The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

236 the world according to monsantoIn its letter, Greenpeace also discussed at length the problem of geneticcontamination that might arise from the marketing of RR wheat. Its expertssuggested that the committee ask Monsanto representatives three questionsat the hearing:Is Monsanto prepared to issue a public and legally binding declarationthat would hold it responsible in the event of the genetic contaminationof conventional and organic wheat . . . by its RR wheat?If so, how much money is Monsanto prepared to set aside to compensatethe victims of such damages?If not, according to Monsanto who should pay for those damages?Ian McCreary, vice president of the Canadian Wheat Board, told me: “It’strue that the question of genetic contamination weighed heavily in our decisionto reject RR wheat. The specter of StarLink was haunting us, andbesides, we already had the example of transgenic canola, which had practicallyeliminated conventional canola in Canada.”When Transgenic Canola Eliminates Organic Canola:Inevitable ContaminationThe first victims of genetic contamination were organic farmers, who had togive up their canola crops because they could not guarantee their integrity.To confirm this, I met Marc Loiselle, one of the leading figures in the resistanceto Monsanto’s wheat, who has been an organic farmer for twenty-twoyears. 40 He and his wife, Anita, work the farm established by his grandparents,who emigrated from Aquitaine a century earlier and settled inVonda, about 30 miles from Saskatoon, the territory of Percy Schmeiser, theman who stood up to Monsanto.On the day in September 2004 that I met him, Loiselle was worried: anunusual cold spell with temperatures at well below freezing had hit theplains, threatening the wheat harvest. Wheat was his entire life—it was hislivelihood, of course, but also it connected him to the family saga and to thehuman adventure beyond. This practicing Catholic did not grow just anywheat: every year he planted more than 100 acres with an old variety threatenedwith extinction: Red Fife, highly valued by traditional bakers. As we