OT - Seeds of Discord (Farmers vs Monsanto)
<< BRUNO, Saskatchewan—On a cold January morning in central Canada, Percy Schmeiser looks over his frozen fields. "Here's where all the trouble began," he says, pointing to where private investigators last year arrived uninvited and snipped samples of his crops for DNA tests.
Schmeiser, 68, has been farming these fertile acres all his life, growing canola for the valuable oil in its seeds. And as farmers have done for thousands of years, he has saved some seeds from each year's harvest to replant his fields the following season.
Now, he says, "for doing what I've always done," he is being sued by agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. in a landmark "seed piracy" case. The outcome could influence how much control biotechnology companies will have over the world's food supply in the next millennium, and is highlighting a major source of friction as the genetic revolution spills into the world of agriculture. -- cont'd -- >>
washingtonpost.com
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