MONSANTO- GMO, Rural Cleansing, and Excellent New Documentary

[KiwiClare]

Exposed: the great GM crops myth
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/exposed-the-great-gm-crops-myth-812179.html
 By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 20 April 2008

Major new study shows that modified soya produces [size=18]10 per cent less food[/size] than its conventional equivalent
 
Andrew Fox

Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted - the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development - concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 20 April 2008

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.

The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.

The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.

The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a "decrease" in yields.

But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.

A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over. (See graphic above.)

Monsanto said yesterday that it was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was now developing one that would.

Critics doubt whether the company will achieve this, saying that it requires more complex modification. And Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington – and who was one of the first to predict the current food crisis – said that the physiology of plants was now reaching the limits of the productivity that could be achieved.

A former champion crop grower himself, he drew the comparison with human runners. Since Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile more than 50 years ago, the best time has improved only modestly . "Despite all the advances in training, no one contemplates a three-minute mile."

Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted – the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development – concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.

Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if GM could solve world hunger, said: "The simple answer is no."

[KiwiClare]

Harvest of suicides: how global trade rules are driving Indian farmers to despair.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Harvest+of+suicides:+how+global+trade+rules+are+driving+Indian...-a0176902510

In the 21st century; India is often portrayed as a software powerhouse, a key part of the engine that keeps our wired world running. Yet this essential cog in the global information economy does not collect data on crucial social indicators, such as the number of Indian children engaged in child labor, or how many people are displaced from large dams. There is, however, one important statistic that the Indian government is starting to track--the number of farmers who have taken their own lives.

After years of speculation, the figure is now official: Between 1997 and 2005, nearly 150,000 farmers in India committed suicide, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. Many farmers' organizations believe the number of suicides to be even greater. The number of farmers whose livelihoods have been devastated by debts, crop failures, government indifference, and skewed global trade policies is possibly much higher. Farmer suicides were once limited mostly to the drought- and poverty-stricken areas of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Now, farmers in productive agricultural regions such as Karnataka, Punjab, and Wegt Bengal are also ending their lives because of growing indebtedness. The tragedy has become a national crisis.

"Every five hours, one farmer commits suicide somewhere in the country," Devinder Sharma, a food and trade policy analyst based in New Delhi wrote to me in an e-mail. "Farmers are falling because of the anti-farming policies that are being propagated. The tragedy is that the hand that feeds the nation is being deliberately chopped off."

Market Manipulations

Multiple factors--predatory lending, high input costs, comparatively low returns on harvests, crop failures, and the lack of irrigation water--are held responsible for pushing farmers to the brink. But conversations with farmers, activists, policy makers, and journalists reveal one overarching force driving Indian agriculture to ruin the opening of agriculture to free trade under the stipulations of the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The free trade system has exposed Indian farmers to lopsided global trade rules under which poorer countries are forced to open their markets while richer countries are able to maintain lavish export subsidies. At the same time, the WTO and World Bank agreements have allowed multinational corporations such as Monsanto to penetrate the Indian seed market; the sophisticated marketing of genetically modified seeds and other expensive inputs has dramatically raised Indian farmers' costs even as they try to survive amid harsh new competition.

"If I were given a choice, I would like to be born as a European cow, but certainly not as an Indian farmer, in my next birth," says Vijay Jawandhia, a farmer leader in Wardha. "There [in the EU], a cow gets a US$2 subsidy per day and enjoys all the comforts. And in India, a farmer is a debtor all his life. Post his death, his son inherits his debts and has to borrow money for his funeral."

Other farmer leaders across the country echo Jawandhia's sentiments. Among the biggest source of complaints is the failure of rich nations to abide by the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture (AOA), which mandates countries to reduce their agricultural subsidies and increase access to their own farm products markets. For instance, the US government doled out an average of $11.3 billion annually in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2004. More than 90 percent went to producers of commodity crops such as cotton, corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans. As a result, these five crops are dramatically overproduced, selling on global markets at below the cost of production. The overproduction depresses the prices that developing countries count on, wiping out poor farmers and enriching transnational food industry giants. Indian farmers are one of the victims.

Twenty years ago, nobody ever heard of Indian farmers taking their own lives. In 1990, India adopted a platform of neo-liberal policies called the New Economic Policy, and soon after joined the WTO, which came into being in 1995. The country's hopes of accessing world markets to enrich its farmers were, however, soon dashed. The removal of controls on the export and import of agricultural products exposed Indian farmers to the vagaries of the free market just as commodity prices plummeted, plunging farmers into a spiral of debt and insolvency.

A vicious cycle is at work. Because free trade in agriculture prioritizes export-oriented production, farmers are under great pressure to increase crop yields. This soon makes them dependent on chemical inputs and industrial farming practices. Many have stopped rotating their crops, and instead have created monocultures of genetically modified (GM) crops that require still more chemicals to be sustained. As costs rise with use of chemical inputs and GM seeds, prices fall in markets flush with surplus.

As prices fell for Indian producers of export crops during the last decade, farmers' access to low-cost credit was also reduced another aspect of the New Economic Policy. This made farmers dependent on private moneylenders and interest rates ranging from 36 to 60 percent annually. The cost of other crucial inputs--including electricity, essential for pumping irrigation water in a parched land rose as the government sought to reduce subsidies, which were already meager compared to developed countries. The government also slashed the tariffs on farm products coming into the country. Reduced tariff protection hit producers of rice, fresh fruit, cotton, and dairy products especially hard as heavily subsidized foreign goods flooded the market. The new competition encouraged heavy borrowing, resulting in an agricultural bubble economy that crashed as government support failed to keep pace with falling crop prices. Farmers went bankrupt. Faced with no option, many opted for death.

