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Extract from Organic Advantage Ed. 128 (BFA e-newsletter) December 2009
Bayer CropScience LP has
been told to pay about $2 million for losses sustained by two Missouri farmers
when an experimental variety of GM rice cross-bred with the farmer's crops.
Organisations such as
Greenpeace say the verdict confirms that the responsibility for the consequences
of GE (genetic engineering) contamination rests with the company that releases
GE crops.
Bayer and Louisiana State
University had been testing the rice, which was bred to be resistant to Bayer's
Liberty-brand herbicide, at a school-run facility in Crowley, Louisiana. The
variety eventually "contaminated" more than 30 percent of U.S. ricelands, said
Don Downing, lawyer for the plaintiffs, at the start of the trial.
Reportedly, Bayer denied the
testing program had been negligently managed.
However at the ruling of a
federal jury, Bayer will award damages for losses incurred by farmers Kenneth
Bell and Johnny Hunter to the tune of $1.96 million to Mr. Bell (who claims
Bayer's negligence cost him more than $2.2 million) and $53,336 to Mr. Hunter
who is no longer a rice farmer.
The farmers' request for a punitive
award was rejected.
Despite this, Mr. Hunter
described the outcome in a statement as a "huge victory" which gave the company
"the wake-up call they deserved".
"Not only for Kenny and me,
but for every farmer in America who was harmed by Bayer's LibertyLink rice
contamination."
The case is expected to be
the tip of the ice-berg. Farmers from Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and
Mississippi have filed more than 1,000 similar cases against Bayer since the
U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in August 2006 that trace amounts of
the genetically modified LibertyLink rice were found in U.S. long-grain rice
stocks.
Reportedly, according to a
consolidated complaint filed by the farmers, rice futures plummeted within four
days of the 2006 USDA announcement, costing U.S. growers about $150 million with
exports also falling.
Greenpeace say a report
prepared for Greenpeace International found the total costs incurred throughout
the world as a result of the contamination are estimated to range from $741
million to $1.285 billion US dollars; and say all outdoors field trials or
commercial growing of GE crops should be stopped before crops are irreversibly
contaminated.
The case again raises
concerns regarding segregation of GM crops - including GM Canola which was grown
and harvested for the first time in small commercial quantities in NSW and
Victoria in 2008-09.
Dr. Andrew Monk, Director,
Biological Farmers of Australia, says that to date Australia has remained well
placed in the risk management of contamination from GMO crops - "however this
does not look likely to last that much longer with the repeal of moratoria on
plantings of GMO crops in the past year.
"The irony in this situation is
that those who talk about choice and about user pays policy appear not to be at
all concerned about the prevention of choice (for non GMO contaminated crops and
foods) nor about ensuring it actually is the user that pays the full costs of
the use of such GMO varieties. This means that the organic industry will need to
continue to be very vigilant - as it currently is - in preventing synthetic
agrichemicals from entering the organic production chain. We are driven by what
consumers are both demanding and expecting, and we can only hope that government
regulators pay more attention to this than is currently the case."
Currently certified organic
products remain one of few alternatives for concerned consumers who want a
GM-free guarantee - under the Australian Organic Standard (which ACO operators
are audited to) GM ingredients are prohibited.
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