Did Percy Schmeiser stole seed from Monsanto?

Friends, you woke up in one morning and find the garden that you have been attending for 40 years invaded by a foreign plant. It came through by wind. But couple of week later layers in suit show up in your front door with papers in their hand. “You have been sued,” they say, “for the unauthorized use of Monsanto Corporation’s patented genes”.

“You mean, Monsanto is suing me for the plants blew in by wind?”, you ask. “That doesn’t matter how it came by. The seed belongs to Monsanto and you are not authorised to have it. So you must pay Monsanto tens of thousands of dollars. Give up all the seed you are saving for 40 years. And now onwards use only Monsanto seeds in your garden. One more thing. You have to sign one agreement. Never tell anyone about your business with Monsanto”.

You may think that you can go to court for thin. But judge find you guilty. You have two options, submit to Monsanto or fight.

This look like a bad dream. But its all true for farmers around the world as Monsanto is protected against unauthorised use of this wind blown genetics. Rather than fight with giant corporation and its army of high priced layers most farmers capitulate and Monsanto serves their farm land. Not Percy Schmeiser.

Property right fight Percy Schmeiser vs Monsanto’s GMO seed

Percy is a canola farmer in Bruno Sask, Canada. Worked the land for 40 years and saved his seeds one crop to the next so that he can always have the best crop of canola.

Monsanto corporation took canola seed and infused into those seeds a gene that will allow the canola plant can withstand its herbicide Roundup. And thus developed Roundup ready canola seed.

One day Percy noticed that Monsanto’s Roundup Ready canola seeds are growing in his field. How he found out that. He sprayed Monsanto Roundup. That plant didn’t dies. So that mean its a Roundup ready canola. Monsanto later found this. They sued Percy. The court looked at this and declared that Percey Schmeiser was guilty. Because how order this happens, Percey is in possession of somebody else’s property. court ruled that the level of patented gene contamination does not matter. If the level is less than 1% its over for you. Percy started his fight till Supreme Court.

Monsanto’s GMO seed invaded Percy Schmeiser’s property. They have a patent on a gene and how it came to your farm land doesn’t matter. It contaminates your plant. And patent law applied on the plant. patent law is above farmer’s right. So Monsanto own you. There is 31,000 other genes in that plant and by one patented gene how can you say Monsanto owns that seed? Now the whole issue become moral and ethical. Can you own and control human right?

Why Monsanto doing this?
By having a patent on a gene, that gives them total control of the world’s seeds supply. By having that they can control farmers. Farmers have to pay for the seed, its price is decide by Monsanto, they have to use chemicals from Monsanto, they have to pay a license fee of so much per acre, every year for the land you owns, it means they want to control the seeds and ultimately the food chain.

Monsanto added one gene into canola that need Monsanto’s chemical herbicide Roundup . If you have the Monsanto canola and you sprayed Roundup on it, then the pant will kill most of the weeds. Same BT corn, bt cotton, BT potato. But most toxic is the one with BT on it. Because when this toxin inserted seed becomes plant it magnifies the toxin seed. And when you eat any product which has BT toxin in it, you are eating a toxin that was never into your food. That’s most dangerous. It builds up in your body over a period of time. If an insect eat its flower, root or anything it will die. Then what it will do to human. That is a big concern.

When Monsanto want to release a seed then they do some test to get approval from the government. Nobody else. But now lot of NGOs, scientists are studying its effect. Most scientists strongly against these GMOs, both herbicide and toxic ones.

American Academy of Environmental Medicine said that pregnant woman,babies, young children should not eat GMO food. This is because of their testing. And there are a lot of testing going on.

Now its not possible to export honey to many countries from western Canada. Because honey is now contaminated by GMOs. Bee does not know which plant is GMO and which plant is not. Its not only canola farmers are affected, but its honey farmers also. It is not the plant which get affected by the new gene inserted, in this case canola. But it will affect every member of the plant in that same family. Canola comes from Brassica family. So now we have cross pollination of Cabbage, radish, Cauliflower and so on. Every year there more and more plants get contaminated with GMO and farmers cannot sell those in market. Europe don’t allow GMOs.

Lot of the organic markers in the north does not realized how scary the situation is. You woke up tomorrow morning, realize that you no longer an organic farmer. 40-50 years of research on canola in Precy’s field got infected by this alien seed, next day he don’t own his farm and lost his seeds.

93% soy beans are now genetically modified organism owned by Monsanto corporation. 83% of corn is Monsanto’s BT Corn. So if you eating processed food, you are eating GMO. About half of the 10,000 native variety of corn is contaminated by GMO In Mexico. They got GMO corn from US. Some of corn farmers planted.

How it will be fighting against a corporation

It is not easy. They will do everything to break you down mentally. They watch us when we work in the field. My wife gets threatening telephone calls. The follow when you travel. They buy all clients. 7 years we are living in this hell”.

When farmers buy seeds from Monsanto they have to sign an agreement. They will take your farm land and take away your freedom of speech. Because as per their agreement people should not to talk about details outside. The whole issue of GMOs are not only health issue, but environmental issue and issue of freedom of speech also. This is a new culture of fear. If you find that your neighbour is using Monsanto seed without license and if you report this to Monsanto you will get a gift. In many cases these free chemical sometime Monsanto labelled jackets. Monsanto has a budget of $10 million dollars per year for investigating fields. The all make a state of fear. This break down social fabric. Farmers don’t trusting one another because they don’t know who actually causing trouble to them.

In 1998, Percy started fight against Monsanto. At that time he had land and money to fight against Monsanto. Finally in Supreme Court there a lot of disagreements within them. Percy won the case. He was spared from paying money to Monsanto. But there was no decision on GMO.

How corporate can override constitutional right of farmer?

The court ruled that the patent law is over and above farmer’s right. In Canada, Supreme court said this has to go back to parliament of Canada to make a new rule to protect farmer’s right. But now farmer’s right is under Patent law.

If our children got GMO gene in them then children will be owned by Monsanto.

Monsanto’s ownership of government.

Food safety enhancement act introduced by Democratic congressmen from Cannecticut Rosa L. DeLauro. Her husband is a principal lobbyist for Monsanto corporation. Lawyers and other people who are working for Monsato then go for work in government’s department of Food and agriculture. Once When their lobbying perish, then go back to companies. Check for the last 10 years. How many people worked for corporate then went to government then back to corporate. One of the top person for agriculture in Obama administration is from Monsanto. Government appears to be changing, but Monsanto is till there.

Farmers don’t have enough money for full time lobbying unless they work together.

– from metrofarm.com