In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh alone, more than 5,000 indebted farmers, mainly cotton growers, committed suicide between 1998 and 2005 as the state government which had entered into a Structural Adjustment Program with the World Bank raised electricity prices five times, even as cotton price fell by half. In Wynaad in the state of Kerala, more than 1,250 farmer suicides were recorded between 2001 and 2005, as prices for coffee, tea, and spices nose-dived. In 2003, coffee growers were receiving just one-third the price they were getting for their harvests in 1999, and tea and pepper farmers were earning one-fourth of what they had been four years earlier.

Seeds of Suicide

Increasing production costs--combined with sliding global prices and the dumping of cheap subsidized cotton from outside the country--has prompted many Indian farmers to start planting GM seeds. Monsanto began heavily marketing GM cotton seeds in India in 2002, and many farmers bought into the company's promises that the seeds, which had the natural pesticide Bt sown into their genes, would help control bollworm damage.

Indian farmers were soon disappointed. Throughout the country, Bt cotton crops have been attacked by "Lalya" or "reddening," a disease unseen before, which affected the GM acreage more than the non-Bt cotton crop. Sixty percent of farmers in the western state of Maharashtra failed to recover costs from their first GM harvest. According to some studies, farmers are spending 6,813 rupees ($136.26) per acre, compared to 580 rupees ($11.60) on non-Bt cotton, since GE cotton requires more supplemental insecticide sprays.

Jaidep Hardikar, a journalist from India Together, has reported on the stories of two men--Ramesh Rathod and Chandrakant Gurenule--whose tales illustrate the debt and despair cycle, and how the introduction of costly GM seeds are partially to blame.

Rathod, a farmer from the village of Bondgavhan in Vidarbha, had purchased Bollgard brand MECH 162 cotton variety for 1,800 rupees ($36) per pound, compared with the 450 rupees ($9) that farmers pay for non-Bt seeds. Rathod's hopes were dashed when his Bt cotton crops had a severe pest attack and the leaves of his cotton plants turned red and dried up. After having spent a lot of money on inputs, and with his crop destroyed irreparably, he was in no position to pay back the loans he had taken. He drank pesticide and died. Left behind to pay back the debt and shoulder the responsibility of a young family, Rathod's widow, Dharmibai, used two costly pesticides, Endosulphane and Tracer, against the bollworm pest, but the three acres of land yielded barely 600 pounds of cotton.

Thirty-four-year-old cotton farmer Chandrakant Gurenule from Yavatmal also took his own life. He too had bought the GM cotton seeds for his 15-acre farm, only to watch his crops fail for two successive years. When he had no money left despite selling off his farm equipment and pawning his wife's wedding jewelry he doused himself in kerosene and lit a match.

As Bt cotton continues to jostle for public acceptance, travails of Indian farmers continue. It is estimated that more than 4,100 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra in 2004. In 2003, cotton farmers in Andhra Pradesh, where GM technology was aggressively promoted, suffered severe agricultural and financial losses and many--including entire families-committed suicide. The situation has become so dire than in May 2005 Andhra Pradesh revoked permission to grow three varieties of Bt cotton.

Even as suicides mount, the Indian and US governments keep up efforts to promote GM technology. In 2006, the two nations launched the India-US Knowledge Initiative on Agricultural Education, Research, Services, and Commercial Linkages, which is supposed to conduct joint research in transgenic crops, animals, and fisheries for three years. Some view this as a positive effort. Andy Mukherjee, a columnist for Bloomberg.com, enthusiastically writes: "If the nuclear deal promises relief for India's power-starved industrial sector, the agricultural agreement has the potential to transform the nation's poverty-ridden countryside. The economics are simply unbeatable." Citing the success of GM technology, he continued: "Cotton production has been transformed since Monsanto was allowed to sell its GM cotton seeds to farmers." Indeed, no one would argue whether or not Bt cotton has transformed both the cotton production and lives of farmers in India.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A Way Out

Farmers' organizations and social movements around the world have denounced the liberalization of farm products promoted by the WTO and other regional and bilateral free trade agreements. When the member organizations of Via Campesina, a international small farmers' federation, gathered in Dijon, France in January 2008, they declared that "all bilateral and bi-regional free trade agreements and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) lead to the plundering of natural resources and only serve transnational companies at the expense of all the world's peoples and environment. These are not partnership agreements but Economic Plundering Agreements."

In place of international trade, small farmers' movements are prioritizing healthy, good quality, and culturally appropriate production for the domestic market and for the subregional or regional markets. These farmers' priority is to produce for their families and communities, then to seek access to the domestic market before seeking to export.

Last October, thousands of farmers in India blocked national highways and held candlelight vigils to protest farmer suicides and to demand a new revolution in the Indian countryside. This revolution, however, is very different from the one envisaged by the India-US Knowledge Initiative or the WTO. Based on the principle of food sovereignty, this revolution demands the recognition of "the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture and to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives."

India is the already the third largest producer of food in the world. It is the planet's largest producer of milk, its second largest producer of rice, wheat, sugar, fruits, and vegetables, and the third largest producer of cotton. Given these facts, neither genetic engineering nor free markets will revolutionize India's countryside, help increase production, or help feed more than 350 million of its people who live on less than $1 a day. A new farm economy as the centerpiece of the country's economic development model will.

Anuradha Mittal is the executive director of the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank working to increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social, economic and environmental issues. www.oaklandinstitute.org
COPYRIGHT 2008 Earth Island Institute
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

[trixi1]

It's interesting that if one just wants to use India as their own little case study, if you will, you see the disastrous results from these seeds and how it's ruining lives faster than a drought ever could. I really hope that everyone around the world finds a way to stop cold turkey using these gm seeds and allows the bees to do their thing naturally. Let all of the wonderful plants and flowers that God created just come back, flourish and knock out these killer-seeds. I'm just sick of this whole cycle of corruption and how they're able to continue it with full approval by 'laws'.

[yanaar]

It's interesting that if one just wants to use India as their own little case study, if you will, you see the disastrous results from these seeds and how it's ruining lives faster than a drought ever could. I really hope that everyone around the world finds a way to stop cold turkey using these gm seeds and allows the bees to do their thing naturally. Let all of the wonderful plants and flowers that God created just come back, flourish and knock out these killer-seeds. I'm just sick of this whole cycle of corruption and how they're able to continue it with full approval by 'laws'.

