In 2001, a Saskatchewan court ordered Percy Schmeiser, a canola farmer, to pay Agribusiness giant Monsanto $140,000 for improper use of the company’s Round-Up Ready (RR) GMO Canola. Schmeiser insisted that the canola was blown onto his fields and that he did not knowingly infringe upon Monsanto’s patent. Furthermore, Schmeiser claimed that Monsanto’s genes contaminated seeds that had taken Schmeiser years of careful farming to develop.

He fought the ruling, taking his case first to a federal court of appeals and later to the Supreme Court of Canada. His court case gained international attention and Schmeiser received support from environmental and anti-globalization activists around the world. On May 21, the Supreme Court ruled in Monsanto’s favour, stating that the patent on RR canola was legitimate. The court, however, agreed with Schmeiser’s claim that he did not profit from Monsanto’s product and decided that he did not owe the company any money for legal fees or damages.

Lost in 2004’s federal election fever, one of the most important Supreme Court cases in recent memory has gone relatively unnoticed. The court’s decision in favour of Monsanto represents the end of Percy Schmeiser’s battle against the international gene giant, but a larger problem remains unsolved: how does Canada regulate new technology?

Ryan White: Although Monsanto won the appeal, you have described the Supreme Court’s ruling as a personal victory. Can you explain what the court’s decision means for you?

Percy Schmeiser: You have to remember that Monsanto laid the lawsuit against me. They said that I had used their seed. They wanted all the profit from my crop, their license fee and then damages and so on. What the Supreme Court ruling meant to me was that I didnâe(TM)t have to pay Monsanto one cent. That was a major victory for me because it would have meant about a quarter million dollars and they put a lien against our house [and] our land. They would have tried to seize everything. In fact, my legal counsel said they had everything in place and within an hour [of the verdict] they probably could have had a lock on it. So that was a major victory.

RW: You have been farming for more than 50 years. What kind of a threat do genetically modified organisms, like Round-Up Ready (RR) canola, pose to farmers?

PS: It’s a major concern now because when Monsanto first laid the lawsuit against me there was very little known, though farmers knew, about contamination. Now we know that [RR Canola] has spread, not only across Western Canada but the Northern Plains states. Organic farmers can no longer grow conventional canola or soy beans or other crops. So the total choice has been taken away, and it has destroyed biodiversity, pure seeds and crops like that. So that’s a big threat. And then, if you want to go into the economic issues, we’ve lost all our market to the European Union, and some other countries. So when Monsanto tried to bring out GM wheat you can imagine why there was such an uproar, because farmers realized that we would lose 88 per cent of our market. So it’s a major, major threat, not only with regards to eating GMOs. It [represents] loss of choice and loss of income to farmers.

RW: One of the things that the Supreme Court acknowledged in their decision was that you hadn’t profited from having Monsanto’s GMO canola on your land. Is it beneficial for a farmer to grow RR canola?

PS: Absolutely not. Monsanto used to say back in 1996 and 1997 that [RR Canola] would lead to a bigger yield or be more nutritious and [use] less chemicals. That is the total opposite to what has happened. There are many canola varieties out there that will far out-yield Monsanto’s. You’ve got to remember, [Monsanto] never invented canola. They just took a variety of canola, bio-pirated it, put their gene in and claimed ownership. That doesn’t make a crop yield more, or that particular variety yield more when you’ve got a particular gene in it that protects it if you spray it with Round-Up. Now, Monsanto doesn’t say this any more in their advertisements. They just say that it’s a better tool for farmers to control weeds in canola and I highly dispute that, as well as do thousands of other farmers. We’ve grown canola [for a long time], a half century in my case, and we didn’t need Monsanto to control weeds. It was just a method of trying to sell more chemicals.

RW: The day after the ruling, you stated, “Now it is clear that a company’s patent will take precedence over the rights of farmer’s to save and reuse their seed…” and that, “The playing field between farmers’ rights and the bio-tech companies’ rights has been tilted towards the companies with this decision.” Can you explain what seed saving is, its importance to farmers, and the impact that this ruling will have on the practice?

