2004 articles

"The plan is to introduce legislation that will prevent farmers from being able to save seed and use it on their farms."
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Canadian farmers concerned they may be forced to grow GM crops
http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=1883

- The story says that about 50 people showed up at City Hall on Thursday night to hear the National Farmers Union present its opposition to the Seed Sector Review completed in May of this year.

- "The plan is to introduce legislation that will prevent farmers from being able to save seed and use it on their farms."

The story says that the seed review proposes the collection of royalties on farm-saved seed. The National Farmers Union says it also wants to compel farmers to buy corporate-produced seed by linking crop insurance premiums to the use of that seed.

- Van Acker was further cited as saying there is a link between forcing farmers to buy seed and genetic modification and that the biotech firms have been buying up the seed producers, adding, "Once they own all the seed companies, and once you have to buy [their seed], they're only going to give you what they want you to buy, which would be [genetically engineered.
Perhaps at some point, farmers will only be allowed to buy genetically modified seeds.
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Farmers' union digs in for fight over seed review
December 18, 2004
The Kingston Whig-Standard
Robert Clarke

The Kingston branch of an outspoken farmers' union is, according to this story, preparing to fight Ottawa on recommendations that it says would force Canadian farmers to grow genetically modified crops.

The story says that about 50 people showed up at City Hall on Thursday night to hear the National Farmers Union present its opposition to the Seed Sector Review completed in May of this year.

Union guest speaker Dr. Rene Van Acker, a University of Manitoba agricultural scientist who did studies showing that B.C. farmer Percy Schmeiser might have inadvertently breached a patent on a large seed grower's genetically modified canola, was quoted as saying, "The plan is to introduce legislation that will prevent farmers from being able to save seed and use it on their farms."

The story says that the seed review proposes the collection of royalties on farm-saved seed. The National Farmers Union says it also wants to compel farmers to buy corporate-produced seed by linking crop insurance premiums to the use of that seed.

Van Acker was further cited as saying there is a link between forcing farmers to buy seed and genetic modification and that the biotech firms have been buying up the seed producers, adding, "Once they own all the seed companies, and once you have to buy [their seed], they're only going to give you what they want you to buy, which would be [genetically engineered.  Perhaps at some point, farmers will only be allowed to buy genetically modified seeds. It's going to set us up for having a very limited and industrially controlled agriculture."

Canadian Food Inspection Agency media spokesman Marc Richard was cited as saying he is mystified by what he says are the union's premature objections, and that the Seed Sector Review was nothing more than a one-sided seed sellers' "wish list."

Richard was further cited as saying CFIA is ready to hear the other side of the argument by setting up broad consultations that will include the National Farmers Union and that any CFIA proposal on the issue would have "nothing to do with eliminating farmers' rights to save and reuse seed."

Source: Agnet