It wasn't even Monsanto's crop... It cross-pollinated, and damaged Percy Schmeiser's crops and livelihood.
Monsanto won this case in a U.S. court. I haven't checked recently, but the farmer was threatening to sue in the Canadian court system, where the outcome could be different. Also note [short form] that NAFTA and CAFTA figure into this, as a country can't do anything to affect the profits of a signatory nation that couldn't be done in the country of the corporation's origin. Also notable: when the coalition authorities in Iraq penned a new ag deal a couple of years ago, it included seed protection for GMO crops. The average Iraqi farmer IS NOT going to understand why they can't use seeds from their own plants, from their own soil, and the AK-47 will come down off the mantle again. Michael Perelman wrote:
Monsanto just won a case against a Canadian farmer who insisted that the genetically engineered characteristics of the plants that he grew were the result of pollen that had drifted from neighbors' fields. The case was even more curious because Monsanto engineered its seeds to have one particular characteristic: the plants were resistant to Monsanto's Roundup, Monsanto's best-selling herbicide, so that farmers could spray large quantities of herbicide without damaging the crop. This particular farmer, Percy Schmeiser, did not farm in such a way that this herbicide resistance would be of any use to him.
Leigh http://leighm.net/
