with all this bad and sad news that has been dominating the media (the US recession's impact on the canadian economy, gold/oil/stock prices tumbling, 5 year anniversary of the iraqi invasion, our PM wanting to sue the opposition party - that's our tax money!), i was so happy to read that percy schmeiser was able to settle his law suit with evil GMO producing monsanto (although surprisingly this victory was not reported on the cbc today).
for the past 8 years, percy schmeiser has been fighting monsanto's patent infringement accusations, where monsanto accused schmeiser of stealing their genetically modified roundup ready canola seeds by not paying the company for the special seeds nor paying them the annual licensing fee required to harvest canola with this special gene.
the fact that a company patented a life form is scary enough, but what's scarier is that monsanto has agents that go and test farms to ensure that their GMO is not being used by unlicensed farmers. a total cash grab, when cross pollination of crops happens naturally. wind, bees, birds and other creatures don't care about human created boundaries.
shockingly, schmeiser lost the first court case where the supreme court ruled in monsanto's favour. so, schmeiser fought back, appealed and sued monsanto for contaminating his crops - his canola seeds have been carefully developed by his family for the past 50 years. go percy!
more indepth info:
• percy schmeiser's battle
• the future of food (a movie)
• svalbard seed vault (via sameer's blog)
photo: a hopefully non-GMO canola field in edmonton
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