From your lips to God's ears. 

[KiwiClare]

It's interesting that if one just wants to use India as their own little case study, if you will, you see the disastrous results from these seeds

I understand that the US and Indian Governments are still pushing these seeds of  suicide, showing that it is a deliberate ploy to get rid of the small farmers. 

Let's hope the terminator seeds never get legs -


If they are seriously thinking of pushing the terminator seeds on us, it's no wonder Gates, Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto, Syngenta etc invested in the Norwegian seed depository.
http://noworldsystem.com/2007/12/04/doomsday-seed-vault-in-the-arctic/

[Sonja]

Kiwi, Thanks.
I am crazy against this Monsanto. I would love to go to India and see this woman who, in the poorest part of the world is fighting and banking seeds, but when you see her, in many documentaries about Monsanto, she is never bitter, she is love, for her people and for her purpose.
I would love to go study and work with her. While I am angry, she is pro-active and has a lovely energy about her.

Its not like I am not doing my part, but I think she could teach me a lot about 'moving on, choosing LIFE'.

[qimds]

It would help to lift the profile of the film if its maker, Marie-Monique Robin, was a guest on Alex's show...

I whole heartedly agree. I was so impressed with how she made the documentary and showing how she Googled everything, proving how anyone can get this info to see for themselves, I wanted to hug her.

[KiwiClare]

I whole heartedly agree. I was so impressed with how she made the documentary and showing how she Googled everything, proving how anyone can get this info to see for themselves, I wanted to hug her.

Her profile at Wiki looks very interesting - she is probably well aware of the New World Order.

Sonja:

I would love to go study and work with her. While I am angry, she is pro-active and has a lovely energy about her.

I was thinking about Dr Vandana Shiva this morning Sonja and had the same thoughts as you - I was wondering how she was so positive, full of wisdom and love in the face of the devastation amongst the poor farmers.  Maybe she sees a turning point that we don't see.  I suggest this as I was reading about the farmers in India who were protesting against GM produce. So the situation may not be as dire as the film portrayed?
Here look:
Vidarbha Farmers' Suicides Inspire Highway Blockade Across India
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2007/2007-10-03-01.asp

NAGPUR, Maharashtra, India, October 3, 2007 (ENS)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva

[qimds]

BASF is teamed up with Monsanto now.
I used to work for BASF and still get their "Shaping the Future" company propaganda magazine. I usually never read it, just flip through it and toss it. Today when I randomly opened it in the middle, it landed on a section called "Health and Nutrition". The heading over one paragraph immediately got my attention, "BASF and Monsanto:cooperation for successful agriculture".

This is given only to employees and is not for public viewing. I couldn't find a copy on-line so I transcribed it here.

HEALTH AND NUTRITION
BASF SHAPES THE FUTURE

Twenty percent population growth: in only 15 years' time, the global population will be almost 8 billion, or 1.5 billion more than today. To meet the requirement for nutritious, healthy, low-cost foods and renewable resources, we need to act now. This is why it is our goal to develop resistant crops for high-yield harvests.

The future is in the genes
Consumers make heavy demands on agriculture. They expect agriculturists to deliver top quality harvests while at the same time addressing sustainable development issues. Established aids such as fertilizers, pesticides and conventional crop cultivation methods are as essential as ever. However these methods on their own accord will not succeed in producing as much as is needed. Therefore we are investing in plant biotechnology. Our focus is on developing crops for more efficient agriculture, healthier nutrition, and for use as renewable resources.

BASF and Monsanto: cooperation for successful agriculture
We started our long-term cooperation with the biotechnology company Monsanto in spring 2007. The aim of the cooperation is to develop high-yielding crops that are more resistant to unfavorable environmental influences such as drought. Together we will invest a total of up to €1.2 billion to make important crops such as corn (maize), soybean, cotton and canola (oilseed rape) higher-yielding and more stress tolerant. From 2012 on, we expect the market introduction of the first genetically modified plant, a type of corn that is tolerant against droughts. This marks a big step in the way of offering farmers crops that will allow them to meet the rising demands both for food crops and for renewable resources.

Large market potential worldwide
Even today more than 10 million farmers worldwide use genetically optimized crops, and the number rises every year. The area of cultivable land also grows by 10% annually, with 100 million hectares at the moment. Altogether, the global market for genetically improved crops in 2025 is put at $50 billion. This includes crops with optimum oil, starch and protein contents, as well as  improved plants, which serve as a basis for renewable resources, such as biofuel.

Engaging in dialogue with society, interest groups and governments
In Europe, plant biotechnology is discussed very critically. This is the reason why we take our social responsibility seriously: BASF is taking an active part in shaping the public dialogue and explaining the benefits for consumers and the environment together with our customers.

Notice how they word things like calling their GMOs "genetically optimized crops" and "genetically improved crops" in the 3rd section instead, of "genetically modified". Sure sounds better doesn't it.

Hmmmm, BASF shaping public dialogue... sounds like Monsanto has a hired gun to fix their bad reputation and his name is BASF.

Here's a little more on BASF's site: In the biotech section I found this,
 "We cooperate with the plant biotechnology company Monsanto to make important crops such as corn (maize) or soybean, higher-yielding and more stress tolerant..."
from http://corporate.basf.com/en/ueberuns/themen/gesundheit.htm?id=V00-kCj5aCAgcbcp1p1

[KiwiClare]

Thanks for posting that on BASF.

It is interesting that it states:
"From 2012 on, we expect the market introduction of the first genetically modified plant, a type of corn that is tolerant against droughts."
given that they started their relationship with Monsanto in 2007 according to that propaganda.  I wonder what is really going on. There might be some clues in the Codex Alimentarius rules - that mention that it will acceptable to spray foods with high doses of known toxins, amongst other things and these rules are supposedly to be introduced at the end of 2009.

