The Altercation Of Percy Schmeiser
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Introduction
It all began in the spring of 1998, when farmer, Percy Schmeiser was raising rapeseed, better known as canola which is sold as a vegetable oil. Percy was a conventional farmer and very well known and liked in his small Saskatchewan community. Percy never purchased seed from Monsanto, Inc. Monsanto had developed a seed which was genetically modified (GM) to withstand the herbicide, Round Up. It is illegal for farmers to re-use or to grow the patented seed without signing an agreement. In 1998 Monsanto had suspected that Percy Schmeiser had planted the genetically modified Round Up Ready canola seed, as a farmer in the area reported this to Monsanto. It has been said that Monsanto gives monies to people who tell on their neighbors for doing wrong deeds against this corporate giant. Monsanto sent out a team of experts to enter the Schmeiser farm and extracted plants that were thought to be grown from their GM seed. They did this without the permission of the owner, Percy Schmeiser.
Back at the Monsanto lab they had detected some of the plants carried the patented DNA owned by Monsanto. And so the games began. Monsanto quickly took this farmer of more than 50 years to court for patent infringement. Percy Schmeiser never purchased any seed from Monsanto as he did not need it in his program. This was a case that stems from good ole Mother Nature. You see, more than 40% of the farmers around Percy Schmeisers farm used the Monsanto GM seed. It seems that the harsh winds known in Saskatchewan, Canada had blown some of that seed onto the Schmeiser farm. Through no fault of Percys he was being sued for something he did not do. The case made national headlines throughout Canada and the rest of North America. It appeared to strike a raw nerve with many farmers that heard about this story.
With this case of Monsanto vs. Percy Schmeiser many questions were being asked. A huge question here is whether it is allowable by law for Monsanto to control the use of a plant for the simple reason that it has patented a gene in the plant. (CBC News, para.6) It is in the best interest of Monsanto to have the law on their side. But is this right? There are many problems that can stem from such an action as allowing corporations to genetically modify genes with a seed and get a patent on it. This creates a method of biogenetic engineering that turns off the reproductive processes of plants so that any seed produced by these plants are deemed sterile. Farmers would not be able to save seed for the upcoming year. They would be forced to go back to the source, in this case, Monsanto and purchase more seed. This sounded like a monopoly to many of the farmers.
Monsanto is a large corporation with more than 17,000 employees worldwide. In 1986 they filed a patent application in Canada for Glyphosate resistant plant genes and cells. February 23, 1993 Canada approves patent number 1313830. The patent grants the company exclusive rights in using and selling the invention in Canada until the patent expires on February 23, 2010. (Mitchell, 2006, para. 1) By 1995 Canada had approved the Round Up Ready canola for unconfined release into the environment. By the following year they had come up with a “Technology Use Agreement” which required farmers to purchase seed from them every year. It was mandatory that farmers pay Monsanto a technology fee equal to $12 per acre for every acre they planted of this seed. In 1999 Monsanto grew even larger when it purchased several other companies to add to its conglomeration.
The Threat of GMOs
It is not known yet, as there have been no case studies to date, what sort of ramifications may result from the use of genetically modified seeds. There have been no approvals through the FDA as there has been no testing done to determine if there might be any health or environmental consequences when utilizing the GMOs. As stated by Katherine Monk (1995) “The problem is genetically engineered organisms, which are becoming an increasing component in the human food supply: They contain gene pieces that are immune to antibiotics. Its not an accident. Its the only way biotech companies such as Monsanto can trace their patent trail through the food chain.”
Are Monsanto and other companies that use genetic engineering, playing God? They are messing with Mother Nature which just may have severe repercussions in the not-so-far-off future. Many environmental activists, welfare groups, scientist and government organizations have expressed serious concerns over GMOs in our food and feed of today.
Lori Dahm, Executive editor of Stagnitos New Products Magazine (2006) wrote about how she finds it worrisome that Schmeiser has represented one incident – which