
This is not to say that the signatories were wrong to claim that some researchers who have specialised in the development of engineered crops are now leaving Britain to find work elsewhere. As the public has rejected their products, the biotech companies have begun withdrawing from this country, and they are taking their funding with them. But if scientists attach their livelihoods to the market, they can expect their livelihoods to be affected by market forces. The people who wrote to Blair seem to want it both ways: commercial funding, insulated from commercial decisions.
In truth, the biotech companies’ contribution to research in Britain has been small. Far more money has come from the government. Its Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, for example, funds 26 projects on GM crops and just one on organic farming. If scientists want a source of funding that’s unlikely to be jeopardised by public concern, they should lobby for this ratio to be reversed.
But the plight of the men in white coats isn’t much of a tearjerker. A far more effective form of emotional blackmail is the one deployed in the Guardian last week by Lord Taverne, the founder of the Prima PR consultancy. "The strongest argument in favour of developing GM crops," he wrote, "is the contribution they can make to reducing world poverty, hunger and disease."
There’s little doubt that some GM crops produce higher yields than some conventional crops, or that they can be modified to contain more nutrients, though both these developments have been overhyped. Two projects have been cited everywhere: a sweet potato being engineered in Kenya to resist viruses, and vitamin A-enhanced rice. The first scheme has just collapsed. Despite $6m of funding from Monsanto, the World Bank and the US government, and endless hype in the press, it turns out to have produced no improvement in virus resistance, and a decrease in yield. Just over the border in Uganda, a far cheaper conventional breeding programme has almost doubled sweet potato yields. The other project, never more than a concept, now turns out not to work even in theory - malnourished people appear not to be able to absorb vitamin A in this form. However, none of this stops Lord Taverne, or George Bush, or the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, from citing them as miracle cures for global hunger.
But some trials of this kind are succeeding, improving both yield and nutritional content. Despite the best efforts of the industry’s boosters to confuse the two ideas, however, this does not equate to feeding the world.
The world has a surplus of food, but still people go hungry. They go hungry because they cannot afford to buy it. They cannot afford to buy it because the sources of wealth and the means of production have been captured and in some cases monopolised by landowners and corporations. The purpose of the biotech industry is to capture and monopolise the sources of wealth and the means of production.
Now in some places governments or unselfish private researchers are producing GM crops that are free from patents and not dependent on the application of proprietary pesticides, and these could well be of benefit to small farmers in the developing world. But Taverne and the other propagandists are seeking to persuade us to approve a corporate model of GM development in the rich world, in the hope that this will somehow encourage the opposite model to develop in the poor world.
Indeed, it is hard to see what on earth the production of crops for local people in poor nations has to do with consumer preferences in Britain. Like the scientists who wrote to the prime minister, the emotional blackmailers want to have it both ways: these crops are being grown to feed starving people, but the starving people won’t be able to eat them unless er ... they can export this food to Britain.
And here we encounter the perpetually neglected truth about GM crops. The great majority are not being grown to feed local people. In fact, they are not being grown to feed people at all, but to feed livestock, whose meat, milk and eggs are then sold to the world’s richer consumers. The GM maize the government is expected to approve today is no exception. If in the next 30 years there is a global food crisis, it will be because the arable land that should be producing food for humans is instead producing feed for animals.
The biotech companies are not interested in whether science is flourishing or whether people are starving. They simply want to make money. The best way to make money is to control the market. But before you can control the market, you must first convince the people that there’s something else at stake. | | | | gchq | | Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:20 pm Post subject: Supreme Court of Canada Hears Schmeiser v. Monsanto |
| Canada: Supreme Court of Canada Hears Schmeiser v. Monsanto
31 March 2004
Article by Cynthia Tape Weekly News Alerts
Published in Bio Business, Spring 2004.
The patentability of higher life forms was in the spotlight recently in Ottawa, as the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments in the Schmeiser v. Monsanto appeal.
The Court’s decision–not expected for several months–will most likely contain key rulings on the validity and scope of gene and cell claims in patents in Canada, and on the infringement of patents claiming life forms that are self-replicating and able to spread.
Background
Monsanto sued Mr. Schmeiser, a farmer in Saskatchewan, for patent infringement. The patent in question claims genetically engineered genes, and cells containing those genes, that confer herbicide resistance on canola plants.
Monsanto alleged that Schmeiser infringed its patent rights by reproducing canola seeds and plants containing genes and cells claimed in the patent, and by selling the harvested canola seed. Schmeiser defended on the basis that Monsanto’s patent was invalid because it covers unpatentable subject matter (i.e. plants). Furthermore, even if the patent were valid, Schmeiser could not be an infringer because canola carrying the patented genes and cells blew onto his field and became intermixed with his own canola through no fault of his own. In any event, he never took advantage of the utility of Monsanto’s invention by spraying the modified canola with herbicide.
At trial, Schmeiser was found liable for having infringed Monsanto’s patent. The Federal Court of Appeal affirmed that finding. Schmeiser sought, and was granted, leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Schmeiser’s Appeal In The Supreme Court Of Canada
Three main points were addressed in oral argument: (1) Is the scope of Monsanto’s patent, which claims genes and cells, sufficient to permit Monsanto to claim rights in canola plants carrying the patented genes and cells? (2) If so, should infringement be restricted to circumstances in which the invention is actually being "exploited"–that is, actually put into operation –rather than simply being "used"? (3) If exploitation of an invention is not required for infringement to occur, should "innocent bystanders" such as Schmeiser be granted an implied licence to use an invention in circumstances where one’s personal property becomes contaminated with patented material?
Scope Of Rights Conferred By Gene And Cell Claims
Counsel for Schmeiser contended that the gene and cell claims in Monsanto’s patent had the effect of conferring patent rights over the whole canola plant. They argued that Monsanto’s claim to patent rights over the canola plants in Schmeiser’s fields could not be sustained as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Harvard Mouse case–Harvard College v. Canada (Commissioner of Patents)–that higher life forms, including animals and plants, are not patentable subject matter.
This argument was supported by a group of interveners (including the Council of Canadians, the Sierra Club of Canada, the National Farmers Union and others) who took the position that the public interest must be considered when construing the scope of patent rights, and that the public interest in protecting plant diversity, among other things, was not properly taken into account by the lower courts in this case, which found that Monsanto’s patent rights extended to canola seeds and plants.
Monsanto’s response was that its patent contains no claims to the plant itself; the canola plant is merely the exploitation of the invention, not the invention itself. The decision in Harvard Mouse does not preclude the patentability of claims to genes and cells such as those in Monsanto’s patent, even if those claims have the effect of preventing others from growing the canola plant.
Infringement Based On Exploitation Or Use?
Schmeiser’s counsel argued that even if Monsanto’s patent leads to rights to the canola plants themselves, there could be no infringement unless the plants were actually sprayed with herbicide. Otherwise, the utility of Monsanto’s invention was not being exploited. Infringement, according to Schmeiser, requires more than mere "use" of an invention; the utility of the invention must be put into operation.
Monsanto’s counsel argued that spraying was not required for infringement. Rather, Schmeiser’s planting, growing and harvesting of the modified canola constituted sufficient "use" of the genes and cells to amount to infringement.
The Innocent Bystander Problem
According to Schmeiser, where patented material is passively and inadvertently intermixed with personal property, the holder of the property (the innocent bystander) should not be held to account to the patentee. In other words, if mere "use" of an invention is sufficient to establish infringement, then the innocent bystander must be protected by an implied licence from the patent holder.
Monsanto argued that no special exceptions to infringement ought to be recognized or applied in this case; this is a simple case of infringement by a knowing use of the patented material.
Such a ruling would create severe competitive difficulties for Canadian businesses in countries that permit patents like Monsanto’s to confer rights over the resulting plants.
Cynthia Tape is an associate at Torys LLP, a Canadian-U.S. business law firm with more than 330 lawyers and offices in Toronto and New York.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances. | | | | gchq | | Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:25 pm Post subject: GM food crops get taken off the menu - Australia |
| GM food crops get taken off the menu
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons and Megan Saunders
The Australian
April 02, 2004
PLANS to grow genetically modified food crops in Australia are on hold indefinitely, after the NSW Government ruled out a 3000-hectare trial of GM canola.
The shock decision came a week after Western Australia imposed an outright ban on GM food crops, and Victoria extended its moratorium for another four years.
NSW Agriculture Minister Ian Macdonald vetoed the 3000ha commercial trial, despite his own GM advisory committee recommending it go ahead.
Mr Macdonald said there would be no coexistence trial of GM crops for at least another year, but he would allow three small scientific trials covering a total of 420ha.
"It's a good balanced decision - it will enable the farming community to evaluate what benefits, if any, there are," Mr Macdonald said.
"By taking a cautious, staged approach, NSW is neither ruling out the potential of this technology nor jumping in without more science to guide us."
The decision is a major blow to chemical giants Monsanto and Bayer, who wanted to plant enough GM canola to fill a single shipping container, in an effort to ease farmers' concerns about coexistence with non-GM agriculture and possible rejection by consumers.
Monsanto had no comment yesterday, but Bayer CropScience BioScience general manager Susie O'Neill said coexistence trials were essential and she was "very disappointed" by the decision.
The federal regulator approved Monsanto's Roundup Ready canola and Bayer's InVigor canola as safe for human health and consumption last year, but final approval rests with the states.
The NSW decision blocks possible commercialisation of GM canola in the short term, as Tasmania and South Australia also have moratoriums, and the climate in Queensland and the Northern Territory is too warm to grow canola crops. | | | | gchq | | Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 6:22 pm Post subject: Canola farmer, legal experts to discuss Monsanto battle |
| Canola farmer, legal experts to discuss Monsanto battle
The one-day conference held in Agate Hall features experts on both legal and agricultural matters
By Steven Neuman
News Reporter
April 09, 2004
A Canadian canola farmer fighting for patent rights to genetically altered seeds that grew spontaneously on his property will discuss his ongoing legal battle tonight at 7 p.m. in the Agate Hall auditorium.
