GM legal battle overshadows EC proposal

The move represents a victory for the United States, backed by Canada and Argentina, who challenged the EU's GM ban at the World Trade Organisation. The countries claimed that the ban was imposed illegally, and that it was costing their farmers millions of euros a year in lost sales.

But a legal battle currently raging in Canada is providing ammunition for the anti-GM lobby. A farmer in Saskachewan province is being taken to court for growing patent-protected rapeseed on his land.

However, the farmer argues that the genetically modified Roundup Ready rapeseed must have blown onto his field from neighbouring fields or from passing trucks, and that he was within his rights to save and replant seed from his plants. If his explanation is upheld, EU imports of North American crops could be affected, with consumers unwilling to trust GM-free claims.

"The fact is that oil seed rape is a very small seed, and can easily be blown around,"​ UK-based Friends of the Earth​ GM campaigner Pete Riley told FoodProductionDaily.com​. "The pollen can spread several kilometres. This means that genetically modified seeds are easily blown onto non-GM farmland, and these 'volunteer' crops, as they are called, are finding their way into our food chain whether we like it or not."​

Anti-GM campaigners believe that the court case shows how easily non-GM fields can be contaminated. There are fears that opening the the door to GM crops could leventually ead to similar cross-contamination across Europe, if GM seeds are allowed to enter the bloc.

But for the giant biotech companies, the case is simply a matter of copyright infringement. BioteCanada​, which represents biotechnology companies in the country, is claiming that the Saskachewan farmer must be held accountable for growing GM rapeseed for which he had no licence. If this does not happen, it argues, then Canada's patent laws will be worthless.

Two lower courts found that the farmer had infringed on a patent for a gene made by biotech firm Monsanto that enables rapeseed, which is used for cooking oil and animal feed, to withstand its herbicide Roundup. Monsanto says that, regardless of how the seeds came to be on his field, the farmer ignored warnings from its agent not to replant the seeds in the next season.

"This case has always been quite simple. It's about somebody who knowingly and deliberately used a protected technology,"​ a Monsanto spokesperson told Reuters​.

The court case has thrown up other issues surrounding the use of GM crops. The vast majority of rapeseed farmers in Canada now use Roundup Ready rapeseed or competing varieties, and some environmental campaigners are worried about biodiversity. Riley argues that reliance on one dominant variety of a particular crop increases the chances of a disease or blight devastating an entire industry.

But the head of the Canadian Canola Growers Association said that if the patent were not upheld, companies like Monsanto could well go to other countries and stop developing seeds that are suitable for Canada.