Farmer ready for final court battle against Monsanto

Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser will get his last chance in January 2004 to defeat agribusiness and biotechnology giant Monsanto, when the Canadian Supreme Court is to hear a case that could affect farmers the world over.

At 72, Schmeiser has become a hero of the global anti-transgenics movement for his legal battle against Monsanto's attempts to enforce its patent rights over the genetically modified seeds the transnational company sells.

Five years ago, Canadian law enforcement officials seized Schmeiser's entire canola crop (also known as rapeseed or Brassica napus) from his 1,030-acre farm in Bruno, Saskatchewan, after Monsanto filed a legal complaint.

Monsanto said Schmeiser violated the patent rights on the company's genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready canola by growing it without paying for the seed and without signing a technology use agreement.

While Schmeiser agreed some of his fields contained Monsanto's GM canola, he said they were contaminated the previous year by pollen from a neighbor's fields and by seeds that blew off trucks on their way to a nearby canola processing plant. The tiny seeds are easily carried by wind, bees or birds.

In a conversation with Tierramérica, Schmeiser said he simply planted seed saved from the previous year, as has been his practice in 50 years of farming.

Careful seed selection had given him some of best yields of any farmer in his area. He was unaware that some seeds collected in 1997 contained Monsanto's proprietary genetics.
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