A source that is factually accurate is a “bad cite”? Do tell.
I regret if it hurt your feelings. 
*still waiting for a description of its “misleading claims”.
Ermagerd. I’m getting off this carousel.
There are none until there are some. And how many crops have been genetically modified? Versus how many non-GMO plant varieties are cultivated?
My point was - be aware of the risk.
Would, for example, a plant that grows a level of insecticide, escapes beyond farmers’ fields, then selectively develops much stronger pesticide levels and then that cross-pollinates with normal crops? Unlikely, but higher pesticide levels is certainly an evolutionary advantage.
At the very least, GMO cold cost you a tidy bundle in legal fees:
The courts at all three levels noted that the case of accidental contamination beyond the farmer’s control was not under consideration but rather that Mr. Schmeiser’s action of having identified, isolated and saved the Roundup-resistant seed placed the case in a different category. The appellate court also discussed a possible intermediate scenario, in which a farmer is aware of contamination of his crop by genetically modified seed, but tolerates its presence and takes no action to increase its abundance in his crop. The court held that whether such a case would constitute patent infringement remains an open question but that it was a question that did not need to be decided in the Schmeiser case
Schmeiser avoided the need to pay Monsanto’s legal fees because he won part of the case - because he did not apply roundup, he did not profit from the patented gene.
Howeve, it seems that although he did not buy the seed, he would still be liable for the fact that it was growing in his field.
For clarification, from your link:
“(Schmeiser) had used Roundup herbicide to clear weeds around power poles and in ditches adjacent to a public road running beside one of his fields, and noticed that some of the canola which had been sprayed had survived. Schmeiser then performed a test by applying Roundup to an additional 3 acres (12,000 m2) to 4 acres (16,000 m2) of the same field. He found that 60% of the canola plants survived. 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.”
That’s deliberately acquiring a valuable crop without paying a fee to the company that developed and licensed the technology.
In another case, a farmer bought up bulk soybeans at a grain elevator for seeding purposes, realizing a high percentage were likely to be GM soybeans, again without paying a fee. He lost his case too.
There’s no case I know of where Monsanto or any other company sued a farmer who inadvertently had a tiny percentage of GM crops growing on his property through “contamination”.
The precautionary principle has never before been so eloquently stated. 
[Moderating]
Let’s not get personal, here. Step away from the thread for a day or two if you think you need to cool down.
And there is no giant aquatic lizard attacking New York until there is one, so watch out for that.
If there is, call upon a giant flying reptile to fight it off. That always works well in the documentaries I’ve seen.
Tokyo still exists, so clearly the giant flying reptile defense works.
In science, it behooves us to adhere to the Tenuta Principle.
That’s essentially Schmeiser’s situation. Monsanto never claimed he bought any seeds or otherwise went outside his property to obtain such seeds. (Out west, 3 or 4 acres is nothing. Fields are typically in the 160-acre measures) They did not claim he took advantage of the capabilities of the plants that grew from seeds that grew on his property.
So basically, “our crop seems to have contamnated your fields, so now you cannot grow seeds from those crops without violating out patent.” From my point of view, Monsanto has deprived him of the use of the product of his fields. Presumably as time goes on and more neighbours grow those GMO versions, his ability to grow plants from his own seeds will become less and less possible.
Of course, now we’ve strayed from the genetic/biological into the legal sphere, but it is an indication of the complications involved.
We’re still left with the reverse situation. If a farmer grows an conventionally bred vegetable variety and his neighbor(s) are growing a GM version with one or more desirable traits, should they be compensated for his crop’s “contamination” of adjacent portions of their fields?
Incidentally, when it comes to corn, under the right circumstances, pollen can travel up to a half mile; however most pollen is deposited within a short distance from the plant. Therefore, any “contamination” should be relatively minimal.
I disagree entirely. in the Wikipedia article
A ‘tiny percentage’ of Roundup Resistant seed does not generate a benefit to the farmer, a huge percentage does, and Schmeiser acted specifically to create that percentage, to distill down the random cross pollination into a crop that replicates the benefits of Monsanto’s patented product.
The idea that he was sued because his seed got “contaminated” is ridiculous. If his seed was contaminated by RR genes, he wouldn’t have deliberately killed his regular crop so he could harvest seed and plant 1,000 acres of contaminated canola.