Dr Rima Laibow on Codex Alimentarius Rules (40 mins)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5266884912495233634

[Freeski]

Dang, I was saving this to watch today but... the original link and the assist both give me "no longer available" messages from Google. Can someone else please try the original link, just to see if it's a problem at my end. Thanks!

[smokecheck]

Monsanto Whistleblower Says Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease

GlobaResearch.ca
04-24-2008


Monsanto was quite happy to recruit young Kirk Azevedo to sell their genetically engineered cotton. Kirk had grown up on a California farm and had worked in several jobs monitoring and testing pesticides and herbicides. Kirk was bright, ambitious, handsome and idealistic—the perfect candidate to project the company’s “Save the world through genetic engineering” image.

It was that image, in fact, that convinced Kirk to take the job in 1996. “When I was contacted by the headhunter from Monsanto, I began to study the company, namely the work of their CEO, Robert Shapiro.” Kirk was thoroughly impressed with Shapiro’s promise of a golden future through genetically modified (GM) crops. “He described how we would reduce the in-process waste from manufacturing, turn our fields into factories and produce anything from lifesaving drugs to insect-resistant plants. It was fascinating to me.” Kirk thought, “Here we go. I can do something to help the world and make it a better place.”

He left his job and accepted a position at Monsanto, rising quickly to become the facilitator for GM cotton sales in California and Arizona. He would often repeat Shapiro’s vision to customers, researchers, even fellow employees. After about three months, he visited Monsanto’s St. Louis headquarters for the first time for new employee training. There too, he took the opportunity to let his colleagues know how enthusiastic he was about Monsanto’s technology that was going to reduce waste, decrease poverty and help the world. Soon after the meeting, however, his world was shaken.

“A vice president pulled me aside,” recalled Kirk. “He told me something like, ‘Wait a second. What Robert Shapiro says is one thing. But what we do is something else. We are here to make money. He is the front man who tells a story. We don’t even understand what he is saying.’”

Kirk felt let down. “I went in there with the idea of helping and healing and came out with ‘Oh, I guess it is just another profit-oriented company.’” He returned to California, still holding out hopes that the new technology could make a difference.

Possible Toxins in GM Plants

Kirk was developing the market in the West for two types of GM cotton. Bt cotton was engineered with a gene from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis. Organic farmers use the natural form of the bacterium as an insecticide, spraying it occasionally during times of high pest infestation. Monsanto engineers, however, isolated and then altered the gene that produces the Bt-toxin, and inserted it into the DNA of the cotton plant. Now every cell of their Bt cotton produces a toxic protein. The other variety was Roundup Ready® cotton. It contains another bacterial gene that enables the plant to survive an otherwise toxic dose of Monsanto’s Roundup® herbicide. Since the patent on Roundup’s main active ingredient, glyphosate, was due to expire in 2000, the company was planning to sell Roundup Ready seeds that were bundled with their Roundup herbicide, effectively extending their brand’s dominance in the herbicide market.

In the summer of 1997, Kirk spoke with a Monsanto scientist who was doing some tests on Roundup Ready cotton. Using a “Western blot” analysis, the scientist was able to identify different proteins by their molecular weight. He told Kirk that the GM cotton not only contained the intended protein produced by the Roundup Ready gene, but also extra proteins that were not normally produced in the plant. These unknown proteins had been created during the gene insertion process.

Gene insertion was done using a gene gun (particle bombardment). Kirk, who has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, understood this to be “a kind of barbaric and messy method of genetic engineering, where you use a gun-like apparatus to bombard the plant tissue with genes that are wrapped around tiny gold particles.” He knew that particle bombardment can cause unpredictable changes and mutations in the DNA, which might result in new types of proteins.

The scientist dismissed these newly created proteins in the cotton plant as unimportant background noise, but Kirk wasn’t convinced. Proteins can have allergenic or toxic properties, but no one at Monsanto had done a safety assessment on them. “I was afraid at that time that some of these proteins may be toxic.” He was particularly concerned that the rogue proteins “might possibly lead to mad cow or some other prion-type diseases.”

Kirk had just been studying mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and its human counterpart, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). These fatal diseases had been tracked to a class of proteins called prions. Short for “proteinaceous infectious particles,” prions are improperly folded proteins, which cause other healthy proteins to also become misfolded. Over time, they cause holes in the brain, severe dysfunction and death. Prions survive cooking and are believed to be transmittable to humans who eat meat from infected “mad” cows. The disease may incubate undetected for about 2 to 8 years in cows and up to 30 years in humans.

When Kirk tried to share his concerns with the scientist, he realized, “He had no idea what I was talking about; he had not even heard of prions. And this was at a time when Europe had a great concern about mad cow disease and it was just before the Nobel prize was won by Stanley Prusiner for his discovery of prion proteins.” Kirk said “These Monsanto scientists are very knowledge about traditional products, like chemicals, herbicides and pesticides, but they don’t understand the possible harmful outcomes of genetic engineering, such as pathophysiology or prion proteins. So I am explaining to him about the potential untoward effects of these foreign proteins, but he just did not understand.”

Endangering the Food Supply

At this time, Roundup Ready cotton varieties were just being introduced into other regions but were still being field-tested in California. California varieties had not yet been commercialized. But Kirk came to find out that Monsanto was feeding the cotton plants used in its test plots to cattle.

“I had great issue with this,” he said. “I had worked for Abbot Laboratories doing research, doing test plots using Bt sprays from bacteria. We would never take a test plot and put into the food supply, even with somewhat benign chemistries. We would always destroy the test plot material and not let anything into the food supply. Now we entered into a new era of genetic engineering. The standard was not the same as with pesticides. It was much lower, even though it probably should have been much higher.”

Kirk complained to the Ph.D. in charge of the test plot about feeding the experimental plants to cows. He explained that unknown proteins, including prions, might even effect humans who consume the cow’s milk and meat. The scientist replied, “Well that’s what we’re doing everywhere else and that’s what we’re doing here.” He refused to destroy the plants.

