quote: By Marc Kaufman Washington Post Staff Writer 30 March 2001
A judge yesterday ordered a Canadian farmer to pay the biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. thousands of dollars because the company's genetically engineered canola plants were found growing on his field, apparently after pollen from modified plants had blown onto his property from nearby farms.
The closely watched case was a major victory for companies that produce genetically modified crops and have been aggressively enforcing agreements that require farmers to pay yearly fees for using their technology.
But the decision in a federal court in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was a significant setback for farmers who fear they will be held liable if pollen from neighbouring farms blows onto their fields, transmitting patented genes to their crops without their knowledge or consent. Dozens of similar lawsuits have been filed against farmers around the United States, but the Canadian case is the first to go to trial.
The case also highlights growing tension between farmers and large agricultural biotechnology companies, whose high-tech crops are transforming the traditional ways growers tend their fields.
"I've been using my own seed for years, and now farmers like me are being told we can't do that anymore if our neighbours are growing [genetically modified] crops that blow in," said Percy Schmeiser, 70, the farmer from Saskatchewan who was sued by Monsanto. "Basically, the right to use our own seed has been taken away."
This 70 year old farmer was sued, not for using illegally obtained seed, or for taking the seeds of the plants he grew from seeds he bought from this agribusiness and using them as opposed to incinerating them, but because the plants he grew from his own seeds cross-pollinated with nearby GM'd crops. And they won. Am I alone in thinking that this was an awful decision?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Just more proof of my theory that corporate persons (which are just a polite legal fiction) have more rights than actual real people.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
The most obvious pay-off I've ever heard of. The court basically blames a natural occurring phenomenon, WIND/AIR, on the poor farmer. Sigh.
Posts: 147 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I'm surprised he didn't file a counter-suit against Monsanto for ruining his crop with their slutty canola.
I would bet that pretty soon, if not already, non-genetically engineered crops will be more expensive, like organic produce. And aren't there some countries that refuse to allow genetically manipulated crops into their food supply? I would think that any farmer who isn't intentionally using genetically engineered crops could be selling his product to one such country and be in violation of a ton of laws or contracts that specify he won't be selling them anything that was genetically altered.
I'm telling you, a counter-suit would have been a good idea.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Beyond the problems with this story is the fact that the ruling was overturned.
quote:The Supreme Court issued their decision in May 2004 and one can view the decision as a draw. The Court determined that Monsanto's patent is valid, but Schmeiser is not forced to pay Monsanto anything as he did not profit from the presence of Roundup Ready canola in his fields. This issue started with Monsanto demanding Schmeiser pay the $15/acre technology fee and in the end, Schmeiser did not have to pay. The Schmeiser family and supporters are pleased with this decision, however disappointed that the other areas of appeal were not overturned.
quote:I'm surprised he didn't file a counter-suit against Monsanto for ruining his crop with their slutty canola.
He did. He lost.
Edit: BTW, that frustration is targeted at the reporter, not you Squick. Even if one decides the unmentioned evidence doesn't justify the decision, knowing about it casts the decision in a very different light.
I also see many contemporary mentions of this case with no mention of the SCOC decision overturning it. It's a little frustrating when compilation websites with an axe to grind don't update their stories.
posted
Jeez, is my face red. I did look for disconfirming stories, but like the first five pages I came up with on google all had pretty much the same description, without the whole "It was very unlikely that this could have occured based on pollination." thing.
In a somewhat ironic note, I got this info out of the recent BioDemocracy bioengineering protest in Philly, whichi I don't think would even have made the news as anything more than a blip except that a police officer died while dealing with the protesters. Or that's what the news reported for a while, along with shots of the scary looking protesters. Turns out he had a heart attack that investigators are pretty sure is unrelated to the protesters, except that dealing with them involved strenuous activity.
I'm somewhat skeptical of any information I get from a activist or that the news is using in a sensational manner, but I got legitimate sources backing the first bit up. I should have known better.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Jeez, is my face red. I did look for disconfirming stories, but like the first five pages I came up with on google all had pretty much the same description, without the whole "It was very unlikely that this could have occured based on pollination." thing.
Don't worry about it. I had to look for keywords I only knew because I had seen both articles already, and it took me about 5 tries to get these to the top of the page. Notice how much of the wording on the sites was the same?
In the activists case, which applies to most web sites, they use the story to advance their goals. I bet most of the people who post it don't know about the subsequent history.
With the news, I think the entire problem is the need to frame the story. "David v. Goliath" is a better story than "parties dispute how GM plants came to be on farmer's land."
Your Philly story is another example. The news did it to make money; others seized on it to firther an agenda.
Of course, the lines aren't clear between the two. Some news people make their money by misusing stories to further an agenda.