PS: Well, seed saving has been done for thousands of years, where farmers have developed their own seeds and plants to suit their own local climatic and soil conditions. When you have a corporation developing seeds or plants, one glove does not fit all. I’ve developed a variety of canola through saving my seeds from year to year suited to our soil and climatic conditions in the province of Saskatchewan. In Manitoba and Alberta and certain regions [my seed] would not have done as well. It’s very important that farmers never lose their right to use seeds from year to year because you would stop future development of new seeds or plants to suit your local regions. Not only that, you would be under total control of a company — your seeds, your plants. You would have to pay them license fees. You would never own your seeds; basically you would be renting them.

No corporation, or anybody, should have the right to own the fate of a farmer. [The ruling] has had major implications not only for future development, but control of seeds, plants and ultimately the food supply. And really what it means is that you have to buy their chemicals and you can’t use your seed from year to year because of their contract. You are basically under a police state, because you must permit Monsanto’s gene police to come on to your land for three years and they can check your granary, your records, even though you’ve only grown [their seed] for one year.

RW: You wrote that with ownership of the patent comes responsibility and that now more lawsuits will be filed against them for the contamination of farmer’s fields. How does this ruling change how accountable Monsanto is to the farmers of Canada?

PS: Before, under the Harvard mouse case, the Supreme Court had ruled that you could not patent a higher life form in Canada. With this ruling they have said that you can patent a gene, and with control of the gene, regardless of how it gets into a plant — whether inserted in a lab or by cross-pollination, especially in grains with cross-pollination and direct seed movement — they have said that whatever life form the gene gets into, Monsanto has control and ownership over that life form. What they said you could not do directly in the Harvard mouse case, they said you could do indirectly with the patenting of a gene. They’ve completely gone back on what the first ruling was.

Now if you have ownership and control over whatever life form the gene gets into, there follows liability. So it seems that Monsanto was victorious in that they owned a gene. It may not turn out to be such a victory because now that the Supreme Court ruled that they have ownership and control, then they also have liability. So now they can be faced with massive, massive liability issues. You can see that now with the organic farmers [in Saskatchewan] and their class action lawsuit against Monsanto for contaminating and polluting their crops. So it may be a very hollow victory for Monsanto.

RW: Your struggle received worldwide attention; how surprised were you by the support from people, both in Canada and around the world, for your case?

PS: As people become more aware — it seemed to me that people in Europe, Asia, Japan and India were more aware of their property rights and have always wanted to own their own seed — and as my case become more known, farmers became aware of how you could lose your rights overnight. Remember what the judge ruled [in the first trial in 2001], which the Supreme Court upheld: it doesn’t matter how it gets into any farmer’s field. If it does, like in my case where I was a seed developer for 50 years, you no longer own your seeds or plants. I think it was what the first trial judge ruled that made my case so internationally well-known. How a farmer — whether you’re a conventional farmer, an organic farmer or any type of farmer — could lose their rights overnight and not own their seeds or plants. That is what startled the world.

RW: After the ruling you were quoted saying that you and your wife have done everything possible to take it this far, and that your work will have to be carried forward, whether it’s through the Parliament of Canada or other countries of the world. What comes next and how optimistic are you for the future?

PS: There are other people now — especially the organic farmers, who as I already said have a class action lawsuit against Monsanto on [the issue of] contamination. I will work with the organic farmers within that regard. What I will do now, and I have had many requests from all over the world since the Supreme Court decision, is to speak about how farmers can lose their rights and how Monsanto’s contracts can control farmers, their seeds and the food supply. So I will have more time now to travel and to speak about what can happen with genetic engineering and the issue of contamination — how you can lose indigenous seeds and pure seeds. Also, how you can be destroyed as an organic farmer or a conventional farmer overnight and against your wishes.

RW: Thank you very much for your time Mr. Schmeiser.