Kirk got a bit frantic. He started talking to others in the company. “I approached pretty much everyone on my team in Monsanto.” He was unable to get anyone interested. In fact, he said, “Once they understood my perspective, I was somewhat ostracized. It seemed as if once I started questioning things, people wanted to keep their distance from me. I lost the cooperation with other team members. Anything that interfered with advancing the commercialization of this technology was going to be pushed aside.”

He then approached California Agriculture Commissioners. “These local Ag commissioners are traditionally responsible for test plots and to make sure test plot designs protect people and the environment.” But Kirk got nowhere. “Once again, even at the Ag commissioner level, they were dealing with a new technology that was beyond their comprehension. They did not really grasp what untoward effects might be created by the genetic engineering process itself.”

Kirk continued to try to blow the whistle on what he thought could be devastating to the health of consumers. “I spoke to many Ag commissioners. I spoke to people at the University of California. I found no one who would even get it, or even get the connection that proteins might be pathogenic, or that there might be untoward effects associated with these foreign proteins that we knew we were producing. They didn’t even want to talk about it really. You’d kind of see a blank stare when speaking to them on this level. That led me to say I am not going to be part of this company anymore. I’m not going to be part of this disaster, from a moral perspective.”

Kirk gave his two-week notice. In early January 1998, he finished his last day of work in the morning and in the afternoon started his first day at chiropractic college. He was still determined to make a positive difference for the world, but with a radically changed approach.

While in school, he continued to research prion disease and its possible connection with GM crops. What he read then and what is known now about prions has not alleviated his concerns. He says, “The protein that manifests as mad cow disease takes about five years. With humans, however, that time line is anywhere from 10-30 years. We were talking about 1997 and today is 2006. We still don’t know if there is anything going to happen to us from our being used as test subjects.”

Update

It turns out that the damage done to DNA due to the process of creating a genetically modified organism is far more extensive than previously thought.[1] GM crops routinely create unintended proteins, alter existing protein levels or even change the components and shape of the protein that is created by the inserted gene. Kirk’s concerns about a GM crop producing a harmful misfolded protein remain well-founded, and have been echoed by scientists as one of the many possible dangers that are not being evaluated by the biotech industry’s superficial safety assessments.

GM cotton has provided ample reports of unpredicted side-effects. In April 2006, more than 70 Indian shepherds reported that 25% of their herds died within 5-7 days of continuous grazing on Bt cotton plants.[2] Hundreds of Indian agricultural laborers reported allergic reactions from Bt cotton. Some cotton harvesters have been hospitalized and many laborers in cotton gin factories take antihistamines each day before work.[3]

The cotton’s agronomic performance is also erratic. When Monsanto’s GM cotton varieties were first introduced in the US, tens of thousands of acres suffered deformed roots and other unexpected problems. Monsanto paid out millions in settlements.[4] When Bt cotton was tested in Indonesia, widespread pest infestation and drought damage forced withdrawal of the crop, despite the fact that Monsanto had been bribing at least 140 individuals for years, trying to gain approval.[5] In India, inconsistent performance has resulted in more than $80 million dollars in losses in each of two states.[6] Thousands of indebted Bt cotton farmers have committed suicide. In Vidarbha, in north east Maharashtra, from June through August 2006, farmers committed suicide at a rate of about one every eight hours.[7] (The list of adverse reactions reported from other GM crops, in lab animals, livestock and humans, is considerably longer.)

Kirk’s concern about GM crop test plots also continues to remain valid. The industry has been consistently inept at controlling the spread of unapproved varieties. On August 18, 2006, for example, the USDA announced that unapproved GM long grain rice, which was last field tested by Bayer CropScience in 2001, had contaminated the US rice crop[8] (probably for the past 5 years). Japan responded by suspending long grain rice imports and the EU will now only accept shipments that are tested and certified GM-free. Similarly, in March 2005, the US government admitted that an unapproved corn variety had escaped from Syngenta’s field trials four years earlier and had contaminated US corn.[9] By year’s end, Japan had rejected at least 14 shipments containing the illegal corn. Other field trialed crops have been mixed with commercial varieties, consumed by farmers, stolen, even given away by government agencies and universities who had accidentally mixed seed varieties.

Some contamination from field trials may last for centuries. That may be the fate of a variety of unapproved Roundup Ready grass which, according to reports made public in August 2006, had escaped into the wild from an Oregon test plot years earlier. Pollen had crossed with other varieties and wind had dispersed seeds. Scientists believe that the variety will cross pollinate with other grass varieties and may contaminate the commercial grass seed supply—70 percent of which is grown in Oregon.

Even GM crops with known poisons are being grown outdoors without adequate safeguards for health and the environment. A corn engineered to produce pharmaceutical medicines, for example, contaminated corn and soybean fields in Iowa and Nebraska in 2002.[10] On August 10, 2006, a federal judge ruled that the drug-producing GM crops grown in Hawaii violated both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.[11]

A December 29, 2005 report by the USDA office of Inspector General, blasted the agriculture department for its abysmal oversight of GM field trials, particularly for the high risk drug producing crops.[12] And a January 2004 report by the National Research Council also called upon the government to strengthen its oversight, but acknowledged that there is no way to guarantee that field trialed crops will not pollute the environment.[13]

With the US government failing to prevent GM contamination, and with state governments and agriculture commissioners unwilling to challenge the dictates of the biotech industry, some California counties decided to enact regulations of their own. California’s diverse agriculture is particularly vulnerable and thousands of field trials on not-yet-approved GM crops have already taken place there. If contamination were discovered, it could easily devastate an industry. Four counties have enacted moratoria or bans on the planting of GM crops, including both approved and unapproved varieties. This follows the actions of more than 4500 jurisdictions in Europe and dozens of nations, states and regions on all continents, which have sought to restrict planting of GM crops to protect their health, environment and agriculture.

