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from Dawn, Pakistani English language paper
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GM seed patents legalizing 'bio-serfdom'
By Cathryn Atkinson

BRUNO:
It all began with a few stubborn weeds in a ditch. Percy Schmeiser, a 68-year-old Canadian farmer, was puzzled by the poor result of his annual herbicide spraying in the spring of 1997. As in previous years, he used Roundup, Monsanto's weed killer, to burn off the plants along the outskirts of his 1,400-acre farm near the hamlet of Bruno, in Saskatchewan.
Despite saturating the area with herbicide, he found rogue oilseed rape plants thriving in ditches and around telephone poles. Having crossbred his own seed for 35 years, he wondered if he had accidentally created some kind of mutant.
So he sprayed Roundup from the edge of his field inward, a full 24 metres into his own flourishing crop of oilseed rape. It should have killed everything but, to his alarm, over 60 per cent of the plants survived. Only Roundup Ready oilseed rape - genetically modified by Monsanto to create a mutually exclusive relationship between their seeds and their herbicide - can survive.
Some time later, Monsanto was tipped off by a call to its (now defunct) freephone "sneak" line that Schmeiser was, allegedly, growing Roundup Ready GM oilseed rape. Monsanto asked Robinson Investigations, retained by them throughout Canada to gather information on errant farmers, to take samples from the Schmeiser farm.
Schmeiser's crop possessed Monsanto's gene, and Robinson's also visited the local mill, which chemically cleaned Schmeiser's seeds for planting, to retrieve a sample. Again, the gene was found.
Although Schmeiser says he had never bought seed from Monsanto or signed a contract, the corporation sued him for cultivating their gene, demanding all profits from the crop and unspecified punitive damages. Schmeiser argued that any number of potential contaminants could have infiltrated his seed - such as blow-offs from passing trucks laden with Roundup Ready oilseed rape, insects, wind or cross-germination, - and that further contamination could have occurred when he kept back seed to plant.
Last August, the two parties met to resolve the dispute. They failed, so Monsanto's case now goes to the supreme court of Canada in June.
Meanwhile, a furious Schmeiser has launched a suit against them, for allegedly contaminating his seed stock, for defamation and trespass, and the theft of seeds and plants. He is asking for punitive damages of C$10m (US$6.7m).
Schmeiser is one of more than 1,000 Canadian farmers investigated by Monsanto in the past three years for allegedly growing its patented GM crops and breaking the conditions of the company's technology use agreement (TUA). This gives the farmers the right, for a price of US$10 an acre, to grow GM crops, and allows Monsanto unlimited access to their fields, seed stores and crops for up to three years. Farmers must also agree to destroy any leftover seed each year in order to protect Monsanto's patent. If they wish to buy the seed the following year, they must sign the TUA and again pay the fee.
Monsanto say that 400,000 North American farmers have signed the TUA (20,000 in Canada) and over 17 million acres in Canada and 62 million in the US were covered by Monsanto's GM seed by 1999.
Monsanto Canada's Adele Pelland says 65 per cent of the oilseed rape grown in Canada in 1999 was Roundup Ready, and stresses that farmers encourage Monsanto to prosecute under the TUA, adding that they "all want a level playing field".
Schmeiser's case is gaining worldwide attention, but it is, perhaps, most closely watched by those farmers who fear Monsanto's legal wrath for violations of the TUA.
A new term, "bio-serfdom", has entered the Canadian prairie lexicon.
Edward Zielinski traded wheat seed for canola seed with another farmer in 1997. Unknown to him, the canola he planted on his farm in Mikado, Saskatchewan was contaminated with Roundup Ready seed. Monsanto set his fine at C$115 (US$77.3) an acre or C$28,750 (US$19,320). He has no intention of paying, arguing that farmers have traded seed for centuries.
And 640 kilometres east, in Arden, Manitoba, Ed Sulz is facing ruin. As a strong supporter of GM crops, he very much wanted to test Roundup Ready oilseed rape. In 1996, he was one of the first farmers in western Canada to try. The seed dealer asked him to sign the TUA. Having left his cheque book at home, Sulz left with the seed, but without the document. "I just initialled it (the TUA) and said I'd get the cheque to him," he says. Once the dealer received the cheque, the TUA was faxed to Sulz, but since the terms and conditions were on the back of the page, he never received a copy outlining its vital stipulations.
When, the following spring, Sulz had enough seed left over to plant a further 75 acres, he did so in ignorance of the conditions of his contract. Monsanto's crop cops were on to him by July, faxing a letter outlining the transgression and demanding US$226,900 in fines. The company took Sulz to court in December 1998, but the judge called their fine "outrageous" and rejected the initialled fax as a legal document.-Dawn/The Guardian News Service.

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