EXCERPT: In Canada, there had been promises of higher yields, more nourishing food, and a reduction of chemicals. They had all turned into the opposite.

In the soya harvest there had been a 15 per cent decline, in rapeseed six per cent. The quality of the foods had deteriorated, and the use of pesticides increased three times over.
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Genetics are forever, warns Canadian farmer
Nature News, May 4, 2006 http://science.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1160880.php/Genetics_are_forever_warns_Canadian_farmer

Vienna - Gene-altered crops are forever, a Canadian expert warned Thursday. Once a country had them, there was no getting away from them, said farmer Percy Schmeiser.

Where gene-manipulated crops were sown, there could be no further control, he told an Austrian press conference. It was impossible for normal or organic produce plants to coexist with them.

There was no stopping the spread of gene-altered pollen and seeds through wind or animals, or by machines and human beings. That meant farmers lost their free choice which crops to plant.

In Canada gene-altered seeds had been used for ten years. At the present time, there was no more genetically unchanged soya or rapeseed, he said at the press conference organized by the anti-gene technology organization 'Pro Leben.'

In Canada, there had been promises of higher yields, more nourishing food, and a reduction of chemicals. They had all turned into the opposite.

In the soya harvest there had been a 15 per cent decline, in rapeseed six per cent. The quality of the foods had deteriorated, and the use of pesticides increased three times over.

There had also been economic harm - many of the products had no longer been cleared for export because they were tainted by gene technology.

Particularly dangerous was the so-called 'terminator gene.' It blocked the seed of a plant from germinating. The idea was to force farmers to buy new seeds each year.

But by seed crossings, the 'suicide gene' could transfer to other plants. There was even the danger of an influence on higher life forms.

Schmeiser charged that farmers were being stripped of their rights by the gene technology giant Monsanto. Farmers were being presented with contracts in which they pledged not to plant their own seeds any more, and to pay annual licencing fees.

The contracts also gave the concern the right to control fields and books any time, he pointed out.

In 1998, Schmeiser himself was sued by Monsanto because genetically altered plants of the firm were found on his fields. He said at the time that his land had been contaminated without his knowledge.

In an initial court case, he was sentenced to forfeit the entire profits of his harvest to Monsanto, and banned from further using the seeds and plants. The court ruled that the seeds were the property of the concern, regardless of how they had got on the farmer's land.

Schmeiser went into appeal up to supreme court level. The final ruling in 2004 was that he did not have to pay licence fees.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur