Perhaps any other 77-year-old would simply retire and step back from a battle with a multi-million dollar agricultural company. Not Percy Schmeiser.
A keynote speaker at Canada's largest outdoor organics festival on July 5 and 6, Schmeiser cautioned listeners about the lure and hazards of genetically engineered (GE) crops.
The Saskatchewan farmer spoke at the Organic Islands Festival in Victoria before an audience well aware of his efforts and tribulations.
Schmeiser's regionally adapted canola, which he had researched for 50 years, became contaminated with airborne pollen from fields containing Roundup Ready, one of Monsanto's product lines.
He took Monsanto all the way to Canada's Supreme Court after the agro-chemical company sued him for using its product without purchasing it. Schmeiser claimed he had never used the product. The Supreme Court found in Monsanto's favor because their Roundup Ready canola was protected by a patent.
However, in an out-of-court settlement finalized in March, Monsanto agreed to pay all the clean-up costs of the Roundup Ready canola that contaminated Schmeiser's fields, and the court ruled that Monsanto can be sued again if contamination on his fields recurs.
Throughout the several court cases, Schmeiser stood firm in his belief that once GE organisms are released into the environment, there will be "no calling back" the genie.
Schmeiser says that selection and husbandry have been a cornerstone of agriculture since the first organized harvests. In the last 100 years, the use of science to modify the characteristics of a plant or animal has been instrumental in increased tonnage per hectare.
While the Green Revolution of the 1960s and '70s resulted in improved harvest levels, these results often came at the cost of substantial inputs of pesticides, herbicides, and oil-based technology.
In many countries, this proved a disastrous combination, impoverishing the soils, farmers, and whole countries, says Schmeiser.
Genetically modified crops need a significant increase in proprietary chemicals. Super-chemical Roundup, for example, is reported to be four times stronger today because of new active ingredients, he claims.
He adds that Agent Orange, known from the Vietnam War, is emerging as a component in new GE foods offered by some agro-chemical companies.
Crossing a New Line
The insertion of genetic material from one organism into another crosses a new line in ethics and bio-history, says Schmeiser. Slipping fish genes into yeasts or creating a new add-mix of material from unrelated species has many worried about the long-term health effects.Rice with human genes to produce low cost pharmaceuticals or corn to create non-petrochemical adhesives seems at first glance like a logical and ecological next-step in the agricultural science. But Schmeiser questions the wisdom of this sort of thinking.
A plant does not distinguish between GE pollen and its non-GE counterpart, incorporating the former into the next generation. Genetically modified organisms have the potential to become so pervasive so quickly that even the call to clearly label foodstuff is a debate that needed to happen yesterday, he says.
Because of the many unknowns, such biotech manipulation was kept out of Europeans' diet by European Union from 1999 to 2003.
Schmeiser questions whether rising obesity and diabetes rates are a result of modern farming methods and profit seeking.
The Sierra Club and Greenpeace are but two of the many calling for a halt to the release of the seeds of modified sugar beets, corn, soy, rice, potatoes and wheat. All are used in the production of food and food products, but now have the added attraction of being the base for agro-fuels.
Biofuels are seen as a potential savior in rising energy costs, but the creation of bio-diesel and ethanol are pushing the early adoption of the new crops without extensive testing or research, Schmeiser explained.
Traditionally, farmers held back a small percentage of their crop for next year's planting, but this age-old practice is now threatened by "terminator seeds." Terminator seeds only produce a crop once after which all seeds are sterile. There are no subsequent generations.
Could taking away seeds' ability to reproduce result in a global catastrophe?
"We must support the rights of farmers to use their own seed," says Schmeiser.
Schmeiser told his listeners how Powell River, British Columbia, became a GE Free Zone in 2004. Being a GE free crop zone means a region is free of propagating, cultivating, or raising genetically engineered organisms by people, firms, or corporations.
Schmeiser credits his wife Louise with supplying the energy to stay the course through his campaign, tackling along the way such tough questions as "Who owns life?" and "Can we patent life-forms?"
The Schmeisers won the Right Livelihood Award in 2007.
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