By my reading of the article, no he did not kill his crop. He oversprayed about 3 or 4 acres to produce a selected volume of seed, yes, but that was for the next year. Plus, according to the evidence (and judgement) he did not take advantage of the seeds’ special properties.
So I guess the fun legal question is at what point does the contamination become “too much”? And how does a farmer prevent that?
Real simple. As I understand (and according to that other linked article)
Given that GMOs are not sterile, agricultural biotechnology companies rely on legal agreements with growers to ensure that seeds are not replanted from one year to the next.
Monsanto requires contracted farmers to buy new seed from them each year to continue to have resistant (GMO) plants. Whatever contamination happened from non-GMO plants does not affect the GMO farmers. So since Schmeiser did not sign any agreement, he was not bound by that. The Bowman case resulted from the realization that a significant portion of ordinary “seeds for sale, human/animal consumption” (I.e. regular produce) was now GMO.
The apparent upshot appears to be, if you don’t sign with Monsanto to buy new seeds each year, you cannot use Roundup or a generic version on your crop without violating the patent, if it turns out the seeds have patented GMO characterics. And as more farmers in the area use the seeds, odds are the contamination level becomes greater.
The patent expired last year, so now there’s a “new improved” version with the same issues hitting the market. (How will the Schmeisers of the world know if their round-resistant canola is so from the expired patent or the current patent?)
Farmers who want to plant the original Roundup Ready canola in 2022 will still be able to do so because the patent expires long after growers will have sourced their seed for spring.
After that, however, Bayer’s DeKalb canola business will be fully transitioning to TruFlex, its second generation of Roundup Ready technology. It will no longer be selling the original trait following next year.
Anyway, we’re way off the topic -evolution - so I’m going to stop there, but perhaps this is an interesting indication of a “side effect”.
I guess to stay on topic, I’m not biologically educated enough to know if there’s a risk of the genetic modification making the leap to wild plants - I assume there is a slight risk. I assume the possibility of Roundup-resistant wild mustard is not an issue in canola fields.
The name for rapeseed comes from the Latin word rapum meaning turnip. Turnip, rutabaga (swede), cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and mustard are related to rapeseed. Rapeseed belongs to the genus Brassica .
It seems obvious (and the courts agreed) that both Schmeiser and Bowman took special steps to isolate seed with GM characteristics, stored and replanted it, with the intent of using the resulting crop for their own benefit without compensating Monsanto like other farmers who bought patented seed from the company.
If there have been lawsuits filed against farmers who had a minute percentage of their crops “contaminated” by GMOs and inadvertently harvested and sold or otherwise used them, I haven’t heard of it.
The question of reverse “contamination” still hasn’t been addressed. Say a farmer plants an old non-GM variety and its pollen drifts to the neighboring field of a farmer with a GM planting, resulting in cross-pollination and a crop with inferior yield or lack of insect or herbicide resistance. Should the first farmer or whoever sold him the seed be liable for economic losses due to this “contamination”? Seems as ill-founded to me as the “GMO contamination” argument.
To reiterate - ths point is moot. GMO farmers with the Monsanto-type modification must buy their seed new each time from Monsanto - they legally contract not to use seed from their crop to plant the next year. So… no damage.
For GMO in general without that contract - unless the manufacturer claims the trait is dominant, it will always be luck of the draw, how nature works. It’s no different than trying to guarantee your golden retreiver bitch will always produce golden retreiver puppies. Unless you take the necessary steps, no. The problem with GMO contaminating non-GMO is that there is a value for some crops in being able to say they are “non-GMO” to cater to the more tin-hat purists, so some assign extra value to avoiding GMO. After all, (some) people pay extra for organic too. And as is apparent from the lawsuits, the contamination is wider than originally expected. Consequently, GMO is like a genie - can’t be put back in the bottle. Better hope there are no adverse consequenes.
For the argument “in X years, there hasn’t…” consider how many hundred or thousands of species have crossed from one habitat to another (usually thanks to humans). Honeybees have come over, but only African Killer Bees are a problem. Cute little pigs have turned into wild boars in America. Asian carp. Kuzdu. Starlings. Zebra mussels. Rats, rats, rats. Which of the hundreds or thousands of species are a problem only becomes obvious when it’s too late. I don’t say “don’t do it” I’m saying “think hard and determine if what is being done is really necessary”. Do we for example desperately need Roundup resistant canola, or was it a two-pronged opportunity to lock farmers into buying seeds and more Roundup?