Speaker Percy Schmeiser is currently engaged in a legal battle in the Canadian Supreme Court with Monsanto, a corporation that develops and markets genetically modified seeds. The company sued him for patent infringement when seeds from its "Roundup Ready Canola" drifted onto his farm.
The keynote speech, titled "David v. Goliath: Patent Law and the Might of Monsanto," is part of a one-day symposium being held today and is sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics.
The symposium, dubbed "Malthus, Mendel, and Monsanto: Intellectual Property and the Law and Politics of Global Food Supply," will feature experts in patent law, plant genetics and agriculture. The convention takes its name from Thomas Malthus, an English economist who theorized that world population tends to multiply faster than the food supply, and Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk and botanist widely considered the father of genetics.
The symposium will explore how extending intellectual property rights to seeds affects farmers, and how recent Supreme Court decisions and new technologies threaten global food security and genetic diversity, according to a University press release.
"Over the past two decades, genetic engineers have created and patented improvements in seeds used to grow staple crops," said Keith Aoki, University law professor and conference organizer. "New international agreements establish the global scope of those patent rights and have allowed a decreasing number of multinational corporations to capture much of the global agricultural market with their patented seed."
Aoki said four or five corporations could end up with a lock on the global seed supply.
Second-year law student J.J. Haapala, who helped organize the event, is studying the intellectual property laws of agriculture and is also a local farmer.
"I think it's important to look at this relationship between farmers and (seed) breeders," Haapala said. "Setting up this artificial distinction has worked to our disadvantage."
He said that during the last 100 years, growers have been divorced from developers in the United States.
"With the green revolution, the seed became seen as a transport device for breeder's products," Haapala said. "Instead of breeding seeds regionally to match climate, we suddenly had blanket crops."
The lecture and conference is part of a two-year effort by the Wayne Morse Center to explore "The Changing Geopolitical Order: Implications for Peace and Stability."
"Rapid shifts in the supply of the world's food certainly has implications for global peace and stability," Wayne Morse Center Interim Director Caroline Forell said.
The one-day symposium is already sold out, but tickets are still available for Schmeiser's lecture, which is open to the public. Admission is $5. Agate Hall is located at 1787 Agate St | | | | gchq | | Posted: Tue May 11, 2004 4:17 pm Post subject: GM wheat put on hold |
| GM wheat put on hold
14:12 11 May 04
NewScientist.com news service
Plans to sell genetically modified wheat in the US have been put on hold by Monsanto, the agrobiotech giant in St Louis, Missouri.
The company blamed a drop of 25 per cent in demand for wheat in a statement issued on 10 May.
"As a result of our portfolio review and dialogue with wheat industry leaders, we recognise the business opportunities with Roundup Ready spring wheat are less attractive relative to Monsanto's other commercial priorities," says Carl Casale, Monsanto's executive vice president.
But opponents of GM technology have little doubt that the company halted development of the wheat because of overwhelming consumer opposition in Europe and Japan.
Many farmers in America, especially Canada, opposed the GM wheat because they feared losing their lucrative wheat exports to Europe and Japan if there was even a hint of GM contamination.
"Monsanto has made the right decision by respecting the wishes of their customers-farmers," says Ken Ritter of the Canadian Wheat Board, the world's largest seller of wheat and barley.
The board says that 87 per cent of customers for wheat produced by Canadian prairie farmers said they would not buy GM wheat. "At present, there is no segregation system in place to prevent mingling of GM and non-GM wheat to tolerance levels acceptable to consumers," it says in a statement.
Drought resistance
Opponents were jubilant at the climbdown by Monsanto. "This is a worldwide victory for consumers and farmers," says Pete Riley of Friends of the Earth.
"Let's hope GM wheat permanently joins GM flax, GM tomatoes and GM potatoes in their dustbin of bad ideas," says Pat Vendetti of Greenpeace Canada.
But Monsanto says that it has simply "deferred" its efforts to introduce the GM wheat.
Like many of Monsanto's other GM crops including soya and maize, the wheat survives exposure to Monsanto's powerful glyphosate weedkiller, tradenamed Roundup.
The company says that it will continue research on wheat to introduce other traits such as resistance to drought or cold. But these will take four to eight years to come through.
"The research is definitely not stopping," Tony Combes, director of corporate affairs at Monsanto UK, told New Scientist. "It's not carrying on at field level, but we're leaving the door open," he says.
Official application
Monsanto has spent millions of dollars and seven years developing GM wheat. But it says that the sums are relatively tiny, with the $5 million spent on wheat this year dwarfed by the overall 2004 research budget of $500 million.
Canada's National Farmers Union described the decision as a "tremendous victory" for farmers in Canada and elsewhere.
Now, both the union and the wheat board want Monsanto to withdraw its official application to grow the GM wheat.
The union also expressed hostility to any further development of GM wheat. "It is worrisome that...Monsanto leaves the door open for the introduction of wheat with other biological traits," says NFU vice president, Terry Boehm.
But the wheat board is more conciliatory. "The CWB remains interested in and supportive of any biotechnology products as long as they offer a net benefit to Prairie farmers and their customers," it says.
Andy Coghlan | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
