GM triffid Flax... who is responsible?

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley,

Who should Flax growers that had GM events forced on them; costing them $$$100's of millions...go after?



Good article on rice:

"Jury tells Bayer to pay Ark. rice farmers $48M
By TOM PARSONS (AP) – 1 day ago

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — German conglomerate Bayer CropScience should pay a dozen Arkansas farmers nearly $50 million for allowing a genetically altered strain of rice to escape into the commercial market, damaging rice prices in 2006, a jury ruled Thursday.

An attorney for the farmers, Scott Powell, said the jury decided on the judgment after less than two hours of deliberations Thursday afternoon in Lonoke County.

The farmers claimed an experimental rice strain developed by Bayer called Liberty Link was allowed to make its way into the stream of commercially marketed rice. Liberty Link was developed to withstand a popular herbicide that kills weeds in the fields.

The suit claimed that rice prices fell after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in August 2006 that trace amounts of Liberty Link rice were found in U.S. long-grain rice stocks.

Bayer argued that any damages farmers may have suffered were minimal, and didn't last long.

The case was the fourth to go to trial among dozens filed by rice-belt farmers against Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant that makes aspirin. Bayer faced judgments of $4.5 million so far in the three cases it had lost before Thursday.

The amount awarded Thursday far exceeds a $1 million judgment returned against Bayer by a Woodruff County jury in March.

Powell said he had asked jurors for $55.9 million. The jury's award for compensatory damages matched the $5.9 million the legal team had sought, Powell said. Jurors decided on $42 million in punitive damages, rather than the $50 million Powell's team had asked for.

"Considering the overwhelming evidence of recklessness and negligence, it was a fair and just verdict," Powell said.

The lead lawyer for Bayer, Dick Ellis, could not be reached for comment Thursday evening after business hours.

Liberty Link rice was developed so farmers could apply Liberty herbicide without fear that it would damage their crops.

No nation has approved genetically modified rice for the marketplace. Rice futures plummeted by $150 million immediately after the contamination announcement. European nations quit accepting shipments of rice from the U.S. that hadn't been extensively tested to show they weren't contaminated. Japan banned all American rice.

Growers in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas filed lawsuits against Bayer.

The Lonoke County farmers argued that Bayer was not only negligent in its handling of Liberty Link rice, but acted with malicious intent by not announcing the contamination of the commercial rice-seed pool as soon as the company learned of it.

The suit claimed Bayer knew of the contamination as early as January 2006, before that year's crops were sowed. Powell said farmers didn't learn of the contamination until the USDA's announcement, when it was almost time to harvest crops.

Ellis, however, said that when Bayer determined that Liberty Link had shown up in commercial rice, it was immediately reported to the government.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved"

[TOM4CWB]

gustgd & Fransisco,

This is not 'junk science'.

Millions upon millions have been lost by growers in western Canada... because we didn't resolve this GM event issue before triffid was released.

How can it be clearer? This was not supposed to happen!

It DID Happen!

My Sorrel flax sits in my bins... because of the supposed 'junk science' that cost me $$$ thousands in testing that still didn't prove purity even though I have negative results!

WHO should pay my bill?

[boarderbloke]

From the perspective of Joe Blow farmer, WE'VE been asking that question for months ! What about OUR costs and OUR markets??? nothing but crickets and excuses...No one would take responsiblity, No one would point fingers to the growers of Trifid Nobody would "out" them ! Then a scam to force us all to grow Certified Seed, till finally Humpty fell off the wall! Now we're all phucked, if you can tell I'm bitter, your right! Thanks a phucking lot, certified Triffid seed growers!

[Kodiak]

I need a refresher. Did some rats die somewhere - or develop Triffid tumors? Were some babies born deformed because their mothers ate Triffid flax? Did someone die, or even get seriously ill? Has a renowned scientist found GM caused carcingens in any foods - of any kind? What about the rice? Same questions. Canola? Soybeans? Corn? Beer? French cheeses? Penicillin?

