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<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2>Dear all! For more information see: <A
href="http://www.percyschmeiser.com">www.percyschmeiser.com</A> - solong, martin
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>GM
WATCH daily <BR></FONT><A href="http://www.gmwatch.org"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>http://www.gmwatch.org</FONT></A><BR><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>---<BR>Fate of biodiversity rests on Canadian
farmer’s court challenge vs. Monsanto <BR>By Stephen Leahy<BR>InterPress
Service, January 18, 2004 <BR><BR>BROOKLIN, Canada—The future of world
agriculture and countries’ ability to protect their biodiversity is on the line
in a final legal battle next week between Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser and
agri-business giant Monsanto. <BR><BR>On January 20 the Supreme Court of Canada
will decide if Monsanto’s patent on a process that produces genetically
engineered (GE) canola (oilseed rape) is valid. Unlike in the United States, the
Canadian court has previously ruled that plants and animals cannot be patented.
<BR><BR>The case has enormous implications for the developing world, says Andrew
Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, a US nongovernmental
organization (NGO) that focuses on food production and the environment.
<BR><BR>Like Canada, most countries do not allow the patenting of seeds or
plants but if Monsanto wins, it will have a “de facto” patent on a plant.
<BR><BR>“It’s a legal ruse to get around patent bans on life forms,” Kimbrell
says. <BR><BR>A Monsanto victory will mean farmers will be unwilling to save
seeds because they might contain the company’s genetics, which of course are not
visible to the naked eye, he told IPS. <BR><BR>Instead, they will buy seeds,
reducing the natural diversity of seed types. <BR><BR>At the same time,
Monsanto’s GE patented genes could get into local plants, also harming
diversity. <BR><BR>US-based Monsanto is one of the world’s largest chemical and
seed companies. It engineered its strain of canola to make it resistant to
Roundup, a herbicide the company also created. <BR><BR>There is keen interest in
the case around the world, because many legal experts believe patent rights have
gone too far and are harmful to the environment and biodiversity, says Michelle
Swenarchuk, director of international programs at the Canadian Environmental Law
Association. <BR><BR>Trade agreements, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in
particular, insist or push for harmonizing patent laws between nations but
effectively adopt the US intellectual property regime, she added in an
interview. <BR><BR>“There’s plenty of debate and legal actions by developing
countries trying to roll back the breadth of these rights,” Swenarchuk said in
an interview. <BR><BR>Vandana Shiva of India’s Research Foundation for Science,
Technology and Ecology, says if lower-court verdicts for Monsanto are not
overturned and other countries adopt those legal interpretations, it would
undermine “the seed-saving practices of hundreds of million of farmers whose
livelihoods depend on this practice.” <BR><BR>“Moreover, because seed saving
fosters biodiversity and increases productivity, any new constraint on the
practice of saving seeds is likely to harm both goals,” Shiva in a statement.
<BR><BR>Schmeiser lost two lower court decisions and faces almost one million US
dollars in fines and penalties for saving seeds from his 1997 canola crop, as he
had done for 40 years. <BR><BR>Monsanto took plant samples from his farm the
following year, and found some of them contained the company’s patented
genetics. <BR><BR>Schmeiser told IPS that his fields had likely been
contaminated in previous years by pollen from a neighbor’s GE canola fields and
by seeds that blew off trucks on their way to a processing plant. <BR><BR>The
lower courts ruled that no matter how the GE plants got there, Schmeiser had
infringed on Monsanto’s legal rights when he harvested and sold his crop.
<BR><BR>The company did not return calls for this article, but in a January 12
statement Monsanto Canada spokesperson Trish Jordan said, “We remain confident
the Supreme Court of Canada will uphold the previous decisions that found we
have a valid patent on this technology.” <BR><BR>Not only does the company
maintain that it has a valid patent for plant genes and cells in canola plants,
she added, but that Schmeiser violated that patent by knowingly and deliberately
planting, harvesting, segregating and selling Roundup Ready canola without
paying the required license fee. <BR><BR>The Canadian prairies were once the
bottom of an ancient ocean, so they are flat and the wind blows hard most days.
Those winds move large amounts of pin-head-sized canola seeds and even whole
plants after they have been cut. <BR><BR>With much of the prairies’ two million
canola hectares planted with the GE varieties produced by Monsanto and other
companies, the patented genes are in canola plants springing up along roadsides,
in schoolyards, parks and fields. <BR><BR>“This case is far greater than just
Percy Schmeiser,” says Terry Boehm of Canada’s National Farmers Union.
<BR><BR>“Given the level at which Monsanto’s GE canola has contaminated Western
Canada, the implied liability for all Canadian farmers is enormous. We simply
cannot allow the current verdict against Schmeiser to stand,” he told IPS.
<BR><BR>At least 500 farmers in Canada and across the border in the United
States have been threatened with lawsuits by Monsanto, says Kimbrell. Most
farmers pay whatever penalty the firm requests, and sign confidentiality
agreements. <BR><BR>About 90 cases have gone to US courts, where Monsanto has
won each time, collecting an average of $150,000 in each case, he says.
<BR><BR>“Monsanto’s collected millions of dollars from this, and a number of
farmers have gone out of business,” adds Kimbrell. <BR><BR>In Canada, farmers
have all settled quietly, except Schmeiser. <BR><BR>And that has made the
73-year-old famous among those who oppose genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
<BR><BR>His case also comes up in many countries whenever patents and
intellectual property rights are discussed, says Nadège Adam of the Council of
Canadians, an NGO that supports Schmeiser and will present its views to the
Supreme Court next week. <BR><BR>The government of Canada’s largest province,
Ontario, also backs Schmeiser because of worries that gene patents will increase
its health costs, Adam told IPS. <BR><BR>Schmeiser’s case “has important
implications for the development of public policy in Ontario, including the
delivery of health care to its residents,” a provincial government submission to
the Supreme Court states. <BR><BR>Three years ago, US company Myriad Genetics
threatened to sue Ontario over tests for genetic predisposition to breast
cancer. Although provincial scientists designed and performed their own tests,
Myriad claimed it had a patent on a human gene sequence that has been linked to
breast cancer. <BR><BR>Myriad’s test costs three times as much as the one
Ontario uses. <BR><BR>Schmeiser and his supporters reject the idea that genes
can be patented because they are natural life forms not human inventions.
<BR><BR>The Canadian government has refused to get involved in any of this, says
Adam. “They’d prefer to have the courts sort it out.” <BR><BR>The Court is
expected to decide the Schmeiser case by March.
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<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS"
size=2>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<BR>"Wir brauchen keine
Bio-Terroristen, wenn wir Gentechniker haben."<BR>Independent Science Panel (<A
href="http://www.indsp.org">www.indsp.org</A>; dt.Ü. <A
href="http://www.bukoagrar.de/fileadmin/Dokumente/ISP_GM.pdf">www.bukoagrar.de/fileadmin/Dokumente/ISP_GM.pdf</A>)</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>