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Subject:
From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 30 May 2013 09:41:40 -0400
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I beg indulgence to outline this, as no one is offering up a defense for the
bees in these cases.

This issue has a LOT to do with bees, as the way the press covers this
issue, the "blame" is placed on bee cross-pollination of canola for creating
the problem.
It is actually the farmer that goes out of his way to create the "problem",
and he takes several deliberate steps.

> If there is a problem with GMO it is that the seed is the same as the
parent plant, 
> so you can save it and plant it and you will continue to get the same GMO
plant.

It is not that simple.  Only some of the seed harvested/saved will have the
GMO traits.  

> Which is why Monsanto and other GMO seed producers patented the seed and
have won every court case they have pressed against seed savers. 
> Sort of like a copyright  for intellectual property.

What they have sued over has been deliberate and overt patent infringement,
not simple seed saving and replanting of saved seed.

The famous cases (Percy Schmeiser in Canada, and Vernon Bowman in the US)
were not just seed saving and replanting seed that contained the "RoundUp
Ready" genes patented by Monsanto.  In both cases, the farmers took specific
and calculated steps deliberately intended to "manufacture" their own
RoundUp Ready seed.  

In Percy's case, he saved and replanted seed from his own crop.  Vernon
bought feed from a grain elevator, and planted it.  Had they only done this,
there would have been no basis for any lawsuit, as it is perfectly
reasonable to both save seed, and to plant grain as seed.

But by deliberately and repeatedly spraying the fields planted with saved
seed with high rates of RoundUp to kill off any plants that were NOT RoundUp
Ready, they deliberately "manufactured" a large quantity of pure RoundUp
Ready seeds.  They then replanted the seeds from the plants that survived.  

In Percy's case, he sprayed a limited area to kill off all the non-RoundUp
Ready plants, and then used the seed thus produced to plant over 1000 acres
the next season.  Why would anyone claiming that he wanted to "avoid
contamination" with GMO plants do that?  Was he trying to create a legal
test case?  He admitted doing it in one case, and then denied it in the
other.  The court found that there was no way he ended up with a 95% GMO
crop by accident or by "drift".

Bowman's did the same thing, but I do not know the exact acreages. 

So, saving seed and replanting?  That's the framer's right.  But turning
your farm into a low-tech very slow processing plant to manufacture pure
RoundUp Ready Seeds?  That's where one starts to look like a competitor to
the manufacturer.  Without the deliberate effort to eliminate the non GMO
seed, and thus "manufacture" pure GMO seed, Monsanto would have no case at
all.

So, kill off a significant portion of your crop by spraying more RoundUp
than you'd need for weed control, and that's the crucial "manufacturing"
step where you end up with "pure" RoundUp Ready seed.  Merely killing weeds,
using a lower application rate, does not get anyone sued, as the farmer has
not really enjoyed the benefit of the consistent RoundUp Ready trait in all
his crop plants, and he will lose some of his crop along with the weeds.

The wheat thing?  I doubt bees can be blamed for that.

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