"Badant" <badant@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:a65177d7.0401241106.42bb2a34@posting.google.com...
"Dean Ronn" <dean@home.com> wrote in message
news:<101523vm7f2fib2@corp.supernews.com>...
"Badant" <badant@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:a65177d7.0401232145.1e2ab320@posting.google.com...
http://www.commonground.ca/iss/0401150/percy_schmeiser.shtml
"Can you imagine the fear in a farm family when they get a letter from
a multi-billion dollar corportion {Monsanto} asking for many thousands
of dollars so the company might not take them to court?!
Another clause: You're not allowed to show this letter to anyone and
you're not allowed to tell anyone that you've received this letter
from Monsanto or what Monsanto has done to you. So, a total
suppression of farmers rights, freedom of speech and expression.
If they can't find a farmer at home and they don't know his mailing
address, they can go to the local municipality and get the location of
his land. They will then use a small airplane or helicopter and drop a
Monsanto Roundup herbicide spray bomb on the field. It covers about 30
feet in diameter, in the centre of a canola or soybean field.
About 12 days after Roundup has time to activate, they'll fly back. If
the crop, which was hit by the spray, has died they'll know the farmer
has not been using Monsanto's Roundup, but if it hasn't died, God help
the farmer."
For more information please go to:
http://www.canadians.org
http://www.commonground.ca
And:
http://www.producer.com/articles/20040122/news/20040122news03.html
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/2004/0126/farmer012604.shtml
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61990,00.html?tw=wn_techhead_2
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/01/21/build/world/65-biotechrift.inc
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7753891.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?story=20040112003902197
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/world/article/0,1406,KNS_351_2590476,00.html
http://www.just-food.com/news_detail.asp?art=56486
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/7754989.htm
http://www.canada.com/regina/news/story.asp?id=B01931DC-1863-40A6-8C01-EA70F33FC8BA
http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2004/01/23/news/opinion/opinion2.txt
http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/starphoenix/info/business/story.html?id=A8B8F94B-7B8B-4FD3-8F62-C8495F06C196
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-01-19-schmeiser_x.htm
http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/story/8127820p-9059857c.html
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/jan/18/yehey/opinion/20040118opi6.html
http://sask.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=schmeiser040119
B'adant
An infamous Canadian's traveling sideshow is visiting Down Under this
week as part of an on-going personal quest to become a martyr for the poor
farmers of the world who are pushed around by multinationals.
Percy Schmeiser is coming to town.
The story behind the Bruno, Saskatchewan, Canada, farmer is that
Monsanto dragged him into court after it was suspected that he had been
growing a genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready variety of canola and
had not been paying the licensing fees that thousands of other Canadian
farmers had willingly paid. A Canadian federal court ruled in 2001 that he
had indeed infringed Monsanto's patent.
Schmeiser has stood by his defense that the GE canola was blown into
his field by passing seed trucks and then they cross pollinated his crop,
resulting in the detectable traits; at least until the appeal when he took a
new tack, declaring recently that he had indeed deliberately planted the
Roundup Ready canola, but that as a farmer, it was his right to brown bag
seed or purchase it from a neighbour.
In his original decision, Justice Andrew MacKay ruled that Mr.
Schmeiser "knew or ought to have known" that he had saved and planted seed
that was Roundup tolerant and had therefore infringed Monsantošs Roundup
Ready patented technology.
Justice MacKay pointed to independent tests that showed 1,030 acres of
Mr. Schmeiseršs canola were 95 per cent to 98 per cent tolerant to Roundup
herbicide. At such a high level of tolerance, Justice MacKay ruled the seed
could only be of commercial quality and could not have arrived in Mr.
Schmeiseršs field by accident.
But like the Greens and the New Zealand Royal Commission, if one
doesn't like the results of a judicial decision, go to the court of public
opinion which has a much lower standard for admissibility of evidence; in
short, anything goes.
Percy has been on a public relations whilrwind since the lawsuit was
filed against him in 2000, traveling to Africa, India, Australia, New
Zealand all in the name of fighting the biotech companies that are allegedly
keeping Percy, as well as the farmers of the world down.
Except that this year, some 70 per cent of canola grown in Canada is
expected to be derived from GE varieties.
In 2000, Canadian growers of genetically engineered canola reported an
average $5.80/acre increase in net return on their transgenic acres compared
to conventional acres, largely due to reduced herbicide costs and diesel
fuel savings of some 31.2 million litres because of reduced trips up and
down the fields to control weeds.
Overall, the use of genetically engineered crops in North America
continues to increase. While estimates for this year remain preliminary, it
is expected that some 70 per cent of canola, 35 per cent of corn and 30 per
cent of soybeans grown in Canada will be from genetically engineered
varieties this year. In the U.S., about 75 per cent of soybeans, 70 per cent
of cotton and 30 per cent of filed corn will be GE.
Part of the reason is a 46 million pound reduction in pesticide use in
the U.S. in 2001 because of genetically engineered crops such as cotton,
canola, soy and field corn. Such crops helped American farmers reap an
additional 14 billion pounds of food and improve farm income by $2.5
billion.
The most recent study from the Washington-based National Center for
Food and Agricultural also predicted that if the 32 other biotech crop
varieties still under development were planted, they would reduce pesticide
use by 117 million pounds per year, bringing total pesticide reduction for
all biotech crops to 163 million pounds annually. Field corn resistant to
rootworm, for example, could replace 14 million pounds of insecticides used
on this crop each year (the complete report, commissioned with a grant from
The Rockefeller Foundation, and later expanded with industry funding, was
reviewed by nearly 70 plant biotechnology scientists from 20 academic and
government institutions and is available at
www.ncfap.org).
In short, certain genetically engineered crops, on certain farms, can
help farmers produce safe, affordable food while minimizing the
environmental impact. But that isn't what Percy Schmeiser or the anti-GE
campaign will have you believe.
Stompin' Tom Connors, a Canadian music icon (not unlike Aussie Kylie
Minogue or the Kiwi pair, the Finn brothers), sang a song that if it weren't
for copyright laws would probably become Mr. Schmeiser's theme. A line of
the lyrics reads: I'm a poor, poor farmer, what am I going to do?
Schmeiser is preaching a tale of corporate omnipotence, but only after
getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His rants against corporate
rule has nothing to do with the safety of genetically engineered foods. It
appears that good old Percy, practical as are most farmers, wanted to use a
product that worked but didn't want to pay for the technology. When he
arrives he'll be telling everyone who wants to listen that the Monsanto's of
the world has pushed him around, and that every other farmer is in the same
situation as he is. He is still talking about this in Canada as well; but
here, few are listening anymore.
Benjamin Chapman is a graduate student with the Food Safety Network at
the University of Guelph in Canada
Source: By Benjamin Chapman, Commentary from the Food Safety Network,
1 July 2002
