Vote NO on CA Prop 37: Mandatory GMO Food Labeling

[tongodeon]

California Prop 37 is on the ballot for this November. I'm concerned that I'm writing this too late - some of you may have already filled out your early voter / absentee ballots. For the rest of you I think this is bad legislation, and that you should vote no. This is why.

18 years of study : zero cause for concernThe first GMO food product was

Comments

[tongodeon]

Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser is the landmark case that you seem to be referring to, and it's more complicated than that:

Percy Schmeiser, a canola breeder and grower in Bruno, Saskatchewan, first discovered Roundup-resistant canola in his crops in 1997. ... At harvest time, Schmeiser instructed a farmhand to harvest the test field. That seed was stored separately from the rest of the harvest, and used the next year to seed approximately 1,000 acres (4 km²) of canola.
...
Schmeiser claimed that he did not plant the initial Roundup Ready canola in 1997, and that his field of custom-bred canola had been accidentally contaminated. While the origin of the plants on Schmeiser's farm in 1997 remains unclear, the trial judge found that with respect to the 1998 crop, "none of the suggested sources [proposed by Schmeiser] could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality" ultimately present in Schmeiser's 1998 crop.
...
In 1998, Monsanto learned that Schmeiser was growing a Roundup-resistant crop and approached him to sign a license agreement to their patents and to pay a license fee. Schmeiser refused, maintaining that the 1997 contamination was accidental and that he owned the seed he harvested, and he could use the harvested seed as he wished because it was his physical property. Monsanto then sued Schmeiser for patent infringement. Patents being in federal jurisdiction, the case went to federal court.

It would be one thing if Monsanto was planting GMO crops on the upwind side of farmers' fields, waiting until the crops were pollenated with GMO genes, and then ambushing farmers with lawsuits. But Percy Schmeiser didn't just purchase the GMO seeds like his neighbors did - he waited until the pollen drifted in, called "finders keepers", intentionally saved and planted those seeds, resisted Monsanto's offer to either stop growing or start paying, and tried to claim it was all an accident when they took him to court.

I'm kind of with Monsanto on this one. If he's intentionally using their GMO tech, he should pay them. I can't start using a cracked copy of Photoshop all over my company just because I found it on a USB disk that fell out of someone's bag.

(Caveat: this is based on the finding of the Supreme Court of Canada. Maybe this was a bad judgement and Schmeiser didn't intend to plant those seeds, but I'm inclined to trust the court documents over whatever urban legend this has mutated into in the "Frankenfood" circles.)