Well, I said it would happen, and it is. The contamination of the wheat crop in Oregon has brought a huge industry to its knees. Japan, South Korea have canceled orders for AmeriKan wheat. Russia, one of the largest buyers of wheat, has announced that it will test all wheat before purchase. The European Union has urged all members to test ANY wheat shipments for GM contamination before accepting the product. Wheat futures, have dropped like the proverbial stone. Farmers throughout the wheat belt in AmeriKa are bracing themselves for bankruptcy. I bet a lot are wondering if they can plow in their wheat and plant something else before it gets too late. The problem is, what else can they plant. There are no commercially available crops that are NOT Genetically Modified. Monsanto bought up all the seed companies two decades ago and they only offer GM seeds to farmers. Awe, I shouldn't say that, there are a couple of independent ones out there, ones that market to home gardeners. Can you imagine planting a thousand acres from those little paper envelopes of seeds?
Well, it is time to fight back, get Monsanto to pay for what they have done. Back on January 10th, two farmers in Saskatchewan filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto and Aventis. the subject of the lawsuit, genetic pollution. They claim that as certified organic farmers, they are unable to grow organic canola because the genetic pollution from Genetically Modified canola has spread to every farm and every crop everywhere. Thus there is no possible way for them to continue to grow organic canola and to capture the higher priced market that exists for that product. Monsanto and Aventis have destroyed their livelihood. The farmers charge that Monsanto and Aventis were aware that it was IMPOSSIBLE to contain the genetic material in the modified canola and that the consequences of their actions were predicted. And here is the big one, at that time, back in January, they also filed a cease and desist order to prevent Monsanto from planting ANY GM wheat as wheat is the cornerstone crop in the prairie culture and that introducing a crop that will infect commercial crops with unwanted and detrimental GM genes is a certainty that will destroy the market for organic farming.
And it seems to have become a reality now hasn't it. GM wheat is out on the loose.
Yesterday a Kansas farmer filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto. For destroying the international market for the wheat that he grows. His lawsuit claims that Monsanto did knowingly allow the contamination of the commercial wheat crop by failing to follow proper procedures for containment of the test crops. That Monsanto was aware of the potential for genetic contamination is a certainty, in fact Monsanto has used that very problem to their advantage on over 400 lawsuits that the huge corporation has filed against small time farmers that have had Genetically Modified pollen from GM crops infect farmer's fields. Then, when the supposedly non-GM crops showed the patented genes when tested and Monsanto sued the farmers for patent infringement, and won.
Yeah, Monsanto knows their crops cannot be contained. They are counting on it.
Monsanto issued a statement in response to the lawsuit, they stated that they will take a vigorous defense against the lawsuit and take no responsibility whatsoever for the genetic contamination of the commercial wheat crop. It is back to their old philosophy that if our shit contaminates your crops on your farm then that is your fault for capturing the wind blown pollen with your crops that Monsanto did not create. So the concept of Monsanto seems to be, buy our seed to begin with and that way you don't have to worry about genetic contamination, it will already be contaminated and we will have made money.
What a concept. Can you imagine what would happen if British Petroleum would have sent bills to all the states and all the local people that lived on the coasts and all the fishermen that made a living fishing the Gulf and the bill was for the gas that BP spilled and ended up polluting everything. What would you do if you got a bill from BP for the raw oil that could have made BP money had they not spilled it? Is that stupid? Well, yeah. But is it any different from Monsanto suing farmers that plant non GM crops that after planting get infected with GM pollen from neighboring fields and claiming those farmers STOLE genetic patented crops? Last Saturday, I was at the Farmers Market on North Central and Northern Ave and was telling every customer about my blog, and about the wonderful March Against Monsanto going on. Sooooooo many people had no idea what or who Monsanto was, or why it is needed. This is why.
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