Genetic contamination and farmers' rights.

• Author: Schmeiser, Percy
• Position: Thinking Economically

My name is Percy Schmeiser. I am a Canadian farmer. For the last 50 years my wife Louisa and I have farmed 1441 acres in Bruno, Saskatchewan. We have built up a farm that works well. Rapeseed is an important crop for us and we used to sell it all over the world for cooking oil and cattle feed. Like most farmers in Western Canada, I collected and stored my own seed. After years of selection I had a variety that gave a good yield, was quite resistant to local diseases and was relatively weed-free.

In 1997, I sprayed Roundup as usual on the weeds and stray rapeseed plants growing around my fields. I was surprised that so much rapeseed survived the application. Had I got the herbicide concentration wrong? I now realize this was the first sign that my fields had been contaminated by genetically modified (GM) rapeseed.

My neighbors and 40% of farmers in Western Canada plant GM rapeseed. Since 1993, Monsanto Canada has been licensed to use technology that will make plants resistant to its glyphosate herbicide, Roundup.

Farmers can then use Roundup as a broad-spectrum herbicide without damaging their GM crop. In 1995, Canada approved the uncontained release of GM rapeseed and in 1996 local companies started selling GM varieties.

Although Monsanto owns the gene and the technical know-how, they have done little to contain their invention once it entered the environment. In 1998, Monsanto inspectors entered my land without permission and took rapeseed.

They accused me of planting GM rapeseed without a license and prosecuted me.

If Monsanto suspects farmers are growing GM rapeseed without a license, they take away rapeseed plants for inspection. If test results are positive and the license fee of $15 (Canadian) per acre and contract have not been met, legal proceeding for infringing Monsanto's patent follow.

In my case, GM plants bad seeded themselves on my land and pollinated my conventional rapeseed. The following planting season I tried to contain GM contamination by buying new seed but still 20% of my harvest was contaminated.

In Canada there is no law against carrying rapeseed in open trucks or leaving cut rapeseed in the field. This makes it easy for the small seeds to spread. It is also impossible to contain pollen flows. The gene responsible for glyphosate resistance is a dominant gene and rapeseed is an open pollinated plant. When a GM plant crosses with conventional rapeseed, resistance will be carried into the following generation. In my...