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Seeds of discontent. (Interview).

Article Excerpt
In the past decade, the Monsanto chemical company has reshaped itself into a biotech firm positioned to supply farmers with much of what they need--pesticides and seeds. But these seeds, which farmers agree to buy each year, have been engineered to survive doses of the company's brand of chemical herbicides. Today there is only one thing standing between companies like Monsanto and their market strategy of taking control over agricultural supplies: traditional farmers who breed and plant their own seed. In August, 2001 WORLD WATCH interviewed one of these farmers, Canadian canola grower Percy Schmeiser, who last year lost a lawsuit filed by Monsanto for patent infringement because some of his fields had sprouted the company's bioengineered canola seeds.

WORLD WATCH (WW): Why did the Canadian courts find you guilty of stealing Monsanto's genetically modified (GMO) canola if you didn't plant any of their seeds?

Percy Schmeiser: My crime was that I infringed on their patent--Monsanto's patent on GMO canola--because some of the plants were in my field. The court ruled it didn't matter how [the Monsanto canola] got there, whether it cross-pollinated, blew in by the wind, fell off trucks hauling seeds, washed in during a flood, or was carded by birds and bees. You name it, it didn't matter. It was the fact that there were some plants there that meant I was guilty.

WW: How is this different than, say, if I dumped my belongings into my neighbor's yard and then had him arrested for burglary?

Schmeiser: It's exactly the same thing. People here say that if you don't like your neighbor, all you have to do is take a handful of Monsanto's GMO canola and throw it in the wind on the end of his field, and then call Monsanto a month or six weeks later...