Seeds. Just add water and let the magic unfold. The age old miracle known as germination lies inside each and every seed. Nature's magic trick happens for free, everyday, providing us with the fruits and vegetables we enjoy daily. This process of nature is now being altered by the biotech industry. At a rapid pace, pharmaceutical and chemical corporations, are buying up the world's seed companies, therefore controlling the distribution of seeds and creating a monopoly. Our genetic seed heritage is largely in the hands of a few multinational corporations. According to an article in the March/April 2006 edition of Country Side Magazine, “Six corporations: DuPont, Mitsui, Monsanto, Syngenta, Aventis, and Dow control 98 percent of the world's seeds.” A frightening statistic. This article will focus on what is happening in the largest corporation, Monsanto.

First off, some background information and key terms. GMO stands for 'genetically modified organisms'. The government of Canada is now calling these 'novel foods' because of the negative stigma that was attached to the phrases, “Gentically Engineered” (GE) or “Gentetically Modified” (GM). The government did a decima poll in 2003 and found overwhelmingly that 88% of Canadians wanted mandatory labelling of GMO's in our food supply. Unfortunately the Canadian government refuses to label because it will negatively impact their investments (CPP and RRSP's), as was shown in 2008 when they voted against the bill for mandatory labelling.

Back to Monsanto. Being one of the most litigious corporate entities, Monsanto is often involved in one or more court cases at any given time. Monsanto has paid out somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2 billion in court settlements in the last 15 years. It seems that it is more profitable to break the law and take the risk of getting caught, than to act in a lawful manner. In one of their largest lawsuits they paid out $700 million US to some 20,000 plaintiffs from Anniston, Alabama, for knowingly contaminating the towns water supply from their PCB factory, causing death and thousands of illnesses and health problems. They were charged with negligence, wantonness, nuisance, suppression of the truth, trespass and outrage. Outrage is described under Alabama law as, “so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society.” Now this corporate criminal is buying up as many seed companies as it can; over 40 companies in the last two decades. Monsanto has been charged repeatedly with antitrust lawsuits. Antitrust laws are made to prohibit companies from creating a monopoly in which they have an unfair advantage and can drive out competition. Between 2002 and 2009 there were 60 patent infringement and/or antitrust cases in the U.S. court system of which Monsanto had been involved in almost 75% of them either as plaintiff (over 50%) or defendant (25%).

Monsanto purchases smaller seed companies and eliminates all the least profitable seed varieties and replaces them with their patented varieties. This usually means they abandon the open pollinated and heirloom varieties. New seed varieties in the Monsanto catalogue have the letters PVP beside them. PVP stands for 'plant variety protection', which means the seed from that variety cannot be saved because it is patented and the property of some corporation. Hundreds of varieties have been dropped by Monsanto which means they can potentially be lost forever if no one saves that seed line. New varieties are often created using old open pollinated heirloom varieties that have certain traits such as cold tolerance, taste or strong growth patterns. Unfortunately, the opportunity to breed new varieties is decreasing because Monsanto controls a large portion of seed distribution. It is difficult for people selling seed or breeding plants to find a seed company to carry these products and access markets.

Furthermore, Monsanto targets small seed cleaning businesses and individual farmers to sue them for patent infringements. The job of small scale seed cleaners is to clean seeds from farmers for next year's harvest, which is slowly being eliminated from farm productions. Monsanto tests the seed and takes both the seed cleaner and farmer to court when they find any of their trans genes in seed samples. There are hotlines for people to call and turn in their neighbours. Farmers even claim Monsanto has taken samples from their farms without permission and sued for infringement. Farmers usually settle out of court to save themselves money and time as Monsanto has deep financial pockets. These contaminated seeds can blow off from any field within 100 metres. Take the recent banning of Canadian flax by the European Union. The Canadian government ordered that all GMO flax seed be crushed for oil and taken off the market. We have now learned that during a short period of time 8 years ago, GMO flax was released and the percentage of contaminated flax in the food supply has risen year after year. The E.U. found contamination in Canadian flax and banned all our imports. The E.U. accounts for 60% of the export market for Canadian flax farmers. Tests have proven that farmers saving corn, soy, flax or canola seed have seen increased contamination over time from cross-pollination. Further potential for contamination happens during tranport or at processing facilities. Since pollen can be carried 100 metres or more, it is extremely difficult to get the genie back in the bottle once its released. The same goes for one of the most important crops farmers grow: alfalfa. Monsanto wants their GMO alfalfa on the market and opponents say it has huge potential to wipe out non-GMO alfalfa.

In an article from the American Antitrust Institute, Diana L. Moss wrote, “A threshold question to consider is whether Monsanto has exercised its market power to foreclose rivals from market access, harming competition and thereby slowing the pace of innovation and adversely affecting prices, quality, and choice for farmers and consumers of seed products.” To further this point, Monsanto has thousands of patents and PVP's on plants and animals. They unravel DNA and then patent whatever they think will be valuable. Essentially having ownership rights over the natural world. How can this be? The World Trade Organization along with governments concern themselves not with the protection of biodiversity, but rather with the protection of the commercial interests of large seed corporations.

There is hope! Backyard gardeners and farmers can help by supporting Kokapelli Seeds, The Seed Savers Exchange, Seeds of Diversity and all local seed companies that buy direct from farmers. It is vital to learn the 12,000 year old practice of seed saving and start saving our own seed. There's a great event you are welcome to attend called Seedy Saturday on Saturday March 20th from 2pm – 5pm at the Jamseville Community Centre. You can learn more about saving seeds, community gardening, food politics and celebrating food. There will be lots of seeds for sale. None from Monsanto! Whoever controls the seeds, controls the food. Better to take food sovereignty into our own hands than rely on the corporate monopoloy that has been created.