A CANADIAN farmer must pay Monsanto for the genetically modified crops found
growing in his fields even if the seeds blew there from neighbouring fields and
he never intended to grow them in the first place, a federal court ruled last
week.
鈥淏asically, the judge is saying that it does not matter how it got into your
field, it鈥檚 Monsanto鈥檚 property. But how does a farmer know if he鈥檚 got a
genetically altered seed that belongs to Monsanto?鈥� asks the farmer, Percy
Schmeiser of Bruno, Saskatchewan.
The decision is an important one for Monsanto, which says it has to stop
farmers stealing its property. Farmers in Canada and the US must sign agreements
with Monsanto saying they will buy new GM seed each year instead of saving seeds
from the previous year鈥檚 harvest.
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Others are dismayed. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 an incomprehensible decision, reflecting
an ignorance of basic reproductive plant biology and agronomic practices. I鈥檓
completely at a loss to imagine what the judge was thinking,鈥� says Ann Clark, a
plant biologist at the University of Guelph.
Investigators from Monsanto found the company鈥檚 glyphosate-resistant oilseed
rape, or canola, growing in Schmeiser鈥檚 fields in 1998. Schmeiser says seeds
probably blew off a passing truck into one field in 1997. After spraying a ditch
for weeds and noticing some canola survived, Schmeiser then sprayed about three
adjoining acres with glyphosate, killing off all but the resistant rapeseed. He
says these GM seeds from these plants must have been accidentally mixed up with
the seeds he planted in 1998.
Judge W. Andrew MacKay said he wasn鈥檛 convinced, noting that 90 per cent of
the rapeseed in Schmeiser鈥檚 fields was glyphosate-resistant. But even if the
explanation is true, he said, it was Schmeiser鈥檚 duty to destroy the rapeseed
once he realised it was a GM strain. MacKay rejected Schmeiser鈥檚 claim that
Monsanto was at fault for failing to stop the crop spreading.
Schmeiser says he had no reason to steal the rapeseed, since he did not
usually apply glyphosate to his crop. But MacKay ruled it didn鈥檛 matter whether
Schmeiser made use of the GM plant鈥檚 glyphosate resistance or not. He was
infringing Monsanto鈥檚 licence simply by leaving the crop to grow. The judge
ordered Schmeiser to pay Monsanto C$15,450 (拢6930) for the plants
that grew in his fields.
Trish Jordan, a spokeswoman for Monsanto Canada in Winnipeg, says the company
tries to prevent the accidental spread of its resistant canola. Monsanto will
not sue farmers whose fields are accidentally contaminated, she says, only those
it suspects of growing the crop intentionally.
Schmeiser says he may appeal. He is also pursuing a counter suit against
Monsanto, claiming that contamination by the glyphosate-resistant rapeseed
forced him to destroy a variety that he had been developing for the past 50
years.