paleo eaters needs to be seriously concerned about the supreme court of canada decision against Percy . it means the last straw to destroy small farmers and further denaturation of our food.Worse it gives green light to patent life forms . soon all of nature will be own by few . hope that nobody here is following cordain advice and use canola oils . at this point at least 40 % is officially genitically modified but in truth all of it is likelly to be contaminated by foreign genes . We don't know what it can do to human metabolism but considering how just normal hybridation of plants have allready led us to big problems , it is expected we will find out later on .
don't expect to be able to continue to eat paleo in the future and even less so to raise childrens that way if you don't do something now to revendicate the right to eat unadultered foods .
jean-claude
Unbelievable. .... Canada rules against Percy!
Yet again, how unbelievable is it, ... really? Isn't this just another "normal" turn of the Canadian screws against the family farmer in this country? This is what Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has been doing to thwart the "local economy" of the family farm in Canada ever since the '60s. First with what the administration called "Rural Development" ( See the 60s NFB Documentary; "Wilf, A Study in Rural Relocation" based on Canada's Agriculture and Rural Development Act ).
Then, as a follow up, see more on the "takings" of our farmers' "local economy" rights to supply us with food, through what the experts then re-named; "Structural Adjustment". From then to this day, Canada has underwritten, almost exclusively, only the corporate "export economy" with this' "Adjustment". (Please see the Report "The Structural Adjustment of Canadian Agriculture" by Qualman and Wiebe at <http://www.policyalternatives.ca> )
At 08:00 o clock (today), May 21st, CBC Radio News reported that Percy Schmeiser lost his Supreme Court Case, which was an appeal of an earlier Courts decision against him in favour of the U.S. based GMO corporate giant Monsanto. Their claim was that Percy Schmeiser was illegally growing and using their patented genetically modified, weed killer resistant canola on his farm.
The report indicated that todays Supreme Court ruling was based on the fact that Percy had intentionally planted Monsanto's roundup ready canola!
That Percy "planted" the crop, does not fit with the account Percy gave last July when he addressed a Food Faire group here in British Columbia. (His speech is available as a video documentary from Peter Prince at Island Video Works, 250 653 0005 or through; [log in to unmask] Nor does this version of events correspond to accounts of what was found to have been the case on his farm, in the earlier Court case.
Anecdotally, one of the members of a film crew involved with actually being there, and seeing and filming the evidence concerning the farm and the subject site, in early stages of the case, also personally described to me that the site of the Monsanto claim, related primarily, only to canola samples found in the ditch adjacent to one of Percy's fields.
This is an amazing finding by the court for a corporate giant! The decision is based first on what Canada has allowed seed corporations (not farmers) to do in this countrywhen they deemed corporations could patend life. The decision reinforces this earlier favour to seed giants (Monsanto being the biggest) in its' determined efort to take rights away from all farmers, all around the world for the money interests of its shareholders alone. For local economy food producers this is a devastating corporate decision by Canada's highest Court.
Once most of Canada's food is forced by Canada's agriculture policy to be even more foreign grown than it is today (by faceless corporate behemoths in the Staters for example), perhaps we will be able to "trade" even more for our food than we already do. Perhaps we will then be able to "trade" away
our Canadian water rights (to the behemoth) in order to get the food we need to be grown for us by others in a dry future. (it's 90% foreign grown for our Island communities already).
This Supreme Court Decision against the local economy farmer is obviously not the end of the story. Below is a message from Pat Mooney's ETC Group, about what Prairie farmers (and others) must now do in the face of such a devastating taking of our traditional rights to farm as we need to.
Although this is a sad day for Percy and Louis, and for all farmers all around the world, heartfelt thanks is due the Schmeisers for standing up and defending our rights. We must now put this decision in context. All is not lost. We must understand that this will only add fuel to the fire in the hearts of those in all our local food based societies, who stand for local economics and the rights of the family farmer to produce our food.
A pox on those in Canada whose draconian actions fleece the family farmer in favour of the foreign food trade!
John Wilcox
Agronomist, 250 537 5942, [log in to unmask]
HERE IS THE MESSAGE FROM THE PAT MOONEY GROUP "ETC", ABOUT WHAT FARMERS MUST NOW DO IN ORDER TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM MONSANTO. (received just before news of this Decision came down).
----- Original Message -----
From: "ETC group" <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 2:01 PM
Subject: ETC: Tell Monsanto Where to Go!
