I just posted this information farther up, but it bears repeating: Schmeiser's tests on his crops turned up 0% to 68% Roundup Ready canola. Independent tests back up his results. In addition, Monsanto has been and is still conducting a truly frightening campaign of misinformation about the Schmeiser case. Further, Monsanto's seeds are not "one-use-only"--and that makes things even scarier. They're trusting "good farming practices" to prohibit the spread of their patented DNA. Incidentally, our current "good farming practices" (read: global mass-feedlot farming practices) also brought us new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and a really great foot-and-mouth epidemic. Somehow, this is just not very comforting...
Incidentally, it wasn't the government crawling all over Schmeiser's property. It was Monsanto's testing and field staff who trespassed on his land to obtain samples of his crops--which they said were "commercially pure" Roundup Ready plants. However, Schmeiser's own testing showed that his crops were comprised of anywhere from 0% to 68% Roundup Ready, and that the plants showed up in irregular clumps in his fields--not in regular patterns as would be the case if he had purposely sowed Monsanto's patented seed. Independent tests show the same results as Schmeiser's tests. Monsanto's seeds cannot be distinguished from any other canola seeds without the aid of a microscope (I bet lots of farmers look at their seeds through a microscope regularly!).
What's really interesting about the canola situation in Canada is that, especially in the area where this case is being tried, the plant is an extremely opportunistic volunteer weed. Just like you said, it grows along roadsides, in with other crops--anywhere it can. What makes the situation even worse is that with Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" canola, now there are canola plants out there that are resistant to current herbicide technology. These engineered plants are every bit as hardy as un-engineered canola AND we can't kill them without killing every other plant in the vicinity.
So now we've got megacorps patenting, marketing, and selling technology that they really can't control; turning farmers against their neighbors by encouraging them to "report" one another; BREAKING THE LAW by trespassing on privately held land and stealing crops to test for "violations" of their precious patents; and then USING the law to get away with what they do when someone has the balls to speak up.
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I just posted this information farther up, but it bears repeating: Schmeiser's tests on his crops turned up 0% to 68% Roundup Ready canola. Independent tests back up his results. In addition, Monsanto has been and is still conducting a truly frightening campaign of misinformation about the Schmeiser case. Further, Monsanto's seeds are not "one-use-only"--and that makes things even scarier. They're trusting "good farming practices" to prohibit the spread of their patented DNA. Incidentally, our current "good farming practices" (read: global mass-feedlot farming practices) also brought us new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and a really great foot-and-mouth epidemic. Somehow, this is just not very comforting...
What's really interesting about the canola situation in Canada is that, especially in the area where this case is being tried, the plant is an extremely opportunistic volunteer weed. Just like you said, it grows along roadsides, in with other crops--anywhere it can. What makes the situation even worse is that with Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" canola, now there are canola plants out there that are resistant to current herbicide technology. These engineered plants are every bit as hardy as un-engineered canola AND we can't kill them without killing every other plant in the vicinity.
So now we've got megacorps patenting, marketing, and selling technology that they really can't control; turning farmers against their neighbors by encouraging them to "report" one another; BREAKING THE LAW by trespassing on privately held land and stealing crops to test for "violations" of their precious patents; and then USING the law to get away with what they do when someone has the balls to speak up.
I can't wait to see what happens next.