Keynote: Percy Schmeiser: Corporate Power vs. The Small Farmer
Percy Schmeiser is a Canadian farmer and seed breeder who has become world-famous by standing up to the Monsanto corporation, which charged him with illegally using its patented GMO canola seeds when his fields were actually contaminated by winds blowing from nearby GMO crops. He’ll discuss his experiences and the dangers of losing biodiversity of our crops and the domination of our food supply by industrial agriculture.
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Not much in this description is even true
Percy Schmeiser was not a seed breeder. He was a farmer who switched legal strategies (to say that) in court and tried to claim that Monsanto couldn't take their patented seeds away from him. The proof is that in order to breed canola, which is what he grew, you need specialized equipment which he did not have.
Also, the explanation that he testified in court was that he found the genetically engineered canola on the side of the road, 'probably fell off a passing truck,' and incorporated it into his seed. He then grew it, sprayed it with roundup to kill the non-GE seed, and expanded that to many fields. His fields were not contaminated by the wind.
His fields were contaminated.
When a farmer harvests his field he does not 'send it away' to see if his seed has been contaminated. That would be pretty foolish wouldn't it, considering the 'legal' system rules for the corporations and does not protect the farmer. They rule that the farmers harvest belongs to the corporation, who by the way did not cover the expense of maintaining the land, planting the crop, paying the taxes, buying the fuel, not to mention the labour. Has anyone done an experiment to see how many genetically modified canola plants it would take to contaminate a farm? I would imagine not many. Percy used Roundup to spray around power poles, not to spray his fields. That is how he discovered the contamination. All other plants produced by the blown in canola would have been harvested as normal, and would become mixed with his conventional canola. Why would anyone, on purpose, limite the marketability of their conventional seed by contaminating it; especially when they were not using the poisonous chemical on their crop? When our whole food supply has been contaminated and consequently owned by the corporations I would hate to guess what people will have to pay to eat the rotten stuff. You can bet the corporations won't put in the long hours that farmers do for little or no compensation. If people don't smarten up pretty quick they will find themselves in a serious situation. Appreciate and protect our conventional farmers!
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