Ironically, California’s assembly, which has done nothing to protect the state from possible losses due to GM crop contamination, passed a bill on August 24, 2006 that prohibits other counties and cities from creating GM free zones. The senate is expected to vote on the issue by the end of their session on August 31st (see ). It is yet another example of how the biotech industry has been able to push their agenda onto US consumers, without regard to health and environmental safeguards. No doubt that their lobbyists, anxious to have this bill pass, told legislators that GM crops are needed to stop poverty and feed a hungry world.

[Update 9/1/06: The California Senate session ended without senators voting on the bill to prevent local jurisdictions from creating GM-Free zones. For the time being at least, California counties and cities may still enact GM-Free zones. Click here to read the full press release.]

Jeffrey Smith’s forthcoming book, Genetic Roulette, documents more than 60 health risks of GM foods in easy-to-read two-page spreads, and demonstrates how current safety assessments are not competent to protect consumers from the dangers. His previous book, Seeds of Deception (www.seedsofdeception.com), is the world’s best-selling book on the subject. He is available for media at info@seedsofdeception.com. Dr. Kirk Azevedo has a chiropractic office in Cambria, California. Press may reach him at (805) 927-1055 or at drkirk@charter.net.

[1] JR Latham et al., “The Mutational Consequences of Plant Transformation,” The Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Vol 2006 Article ID 25376 Pages 1-7, DOI 10.1155/JBB/2006/25376; for a more in-depth discussion, see also Allison Wilson et al., “Genome Scrambling -Myth or Reality? Transformation-Induced Mutations in Transgenic Crop Plants, Technical Report - October 2004, www.econexus.info.

[2] Mortality in Sheep Flocks after Grazing on Bt Cotton Fields – Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh. Report of the Preliminary Assessment April 2006, http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6494

[3]Ashish Gupta, et. al., Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers’ Health (in Barwani and Dhar District of Madhya Pradesh), Investigation Report, Oct - Dec 2005

[4] See for example, Monsanto Cited In Crop Losses New York Times, June 16, 1998 , http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04EED6153DF935A25755C0A96E958260; and Greenpeace http://archive.greenpeace.org/geneng/reports/gmo/intrgmo5.htm

[5] Antje Lorch, Monsanto Bribes in Indonesia, Monsanto Fined For Bribing Indonesian Officials to Avoid Environmental Studies for Bt Cotton, ifrik 1sep2005, http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Monsanto-Bribes-Indonesia1sep05.htm

[6] Bt Cotton - No Respite for Andhra Pradesh Farmers More than 400 crores' worth losses for Bt Cotton farmers in Kharif 2005 Centre for Sustainable Agriculture: Press Release, March 29, 2006 http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6393; see also November 14, 2005 article in regarding Madhya Pradesh.

[7] Jaideep Hardikar, One suicide every 8 hours, Daily News & Analysis (India), August 26, 2006 http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1049554

[8] Rick Weiss, U.S. Rice Supply Contaminated, Genetically Altered Variety Is Found in Long-Grain Rice, Washington Post, August 19, 2006

[9]Jeffrey Smith, US Government and Biotech Firm Deceive Public on GM Corn Mix-up, Spilling the Beans, April 2005

[10] See for example, Christopher Doering, ProdiGene to spend millions on bio-corn tainting, Reuters News Service, USA: December 9, 2002
[11] See www.centerforfoodsafety.org

[12]Office of Inspector General, USDA, Audit Report Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Controls Over Issuance of Genetically Engineered Organism Release Permits, December 2005 http://www.thecampaign.org/USDA_IG_1205.pdf

[1 3] Justin Gillis, Genetically Modified Organisms Not Easily Contained; National Research Council Panel Urges More Work to Protect Against Contamination of Food Supply, Washington Post, Jan 21, 2004

Global Research Articles by Jeffrey M. Smith

[qimds]

I just checked. It's been pulled. It looks like the Monsanto thugs got their hands on Google.
The torrent file download link is still good.
It is also on youtube but broken up in many parts.

[Sitting_Duck]

Get it before its gone

   www.rivermarketart.com/monsanto.mp4 RIGHT CLICK --> Save As   (Please)     

[Sasha]

Could you give a description of what it is please,... many terrible things about Monsanto have been posted in here, but what is this one all about?

[Sitting_Duck]

the world according to monsanto movie

[Sasha]

just saw it not too long ago,... very good and damning,... I'd urge anyone who has not seen it to do so and pass it on

very good film about very bad people  (common theme in here)

I suppose I thought more was in store...

[NEPB]

Thanks, this will help me wake up my family. (They seem to be the hardest to wake up)

[trixi1]

Thanks, got it. Thought I had it before, but can't find it, so again, tyvm.

 

[UpsetBrit]

That was a shocking documentary. Some serious research and travel went into that!

Makes you think about the bees...

[KiwiClare]

Film Review of The World According to Monsanto by KiwiClare

  This exposé of Monsanto’s cold-blooded attempt to control the world’s food supply using its unsafe genetically modified crops and toxic chemicals is made all the more effective by award-winning journalist, Marie-Monique Robin’s matter-of-fact delivery of the facts.   First shown on French television on March the 11th 2008, The World According to Monsanto is a much-needed wake up call for anyone who cares about their health and the future of food.  Using interviews with farmers, activists, scientists and politicians, in conjunction with information that can be found online, the 109 minutes ARTE France production reveals the colossal scale of the damage Monsanto has done.
  Like The Future of Food, it paints a disturbing picture of a business bent on increasing its profits while endangering food safety and disempowering individual farmers, but it goes further. 
 Shot in France, the USA, Mexico, Paraguay, India and Scotland, it lays out the pieces of Monsanto’s jigsaw on a gargantuan table and leaves the viewer to fit them together.  The company, which already owns 90% of all the genetically engineered products, is aiming to infect the vast majority of the world’s food supply with its patented crops.  In light of the level of delusion fuelling biotech consumerism, the rapid rise of fascism and the stated plan of the elite to reduce the world population by using food as a weapon, [1, 2], this is a matter of great concern.  It does not seem to be a coincidence that under the Codex Alimentarius rules, which are to be implemented worldwide at the end of December 2009, all milk sold must be from cows treated with Monsanto’s rBGH, [3].  Similarly, it doesn’t appear to be coincidental that Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation and Monsanto, amongst others, have invested in the recently constructed “doomsday” seed vault, where millions of seed samples are now being stored, [4]. 
 We are at a turning point in history and Monsanto is trying to control the direction we go in.  The freedom for people worldwide to choose what they eat is dwindling under the pretence of solving the world’s problems of hunger and a fuel crisis that has food resources being used for ethanol production.  The accumulation of appalling evidence shown in The World According to Monsanto, if anything, makes a persuasive case for winning this power back. It shows that we never trust claims made by Monsanto.  It is a company that masquerades as being caring in its slogans, while the evidence demonstrates that it doesn’t care if people live or die.
   