> ETC Group
> News Release:
> Thursday, May 20, 2004
> www.etcgroup.org <http://www.etcgroup.org>
>
>
> Canada's Supreme Court Rules on 'David & Goliath' Tomorrow
>
> Tell Monsanto Where To Go!
> Letter warnings for Monsanto: There are 5 million Percy Schmeisers.
>
> Bees, beetles and blowing prairie winds can carry Monsanto's
genetically-modified canola a good 26 km - and a whole lot farther if the
transgenic seed or pollen hitches a ride on passing trucks, trains or
trousers. After eight summers in Canada's West, GM canola has earned the
dubious status of a major weed - a common sight in fields, boulevards and
cemeteries - and even backyard gardens. "Canola can winter over for 8
years," says ETC Group's Pat Mooney in the NGO's Winnipeg headquarters,
"meaning GM pollen has probably travelled a minimum of 200 km since Monsanto
first commercialized its patented seed in 1996." Which is why, Mooney
reasons, just about everyone on the prairies has a direct, personal interest
in the May 21st Supreme Court decision. Gene Giant Monsanto has accused
Saskatchewan farmers Percy and Louise Schmeiser of illegally growing the
company's canola. "It's not just farmers," insists Mooney. "There are about
5 million Percy Schmeisers out here [roughly the population of Canada's
three prairie provinces]. For all any of us know, we could have Monsanto's
canola in our window boxes."
>
> Canada's Supreme Court decision will set a global precedent that will be
studied closely by farmers, jurists, and corporations around the world.
Although Canada doesn't allow patents on higher-order life forms such as
plants and animals, Monsanto believes that its patent on transgenic material
gives it a de facto patent on anything its genes get into. If the Court
agrees, the right of farmers to save seed - a right that has been upheld for
12 thousand years - will be imperiled and the 1.4 billion people on this
planet who depend on farm-saved seed for their food security will be still
more food-insecure. And the burden with coping with GM contamination will
be placed on the farmer rather than the corporate polluter. If the Court
finds for Monsanto, however, it could still conclude that the Schmeisers did
nothing to benefit from the GM seed that blew onto their property and agree
that the corporation is not entitled to damages. This would not only be a
great relief to the embattled family but it would also be a sharp setback
for Monsanto. "With hundreds of other lawsuits pending, the company's
lawyers will be hard-pressed to show that their GM seeds benefit anybody,"
Mooney suggests.
>
> What to do? Monsanto claims that anyone who thinks they might have the
company's GM canola without Monsanto's permission must notify the company in
order not to infringe Monsanto's patent. Solution: ETC Group and partner
organizations around the world are asking concerned people to send Monsanto
CEO, Hugh Grant, a letter advising him that Monsanto's seeds may be
squatting on their property. "That puts the ball back in Monsanto's court,"
Hope Shand of ETC Group's North Carolina office adds. "It's up to Monsanto
to contact the letter-writer and make amends." "But the form letter doesn't
invite Monsanto to do what they did to the Schmeisers," Mooney stresses.
"Monsanto's seeds are trespassing and the company may have to accept a
'Trespasser Abuser Agreement' making Monsanto responsible for any damages."
>
> The form letter will be posted on numerous websites around the world over
the next few days. You can print out the letter and send it yourself or
click on "submit" to send the letter by email to Monsanto. ETC Group will
send all the letters to Monsanto by registered mail. Like ETC Group,
Monsanto's Canadian headquarters are in Winnipeg - within easy pollen reach
of one another. The form letter (and cartoons) can be seen at:
> <http://www.etcgroup.org/takeaction.asp>
>
> For further information:
>
> Pat Mooney, ETC Group (Canada) [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>: 204-453-5259
> Hope Shand, ETC Group (USA) [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>: 919 960-5223
> Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group (Mexico) [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>: 52 55 55 632 664
> Jim Thomas, ETC Group (UK) [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>: 44 (0)7752 106806 (cell)
>
> The Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, formerly RAFI,
is an international civil society organization headquartered in Canada. The
ETC group is dedicated to the advancement of cultural and ecological
diversity and human rights. www.etcgroup.org <http://www.etcgroup.org>. The ETC group is also a
member of the Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation Programme
(CBDC). The CBDC is a collaborative experimental initiative involving civil
society organizations and public research institutions in 14 countries. The
CBDC is dedicated to the exploration of community-directed programmes to
strengthen the conservation and enhancement of agricultural biodiversity.
The CBDC website is www.cbdcprogram.org <http://www.cbdcprogram.org>
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