Monsanto vs. Schmeiser

[octothorp]

Some of you probably remember the long ongoing battle between Percy Schmeiser and Monsanto: a farmer was accused of growing genetically Monsanto canola; the farmer unsuccessfully argued that because the canola had spread to his field from another field, he now legally owned that canola that grew on his land. The courts ruled that Monsanto owned and controlled all plants that sprung from that gene.

The latest lawsuit involves Schmeiser's wife, who is suing Monsanto for $140, because those genetically modified canola seeds that Monsanto owns, controls (and is therefore responsible for), started growing in her garden.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/20...nto_041019.html

Personally, I thought the supreme court was wrong and shortsighted in their first ruling, and this new lawsuit is a natural result of the first. But coming from a family-owned farm, I'm of the perspective that this guy is fighting the good fight, so I'm biased here.

[Agamemnon]

Seems to me that if Monsanto owns that strain of crop, it's their responsibility to prevent it from spreading into other farmer's fields. If it can't be done... it can't be done. You can't blame a farmer for seed that blows onto his land. Those seeds are trespassing! If it was garbage, they'd have to clean it up. What's the diff?

The only way I see Monsanto dealing with this ethically is by either wiping out that farmer's crop (destroying all of their seed) and simply paying market value for the whole bunch. I don't see any issues there, Monsanto protects there monopoly over the strain, and the farmer is compensated for seed that he is unintentionally, yet illegally growing?

Maybe they already do this? Knowing Monsanto, I doubt it.

[octothorp]

Originally posted by Agamemnon@Oct 19 2004, 02:01 PM
The only way I see Monsanto dealing with this ethically is by either wiping out that farmer's crop (destroying all of their seed) and simply paying market value for the whole bunch. I don't see any issues there, Monsanto protects there monopoly over the strain, and the farmer is compensated for seed that he is unintentionally, yet illegally growing?

Maybe they already do this? Knowing Monsanto, I doubt it.

Yeah, that would be a decent solution, but the real problem is that the only way to tell if you've got Monsanto canola is to either take it into a million dollar lab and test it, or spray it with Roundup--if it dies, it's clean, if it lives, it's Monsanto. Which, to me, is a little like the drowning witch test: throw a suspected witch in the water and if she drowns, she's innocent, and if she floats, she's guilty and will be burned at the stake. You can't put the responsibility on farmers to go around killing their own crops on the offhand chance that Monsanto seeds have drifted in from a neighbour's field.

As far as I'm concerned, Monsanto has a claim only against those farmers who have fields that are entirely Monsanto seed. If a farmer has a field that is a mix of natural canola and Monsanto canola, then obviously he's going to lose a significant portion of his crop if he sprays it with Roundup--so he's not taking advantage of the genetic modifications of the Monsanto gene. In such a case, it would be hard to argue that there was any intent on the part of the farmer to steal the Monsanto seed.
On the other hand, if a farmer has a field that's almost all Monsanto, and which he sprays Roundup on, then clearly he's taking advantage of the genetic benefits of the Monsanto seed, and so it's a legitimate case of theft.