[1] National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests, http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_kissinger_food.html
[2] Endgame 1.5, (2007), a series of interviews by Alex Jones, available from www.prisonplanet.com.
[3] Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs, a lecture about Codex Alimentarius by Dr Rima Laibow, (2005) is available at Google Video.
[4] Bill Gates, Monsanto & The Rockefellers financed Doomsday vault in Norway by F. William Engdahl, (2007), http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message511392/pg1

[Overcast]

If you guys like that - have you checked out 'The Yes Men'

http://www.theyesmen.org/

WTO Proposes Slavery for Africa

Halliburton solves global warming!


And my personal favorite....

Dow Discovers a Golden Skeleton!

Keep in mind - they actually sign up for conventions and seminars and attempt to fool the coordinators into thinking they are legit presenters. The scary parts is some people take them seriously - only later to find out they were 'hoodwinked'. http://www.dowethics.com/

But - this is still scary:

On April 28, 2005, at a London banking conference to which they had accidentally been invited because of their satirical website, "Dow representative" "Erastus Hamm" unveiled "Acceptable Risk," a Dow industry standard for determining how many deaths are acceptable when achieving large profits. The bankers enthusiastically applauded the lecture, which described several industrial crimes, including IBM's sale of technology to the Nazis for use in identifying Jews, as "golden skeletons" - i.e. skeletons in the closet, but lucrative and therefore acceptable ones.

[StemCell]

The World According to MONSANTO is a VERY good wake up vid for people I believe. Get it out to EVERYONE!

[Noel Degrassi]

Excellent quality. Thank you thank you.


Now kill me before they do. Thanks in advance.

[qimds]

I put this video on DVD and put it in farmers mailboxes around my area. I labeled it, "Please watch this, from someone who cares about you."
Not sure how it was received but after making 50 of these things, my wallet needs a break before I do any more.
Hopefully this could be done nationwide. That alone has the possibility of crushing this giant GMO monster.

PS: You can also get the Monsanto video at the torrent download in my signature if you like.

[darsie]

Film Review of The World According to Monsanto by KiwiClare

  This exposé of Monsanto’s cold-blooded attempt to control the world’s food supply using its unsafe genetically modified crops and toxic chemicals is made all the more effective by award-winning journalist, Marie-Monique Robin’s matter-of-fact delivery of the facts.   First shown on French television on March the 11th 2008, The World According to Monsanto is a much-needed wake up call for anyone who cares about their health and the future of food.  Using interviews with farmers, activists, scientists and politicians, in conjunction with information that can be found online, the 109 minutes ARTE France production reveals the colossal scale of the damage Monsanto has done.
  Like The Future of Food, it paints a disturbing picture of a business bent on increasing its profits while endangering food safety and disempowering individual farmers, but it goes further. 
 Shot in France, the USA, Mexico, Paraguay, India and Scotland, it lays out the pieces of Monsanto’s jigsaw on a gargantuan table and leaves the viewer to fit them together.  The company, which already owns 90% of all the genetically engineered products, is aiming to infect the vast majority of the world’s food supply with its patented crops.  In light of the level of delusion fuelling biotech consumerism, the rapid rise of fascism and the stated plan of the elite to reduce the world population by using food as a weapon, [1, 2], this is a matter of great concern.  It does not seem to be a coincidence that under the Codex Alimentarius rules, which are to be implemented worldwide at the end of December 2009, all milk sold must be from cows treated with Monsanto’s rBGH, [3].  Similarly, it doesn’t appear to be coincidental that Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation and Monsanto, amongst others, have invested in the recently constructed “doomsday” seed vault, where millions of seed samples are now being stored, [4]. 
 We are at a turning point in history and Monsanto is trying to control the direction we go in.  The freedom for people worldwide to choose what they eat is dwindling under the pretence of solving the world’s problems of hunger and a fuel crisis that has food resources being used for ethanol production.  The accumulation of appalling evidence shown in The World According to Monsanto, if anything, makes a persuasive case for winning this power back. It shows that we never trust claims made by Monsanto.  It is a company that masquerades as being caring in its slogans, while the evidence demonstrates that it doesn’t care if people live or die.
   

[1] National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests, http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_kissinger_food.html
[2] Endgame 1.5, (2007), a series of interviews by Alex Jones, available from www.prisonplanet.com.
[3] Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs, a lecture about Codex Alimentarius by Dr Rima Laibow, (2005) is available at Google Video.
[4] Bill Gates, Monsanto & The Rockefellers financed Doomsday vault in Norway by F. William Engdahl, (2007), http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message511392/pg1

Isn't this the modus operandi - doctrine and ideology of ALL internationals?

[Sitting_Duck]

1 more day left to download at full speed (not slow torrent style)

My bandwidth is almost maxed, please distribute the video!!

[UpsetBrit]

I put this video on DVD and put it in farmers mailboxes around my area. I labeled it, "Please watch this, from someone who cares about you."
Not sure how it was received but after making 50 of these things, my wallet needs a break before I do any more.
Hopefully this could be done nationwide. That alone has the possibility of crushing this giant GMO monster.

