"We felt that what we were fighting for was not only for ourselves, but for farmers around the world, for their right to use their own seed. That's why we stood up to them." - Percy Schmeiser (item 1)

"A French judge ruled on Friday that radical farm activist Jose Bove should be let out of jail after serving just one month of his 10-month term for  destroying genetically modified plants, judicial sources said." (item 2)

"We see [Starlink] every week and just about every day." - James Bair, vice president of the North American Millers' Association. (item 3)

Hardy perennials:
1.Seed battle heads to supreme court
2.French judge frees jailed radical farmer Bove
3.StarLink corn still shows up
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Seed battle heads to supreme court
By Tim Hirsch
BBC News environment correspondent, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
1 August 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3116713.stm

A single farmer from the Canadian Prairies is preparing to take on a mighty biotech corporation in his country's Supreme Court.
       
Percy Schmeiser, a sprightly 72-year-old from Bruno, Saskatchewan, has become a hero to the anti-GM movement worldwide for resisting Monsanto's attempts to enforce its patent rights over the seeds it promotes.

The outcome of the case could have major implications not just for genetically modified crops, but for the patenting of genetic techniques in many other areas.

Mr Schmeiser's battle with Monsanto dates back to 1998, when it accused him of planting the company's genetically modified canola (oilseed rape) on his land without permission, and demanded that he pay it the same fee required of those growing GM crops under contract.

He refused, saying that he had simply followed his usual practice of collecting seeds from his own crop to plant for the following year, and that it must have become contaminated from GM canola grown nearby.

Legal fields

Mr Schmeiser told BBC News Online: "I was very concerned, because we realised that there was contamination of the pure seed we had been developing for half a century.

"We said to Monsanto when we received the law suit, 'if you have any GMOs in our pure seed, you should be liable and there should be a law suit against you people'."

Monsanto claimed the level of herbicide resistance in the crop was such that it could not have happened accidentally, but the company did not prove this in court - it did not need to.

Because the judge in the original case ruled that it did not matter how the seed came to be in Mr Schmeiser's field, he was deemed to have infringed the company's patent rights simply by growing and harvesting it without permission.

It made no difference that he did not spray the crop with Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller and therefore did not benefit from the altered genetic structure of the plant.

Unwelcome 'volunteers'

Stuart Wells, of the Canadian National Farmers' Union, says the ruling has deterred some farmers from complaining when they find unwanted GM "volunteers" or "weeds" in their fields.

"I suspect that there are a lot of farmers who are not even reporting contamination to Monsanto because they don't want a company with the control they have to know that they have been polluted.

"It's sort of a Catch-22 situation, if the farmer has no control whatsoever, and might end up in the sort of trouble that Monsanto is heaping on Percy Schmeiser."

Monsanto itself says it will never pursue farmers when GM seeds accidentally appear on their land, but says it will protect its patent rights when its technology is deliberately misappropriated.

Might and mouse

Mr Schmeiser's lawyers will argue in the Supreme Court that companies have no right to patent an entire plant, and they have been heartened by a recent ruling from the same court involving the "Harvard Mouse".

In that case, Harvard University claimed a patent on a mouse genetically altered to make it more susceptible to cancer for use in medical research, but the court ruled that a "higher life form" could not be classed as an invention.

Percy Schmeiser has had to mortgage much of his land to pay his legal fees, and admits that the five-year battle has caused enormous stress, but he says he does not regret it.

"We felt that what we were fighting for was not only for ourselves, but for farmers around the world, for their right to use their own seed. That's why we stood up to them."
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2.French judge frees jailed radical farmer Bove
Reuters, 01 Aug 2003
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L01659023.htm

 TOULOUSE, France, Aug 1 (Reuters) - A French judge ruled on Friday that radical farm activist Jose Bove should be let out of jail after serving just one month of his 10-month term for  destroying genetically modified plants, judicial sources said.

The decision, made a fortnight after his jail term was  trimmed by 4-1/2 months, will mean the pipe-smoking folk hero  can complete the rest at his farm in southwestern France under a  home detention regime, which gives him limited freedom.

The public prosecutor, who opposes the softening of Bove's  sentence, has 24 hours to appeal the decision, farm union  spokesman Jean-Michel Sanchez said. If he does not, Bove can go  home immediately.

But in case of an appeal Bove, who rose to fame in the late  1990s for denouncing globalisation and junk food, will have to  serve out the time behind bars, unless he asks for his case to  be reconsidered.

Convicted last November for ripping up gene-modified rice  and maize plants in 1998 and 1999, Bove refused to give himself  up, and was finally jailed on June 22 after a dramatic swoop on  his farm by police in a helicopter.

Mindful of Bove's popularity, President Jacques Chirac used  his traditional Bastille Day amnesty last month to trim his  sentence by 4-1/2 months.

Bove's fans, furious Chirac had not granted a full pardon,  protested, even briefly blocking the Tour de France route and  bringing leader Lance Armstrong to a halt during the cycle  race's 10th stage to the southern port of Marseille.

Bove is no stranger to jail, having spent six weeks inside  last year for vandalising a McDonald's restaurant.

If he leaves jail, Bove will be obliged to take on a  part-time job for the remainder of his sentence and will be  subject to police surveillance.  
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3.StarLink corn still shows up
BY CHRIS CLAYTON
Omaha WORLD-HERALD, July 30, 2003 [shortned]

It has been nearly three years since detection of StarLink corn in the U.S. food supply led to recalls, yet traces of the genetically modified corn still show up in grain shipments to millers.

"We see it every week and just about every day," said James Bair, vice president of the North American Millers' Association.

As long as traces continue to show up, farmers can receive compensation for money they lost. Claims by farmers who might be eligible for part of a $110 million class-action settlement must be filed by Thursday.

Bair said positive tests occur at mills in both Iowa and Nebraska, but officials with the Nebraska Corn Board and Iowa Corn Growers Association said they weren't aware that StarLink was still in grain supplies.

"We're finding it in about three tests a week now," Bair said. "It's getting down there to a very small amount, but these tests are sensitive enough to pick it up."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture continues to find higher levels of StarLink in its tests than in those of the mills, but that's mainly because kernels sent to the USDA are suspected of being contaminated.

"We're down below 1 percent, but those are samples most likely to contain StarLink," said Jerry Redding, a USDA spokesman.