There are legitimate worries with the way patent law will affect farmers as GM seeds become more common. And those legitimate problems get lost in the noise.
posted
BTW, one of the big problems is the inability of the average reporter covering a trial to identify the actual issues. In this case, leaving out evidence is an obvious flaw. Look how it changes the story's flavor, without leaving anything there that's immediately identifiable as wrong.
It's far worse when the issue is something like collateral estoppel or res judicata.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I know that I don't think I've ever read a news report about psychology that reflected what was actually true. They seem to put people who don't understand the field and who are out for the sexiest angle the can find.
And, I don't know, what do you do when you even the few sources you think aren't going to lie to you still present incompletely understood and biased information? I'm sick of not being able to trust anyone.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: "parties dispute how GM plants came to be on farmer's land."
The biggest problem with that headline is that I would be wondering how anyone could not know how someone got a whole auto manufacturing facility on their farm land. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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And Squick, for legal news, you genrally can rely on the verdict or statements of who won or lost. You can usually rely on statements about maximum prison time, but should realize that for many offenders, max would be unusual. In civil cases, it's very hard to determine what the decision actually was. If money awards are listed, those are usually right, but what they are compensation for may be wrong or just not covered.
Statements of the facts are usually missing something. Often it's not important, but sometimes it is. As to the reason for the jury decision, believe the quotes and nothing else.
If they discuss the precedent this sets, you can often ignore it. Jury decisions don't set precedent, although they may encourage more of a certain kind if lawsuit. In fact, you should take it on faith that if a plaintiff wins a big money award, similar cases will follow.
As to appellate decisions that do set binding precedent, realize that you often can't tell what a decision actually means until the court tells you what it meant in a later decision. So definitive statements about precedent are rarely correct. If the report says SCOTUS struck down a law, you can safely bet that the law was struck down. If they mentions similar laws being endangered, you can't necessarily bet that those will be struck down, too. The law is about distinguishing situations on nitty-gritty factual details. This is almost the opposite of what most reporting does.
This is all assuming a general news source like the Post or even any of the networks.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
There is also a little more to the story. The farmer in question deliberately used high concentrations of herbicide to kill off the portion of his crop which had not been cross-pollinated by Monsanto's field. Therebye "purify"ing his seed to only those which contained Monsanto's herbicide-resistant modification.
Which is why the Canadian judge originally given jurisdiction over the case ruled in favor of Monsanto. And why the farmer couldn't win his damage claim against Monsanto.
Somewhat like the USSupremeCourt ruling that copyright holders had a right to sue Grokster because Grokster executives made it quite clear -- especially within internal memos -- that they intended to encourage customers to engage in copyright violation with their peer-to-peer filesharing program.
posted
I've heard that but couldn't document it past the one source I linked. Not that I looked too hard.
It should be noted that the SCOC did not rule that the farmer hadn't infringed, but rather that he hadn't profited from any infringment so no reimubursement was due.
But I'm not sure if they ruled that he did infringe, or just didn't resolve that issue because the lack of profit made it moot.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I don't think I've ever seen a TV or newspaper reporter really get the facts straight about sinkholes, even when they do a full page article supposedly describing the mechanics of one. If I see or hear the phrase "underground river" one more time, I will scream.
When I see and hear reports that are factually wrong about topics which I am knowledgable on, I lose a lot of confidence in all the rest of the reports.
Dag, if a farmer was specifically growing non-GM crops, would they have a case if their crop was ruined by cross-pollinization? Wouldn't that be similar to the fact that I can't change things about my yard that would adversely affect my neighbor's, like regrading my yard and causing drainage problems in my neighbor's yard.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
There would be possible trespass and nuisance actions. However, they would be hard to win for several reasons:
1.) What are the damages? Market difference between GM crops and non-GM crops? Hard to prove, especially in the U.S. and Canada. This is a surmountable obstacle, though.
2.) Pollinization is natural. For example, if your prize winning rose got pollinated from my neighboring wild rose bush and this ruined your next generation of plants, I don't see where you'd have a case. (OK, I don't know if this makes sense with roses or not, but you get the idea.) The difference would be the GM nature of it, and that brings up the problem of what the harm is.
3.) Social benefit. Some nuisances must be accepted because of the social benefit from such activities. This is very fact-specific and I have no idea how a court would rule. For example, in some states, if you put a pond on your property and this pond then overflows, the damage to your neighbors would be your responsibility under strict liability even if you weren't negligent in maintaining it. In Texas, because collecting ponds are necessary (or were when this case was decided), you would only be liable if you were negligent in maintaining or siting it.
There's tons of other issues, but this gives you an idea of how complicated it would be.
posted
I don't know if the law still stands, but California passed a law making it illegal for Sacramento area residents to plant most varieties of tomatoes due to complaints by Davis area farmers about home-gardens cross-pollinating commercial tomato crops.
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