This is an important milestone. I quote:
On Friday, Mark D. Clarke, a federal magistrate judge, dismissed a legal challenge brought by commercial farmers who use Monsanto’s genetically modified alfalfa seeds. via alternet.org
The non-organic farms sought to overturn a 2014 ordinance passed by Jackson County voters that banned the use of such seed stock, claiming that the anti-GMO ordinance violated their right to farm.
However Judge Clarke concluded that exactly the opposite was the case. He held that the county’s no-GMO seed ordinance could take effect next week, citing earlier state legislation that protected commercial farms—in this case organic farmers—from harm from other commercial enterprises, such as the commercial farms whose GMO-laced alfalfa pollen gets carried by the wind and can’t be stopped from tainting organic crops.
“Farmers have always been able to bring claims against other farmers for practices that cause actionable damage to their commercial agriculture products,” Clarke wrote. “The Ordinance, by contrast, is enacted pursuant to section 30.935 [of state law], and serves to prevent such damage before it happens.”
A coalition of Oregon organic farmers has beaten Monsanto—the corporate agriculture giant—in a landmark federal lawsuit that will make national waves by the way that their rural county banned the use of genetically modified seeds.
End of quote.
It seems to me that those growing natural seeds, which are inevitably compromised by GMO pollen due to the wind-borne pollination of grasses, should get the protection. But no, Monsanto has been able to persuade courts across the world that their GMO abuse has more right to protection than those who were there before them. To remind you, GMO pollen has been detected A THOUSAND KM from the nearest known GMO crop.
Now, this decision is a small one and it is within the context of Oregon state law, but it is the first case, to my knowledge, where the rights of the existing farmer have been upheld. No doubt there’ll be more appeals by the Monsanto lawyers, but this is a round 2 win.
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