15 November 2002
SCHMEISER LATEST/RESEARCHERS PLACE DOLLAR VALUE ON GM CONTAMINATION
"almost no certified seed they examined in a small study was free of GM contamination, said weed specialist Rene Van Acker and pesticide specialist Lyle Friesen.
"That means that over time canola growers may develop large seedbeds of herbicide resistant volunteer canola. And if Roundup Ready wheat was introduced with today's certified seed standards, zero-till farmers could end up with a $400 million annual problem, they said during a university seminar." (item 2)
1. Schmieser attempts Supreme Court
2. Researchers place dollar value on GM contamination
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1. Schmieser attempts Supreme Court
this document web posted: Thursday November 14, 2002 20021114p12
By Ed White
The Western Producer
http://www.producer.com/articles/20021114/news/20021114news09.html
Percy Schmeiser has thrown his case before the Supreme Court of Canada, but a prominent national lobby group that supports the Bruno, Sask., farmer thinks only the prime minister will be able to stop companies getting patents on life forms such as canola.
"We are asking (prime minister Jean Chretien) to make sure that it is clearly spelled out in law that one cannot patent a living organism," said Nadege Adam of the Council of Canadians, a left-of-centre lobby group. "Currently the laws do not address our needs with this new technology."
In a 2000 civil trial in the Federal Court of Canada, Schmeiser was found guilty of intentionally growing Roundup Ready canola without a licence. Schmeiser appealed the ruling, but lost.
He has now asked the Supreme Court to hear his final appeal. The Supreme Court only hears a few of the appeals it is asked to judge.
In the trial, Schmeiser's lawyer argued that windblown pollen, rolling swaths blowing in from other farmers' fields and seeds blowing off untarped trucks could have accounted for the massive concentrations of Monsanto's Roundup Ready gene that were found in Schmeiser's fields.
The trial judge rejected these as a sufficient explanation of how the canola got there. Monsanto has said it believes Schmeiser secretly obtained Roundup Ready canola from somebody so that he would not have to pay the $15 per acre fee that other farmers pay the company to grow its varieties of canola.
Adam said the Council of Canadians considers it "irrelevant" whether Schmeiser told the truth about how the canola got into his fields.
She said the judge's ruling and appeal court ruling, have made all farmers vulnerable to lawsuits from the makers of genetically modified crops.
According to Adam's interpretation of the rulings, it does not matter how GM genetic matter ends up in a farmer's field. Its mere presence is a breach of patent laws.
While the Council of Canadians supports Schmeiser's appeal, it believes the real solution lies in clarifying patent laws. Judges to this point have restricted themselves to interpreting existing laws.
"We are asking for the government to clarify regulatory language around the patenting of life forms," said Adam.
"We're saying the law is not clear enough. The law needs to address the creation of new life forms."
The Council of Canadians' Saskatchewan chapter is raising funds to help pay for the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate's lawsuit against Monsanto for allegedly causing GM crops to appear in organic canola.
"These companies have polluted our environment with impunity," she said. "They have to be made liable."
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2. Researchers place dollar value on GM contamination
Thursday November 14, 2002
By Ed White
The Western Producer
http://www.producer.com/articles/20021114/news/20021114news06.html
WINNIPEG - Some bags of conventional certified canola seed contain more than five percent genetically modified, herbicide tolerant traits, two University of Manitoba researchers say.
And almost no certified seed they examined in a small study was free of GM contamination, said weed specialist Rene Van Acker and pesticide specialist Lyle Friesen.
That means that over time canola growers may develop large seedbeds of herbicide resistant volunteer canola. And if Roundup Ready wheat was introduced with today's certified seed standards, zero-till farmers could end up with a $400 million annual problem, they said during a university seminar.
Van Acker and Friesen tested 31 bags of conventional canola and found only one that did not contain genetic material from GM canola. Over half the samples had more than 0.25 percent GM herbicide resistant traits, and some had three to five percent contamination. Over time that kind of contamination could spread thousands of herbicide resistant plants across a quarter section, all unknown to the grower. It would also produce a lot of herbicide tolerant pollen that could drift to other fields.
Van Acker said he thinks the GM contamination may be coming from plant breeders who distribute seed to seed growers for commercial multiplication.
"(Seed growers) may be building a vicious circle on their own farm, but unaware of it, despite their best efforts," said Van Acker in an interview.
Commercial farmers probably don't realize the conventional canola they are buying can contain GM material in small amounts, Friesen said.
"I think that most farmers think that if you're growing a non-Roundup Ready variety, it will be conventional," said Friesen.
If this amount of GM canola can be found in certified canola seed, then some would probably also appear in certified wheat if Roundup Ready wheat was approved, the researchers said, unless seed regulations were strengthened.
They projected a potential problem, if glyphosate-tolerant wheat was widely grown, of volunteer herbicide resistant wheat that could cost zero-till farmers $400 million per year across the prairies to clean up with chemicals. The zero-till system relies on glyphosate to control weeds.
Manitoba Agriculture weed specialist Todd Andrews said the researchers' projections about potential problems in canola and wheat are possibly valid, but they need to be backed up by field studies.
"Even though all the numbers looked plausible, because we haven't seen that number of cases in the field it's time to take the theory and do some field tests."
Andrews said there were a small number of high-profile cases of Roundup Ready volunteers becoming a problem in fields in the Red River valley in 2001, but it was not an epidemic. In 2002, "I didn't have a single call about Roundup Ready canola being a problem."
Andrews acknowledged that zero-till farmers may be tank-mixing other herbicides with glyphosate to counter the threat of glyphosate tolerant volunteer canola.
Monsanto Canada spokesperson Trish Jordan said her company doesn't agree with Van Acker's and Friesen's conclusions. And it doesn't believe their brief study proves much.
"We don't agree with all of the assumptions and some of the modelling that has been put into that," said Jordan.
She also said theoretical models need field testing.
Gene flow in wheat is very rare and unlikely to be a problem, she said.