On August 6, 1998, Monsanto Canada first filed suit against Saskatchewan canola farmer, Percy
Glacier Media
Untitled
Percy Schmeiser says that before the case was filed, he didn’t even know what a GMO was. He soon received a crash course.
Schmeiser. By May of 2004, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favour of Monsanto, but the victory came at a public relations cost for the biotechnology company.
Regardless, the case became a regular talking point in discussions regarding big business and genetically modified organisms (GMO) and defined producer/corporate relations for a decade. Small Farm Canada spoke with both Schmeiser and a representative for Monsanto, to get their reflections on the case, 20 years after it was first filed.
The central issue of the case concerned whether Schmeiser’s production of genetically modified plants constituted an infringement of Monsanto’s patent on a glyphosate-resistant canola gene, which they sold in seed form as Roundup Ready Canola. Schmeiser found Roundup-resistant plants on his property in 1997, and claimed that the field had been accidentally contaminated with Monsanto’s seed, either through spillage from a truck or airborne pollen.
Schmeiser, now 87, still lives on the same farm in Bruno, Saskatchewan. Retired from farming himself, he rents the land to another farmer who continues to grow wheat and canola on those roughly 1,000 acres.
“The seed that Monsanto had scheduled was raised in the ditch along our land,” says Schmeiser. “We didn’t even know where it came from. And then it was proven that one of my neighbours had GMO seed hauled past her land, in a wind storm. That’s how the seeds got into her land. So they knew then how the seed got into our land.”
This would be the basis for a popular narrative surrounding the case, that Schmeiser was being sued by the company over use of seeds that had accidentally landed on his property. In fact, any claims regarding Schmeiser’s 1997 crop were dropped prior to trial and the case centered on Schmeiser’s 1998 crop, which had been seeded from the Roundup resistant plants in his 1997 crop and had a high concentration of commercial-quality Roundup Ready Canola.
Schmeiser says that before the case was filed, he didn’t even know what a GMO was. He soon received a crash course.
“It was something we didn’t even know about, and they said anybody that didn’t have a license from them, they would take to court,” says Schmeiser. “But, we didn’t even know about it, that there was such a thing in existence. They said we should have contacted them. How can you contact somebody when you didn’t even know it existed?”
Schmeiser argued in court that he had “farmer’s rights,” meaning that he could do anything he wanted with plants on his own property, including plants that had grown on his property by accident. The court did not agree that “farmer’s rights” existed in Canadian law, or with his explanations for how the seeds arrived on his property. Regardless, Schmeiser has spent the last 20 years as a figurehead and talking point for anti-GMO and anti-corporate movements.
“[My life] has changed a lot,” says Schmeiser. “We have been contacted by people from around the world, people that have been also charged by a corporation, for using your own seeds, and stuff like that. We stood up for farmer’s rights — not only here, but for farmers around the world.”
Schmeiser believes that the case was part of a larger effort by Monsanto to obtain control over the world’s seed supply. Regardless of the court’s decision, he remains firm in his convictions and maintains that the case was actually a victory for him.
“Monsanto didn’t get what they charged us for, we never had to pay Monsanto one red cent,” says Schmeiser. “We brought to the world the attention of how a corporation can get control of a farmer’s seed supply by wind or blowing in the snow, and he could be charged for it.”
While still obviously passionate about the issue, Schmeiser says that he doesn’t enjoy being a figurehead for it. He says it has been a burden to bear for his family for years and cost them much of their privacy and he would be happy to put it behind him.
For Monsanto, the court case was clearly a mixed-blessing. They defended their intellectual
“Opponents of either Monsanto as a company or opponents of genetic modification or modern agricultural tools got a hold of Mr. Schmeiser and wanted to support him and wanted to turn this into something that it was not.” – Trish Jordan, Monsanto Public and Industry Affairs Director
property rights and were vindicated in the court, but they became a target for anti-corporate or anti-GMO movements. Monsanto Public and Industry Affairs Director Trish Jordan says that it became the story of an individual versus a large, global, multinational company even if they didn’t feel that reflected reality.
“There were a lot of predictable story themes that are good for any story, of course,” says Jordan. “Big versus small, technology versus not. Certainly, we did our due diligence going into this particular situation and this case did not involve a small farmer by any means. He had a large scale commercial farming operation and he was growing technology without obtaining the license or permission to do so.”
Jordan says that the impetus for the case actually started with other farmers in the area.
“We never have been in the business of suing our customers and we never will be,” says Jordan. “In this case, our customers were telling us that, ‘Hey, we pay for this technology, we understand there’s rules for using this technology [ . . . ] If we’re gonna play by the rules and pay for this technology, we expect everybody else to as well.’”
The court’s decision in the case was not unanimous. Justice Louise Arbour, writing the minority dissenting opinion, argued that the gene and the process could be patented, but that the patent could not be extended to a living thing like a plant.
“Of course, we don’t have a patent on a life form,” says Jordan. “And that was never really what it was about for us, but it raised a bunch of other questions for people.”
Jordan says that their product, and others like it were key to the growth of the canola industry in the past 20 years. And with a mind to a growing population, water scarcity and less land available to farm, she says that the company will continue to help farmers grow as much as possible on smaller plots of land. But the spectre of the case against Schmeiser still looms.
“I don’t think it was Percy Schmeiser that was solely responsible for some of the questions and some of the public relations issues that we constantly have to deal with,” says Jordan. “I’ve always said, I don’t give Mr. Schmeiser credit for very much, but he is a fantastic storyteller and he had many people helping him. People are interested in stories about people, and emotions, and good versus bad, which are again very simplistic themes, but they’re themes in stories that have been around forever. I think if anything, this was a good example of where if you follow that theme of good triumphing over evil, this was a good fit.”
— Matt Jones