PS: You can also get the Monsanto video at the torrent download in my signature if you like.

On behalf of myself and every other person who cares... thankyou. I wouldn't have thought of that.

[Freeski]

Get it before its gone

   www.rivermarketart.com/monsanto.mp4 RIGHT CLICK --> Save As   (Please)     

Thank you kindly! I was late the first time it was posted but the download just finished. As long as it loads, I'll be in business. You're the best!

[uwaf]

Just a little "Heads up" I put DVDs at the base of mailboxes, you will surely find someone who doesn't like the truth and will report you for harassing them using their federally owned billbox.

[angndon]

I want to make DVD's of this.  I've never burned a DVD before.  Can anyone reccomend a good inexpensive dvd burning software? 

[Freeski]

Help! I downloaded this this afternoon and just sat down to watch it but neither Windows Media Player nor Real Player will play it for me. Anyone have a quick tip?

[Freeski]

Help! I downloaded this this afternoon and just sat down to watch it but neither Windows Media Player nor Real Player will play it for me. Anyone have a quick tip?

Found a thing called Total Video Player from Download.com - free and quick and easy to install... amazing video quality in this, my first MP4 viewing.

[GiveMeLiberty]

All fine and dandy. What I want to know is, when is the ruling that allows for life to be patented going to be overturned? (A special thanks to the Clintons )

[qimds]

Thanks UpsetBrit
I don't care if they harass me or report me, this truth is too important not to spread the word.
Actually I think it's legal to put this in mailboxes as long as it's not threatening. Who knows I could be wrong but I gotta do it. This and the fluoride issue really bother me so I feel like warning people, even if they are not grateful.

I use Roxio to burn the DVDs but you could just leave it as an mp4 file and instruct viewers to use QuickTime to watch it.

Quick time player plays it real well. You can get it at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/

[rustygunn]

1 more day left to download at full speed (not slow torrent style)

My bandwidth is almost maxed, please distribute the video!!

Thanks Sitting_Duck.  That is quite a video for sure!  I already got one neocon's attention with it.
   

[Sitting_Duck]

Got more bandwidth!!

Get this before the gov't kills (i mean before i commit suicide) me

[Pupil]

Grain Farmer Percy Schmeiser Claims Moral Victory in Seed Battle Against Monsanto

http://www.enn.com/agriculture/spotlight/33377

Percy Schmeiser's decade-long legal odyssey has finally come to an end - and he's got a cheque for $660 to prove it.

The 77-year-old Saskatchewan farmer and his wife, Louise, became international folk heroes for their legal struggle with agribusiness giant Monsanto Canada Inc., after the company sued them for violating its patent on genetically engineered canola seeds in 1997.

Although the Schmeisers eventually wound up losing their court battle with the St. Louis-based company in a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2004, the couple have now earned a moral victory that they hope will encourage others to carry on their cause.

Yesterday, Monsanto agreed to pay the Schmeisers $660 to settle a small-claims court case they brought against the company for costs associated with removing the patented Roundup Ready canola from their field in 2005.

"After 10 years, finally justice has been served," Mr. Schmeiser said in an interview last night. "I really feel that if a farmer is now contaminated, he has a right to go after Monsanto for liability and to clean up the contamination. By settling out of court, Monsanto now realizes the seriousness of the liability issue."

Monsanto agreed to pay the costs associated with removing the canola back in 2005. However, the Schmeisers refused the offer because the company insisted the couple sign a release stating they would never talk about the terms of the agreement.

"That release form they sent us was a gag order," Mr. Schmeiser said. "We could never talk to anyone for the rest of our lives about what the terms of the settlement were. There was no way we were going to give up our freedom of speech to a corporation."

Several other Western Canadian farmers have agreed to sign Monsanto's standard release form, including 16 in 2007, according to a statement issued by the firm yesterday. The Schmeisers' deal does not stop them from talking about the terms of the settlement.

"Although we are pleased Mr. Schmeiser finally approached us and agreed to settlement terms, it is frustrating that he essentially accepted the same offer we put before him in 2005," Monsanto public affairs director Trish Jordan said. "This entire matter could have been resolved more than 2½ years ago and Mr. Schmeiser would have saved himself some legal costs."

The Schmeisers became international causes célèbres because of the David and Goliath nature of the case. Mr. Schmeiser has been invited to speak at universities and parliaments all over the world, and appearance fees have helped to pay for much of the couple's court costs. In December, they were awarded the Right Livelihood Award - unofficially considered to be the alternative Nobel Prize.

The Schmeisers' saga began more than 10 years ago, when Monsanto sued them after plants grown from genetically modified canola seeds were found on the couple's farm near Bruno, Sask., about 90 kilometres east of Saskatoon.

The company said the Schmeisers violated its patent on the seeds, which had been genetically modified to resist Monsanto-brand herbicide, and that the couple knowingly planted them without paying the technology fees. Monsanto's claim sought damages totalling $400,000.

But the Schmeisers denied using the Monsanto seeds, arguing that the seeds blew onto their property from a nearby road or neighbouring farms.

In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favour of Monsanto, stating that plant genes and modified cells can be patented. Although the Schmeisers lost the case, the court ruled they did not have to pay damages.

The following year, more of the genetically modified canola appeared on the Schmeisers' farm. They pulled it out themselves and sent Monsanto a bill for $660.

Mr. Schmeiser doesn't grow canola on his farm any more, only wheat and oats, and he rents out most of the land to other farmers. Although he said he's looking forward to spending more time with his family, he hopes the fight to bring awareness to the issues surrounding genetically modified foods will continue.

"This is a great victory for farmers all over the world," he said. "Now they have at least an opportunity to have some recourse on a corporation when they are contaminated."

[larsonstdoc]

   Thank you Mr. Schmeiser.  Monsanto is killing us all!

[chris jones]

Mr. Shmieser, my hats off to you, this country is running short on honor and courage, you have set an example.