It isn’t a “moot” point.
There are examples of farmers saving seed of GM varieties to replant (for instance, it’s an explicit part of the campaign to grow golden rice, which provides life and sight-saving vitamin A to consumers in poor countries). If someone’s old-time variety of corn cross-pollinates a neighbor’s crop of a modern hybrid, that neighbor could wind up with less tasty corn, or ears lacking a number of kernels. Their feed corn might be negatively affected as well.
A good answer to the “contamination” issue is to either provide a buffer zone between your crop and that of neighbors, or if you’re intent on growing organic, non-GMO crops, don’t pick land in an area heavily dominated by agricultural operations that do things differently.
As to your last point: we’ve been growing genetically altered crops for generations (including ones developed through radiation, chemical treatments and hit-or-miss conventional breeding efforts). There seems to be a distinct lack of modern, fertilizer and pesticide-dependent vegetable and grain hybrids escaping into the wider environment and causing havoc. They’re nowhere near as environmentally well-adapted as (for example) primitive maize or those Lycopersicon species that survive and thrive under conditions of drought and neglect in parts of Mexico, in contrast to Better Boy tomatoes.
Whether it’s rice or rotweilers, it’s a given of the real world that nothing breeds true unless you take steps to make it so. Nobody planting a variety of rice expects it to breed true if there are competing varieties in the area. As for buffer zones, this is nothing new - the same is expected, for example, for pesticide use to get an organic certification. You either have a buffer where the use is avoided for no benefit- not enough buffer - or an isolated area.
The difference is only one situation - patented GMO - can get you sued for simply growing what you reap. Neither case mentioned above, did the farmers buy specific GMO seed - they simply took advantage of what they found. Now with one expired patent and one live one, it’s more complicated - while you can grow a Roundup (or generic version) resistant canola, instead of seeing what survives and knowing it’s a patent violation, you will need a DNA lab to tell you if you legally are exploiting an expired patent or are violating a current one. Even more insidious.
Some thoughts on GMO “contamination”, including purported damage to organic farming interests.
“It has been argued that plants on an organic farm cross-pollinated by a neighbor’s gene-spliced crops would no longer be organic […]. This argument is without foundation, however, because it ignores the way that “organic” is defined. The USDA’s rules for organic production are based on process, not outcomes. As long as organic growers adhere to permissible practices and do not intentionally plant gene-spliced seeds, unintentional cross-pollination by a gene-spliced plant (or for that matter, the drift of a prohibited pesticide onto their crops) does not cause those crops to lose their organic status.”
Agree as to the narrow legalistic definition of “organic” under US law.
As a practical matter, what the buying public wants is “natural”. As in not-bred, not-irradiated, not-mutated, not-GMOed, and not-pesticided. Whether that public is smart or stupid to want that is a separate discussion.
But it seems clear to me that a farmer who was forced to label his crops as “organic except for all the GMO contamination in their genetics that was acquired in the wild from my GMO-farming neighbors” would find his crops selling poorly compared to other farmers not so burdened. That is the the issue the organic farming industry is upset about.
Heh. Because I have a perception that products carrying the word “organic” on the label are going to be priced higher than their counterparts without the word, I’m always annoyed that Costco only stocks ORGANIC canned tomatoes. But I’m too chicken to ask for inorganic tomatoes.
No argument there. As I understand, “organic” certification requires a fairly decent (legallly defined) buffer area where no artificial pesticides or fertilizers are used, simply to ensure the contamination risk is pretty much zero.
Based on Schmeizer’s experience, i would assume being able to certify “non-GMO” would require a similar decent buffer separation from deliberately GMO neighbours.
Which brings up an interesting chicken-and-egg scenario: is a non-GMO plant fetilized by some GMO pollen actually producing a GMO product? The plant itself and presumably everything except the embryonic part of the seed grain is all the product of the non-GMO plant - it’s nonGMO flour or rice or canola. If it’s canola, that plant is not Roundup-resistant. It’s only the subsequent plant that develops if the seed is germinated that is GMO.