[hlg]

Who cares about the rat!! I care about my bank account. Our customers set the rules, it`s their money. So we either educate them to our product or we supply what they want. Telling anyone what they have to buy when other product is available, that meets their specs, will never work!

[hlg]

Obviousy developers of products(triffid in this case)are responsible,but when governmevt grants and lobbiests get involved joe farmer is in trouble. I love technology, but sooner or later someone will make a non reversable mistake(maybe already). How well researched and checked are todays new products , after all that matters to Monsanto and others is bottom line and share price.

[Fransisco]

Kodiak hit the nail on the head.

Tom, the $$ losses are real and they are the result of <b>JUNK SCIENCE.</b>

Flax growers didn't do anything wrong, the breeders didn't do anything wrong, you didn't do anything wrong yet your perfectly good flax sits in the bin.

Junk Science costs a lot of people a lot of money every day. I lost a pile of it on my hogs last year because H1N1 got wrongly named "Swine Flu".

These kinds of things are going to keep on happening as long as we continue giving the superstitious, paranoid, peddlers of panic the benefit of the doubt without any evidence to back it up.

[wmoebis]

If the EU isn't buying our flax and we supply the majority of their flax, what are they doing for flax now and how much are they paying?

[TOM4CWB]

Fransisco,

How can we collectively say no one did anything wrong... when my breeder seed had 1-2 seeds per million seeds (I am told by the owner and breeder of the variety)of triffid GM contamination.

I paid for 5 tests doing 240grams (4 60gm sub-samples tested) and all came up negative. Yet if there is 1 seed in a million seeds... I still could have easily missed that one seed.

SO when the owner of the 5 varieties say that all these CDC Saskatoon varieties are contaminated... and as indications are other breeding insitutions have the same problem....

How did the triffid GM event get into all of this breeder seed ( that was in turn sent to pedigreed seed growers ) in the first place?

You call it 'junk science'... I ask how they say this GM event supposedly got into my field and seed?

Am I supposed to test 1000 times... (spend $200,000) till I finally do get one positive seed to show up...?

Or is the testing system even reliable enough... (who can prove false positives are not possible) to actually scientifically prove (or disprove)I have this GM event on my farm in the first place?

Recalibrating .1%... to .01%... to .0025%... and the test protocol says they can not tell below .01%.

Canada tests use a different protocol than the EU/US ISO...

Yet we must have no GM event... to actually satisfy the EU ISO standards.

How does this have ANYTHING to do with all the pedigreed seed growers who never had any triffid flax anywhere near their farms... in the 1990's... when this GM event was released and then pulled back off the market?

Now I ask you... where are the 'junk scientists' now...

Should not they pay?



They did in the US!

[SASKFARMER3]

Sadly the farmer will always loose. We took a huge corp to court about 10 years or so back. Man what an experience. It was a slam dunk case we had all the right people up to the CEO of the corp at our farm. Our lawyer thought it was a slam dunk. They were willing to settle then their insurance company got involved and we fought in court for 5 more years. Do you want to guess what the lawyers bills totaled. It came down to one thing they had more money than we did to fight and they knew who would win. It was one tough life lesson. But we had only 6 participants in beginning. On this flax one their are thousands. Maybe it could be won. But will take 5 years or more. You can count on that.
I'm out of the flax market for years so not involved but this worries me about Canola, Lentils and Peas then HRS. Were growers they control the science.

[parsley]

Sorry Tom, I've been on a buying binge!

If anyone initiates a suit, they must show a real legitimate loss. You certainly can. You have the quantity, the price and the unsold inventory to prove your point. Also, the stagnant flax sales to the EU have been tabulated by the trade and by the flax council itself. THERE IS A REAL LOSS. Only the deceptive will try to convince farmers there is no flax money loss.

If I were to sue, I would target the company shareholders who originally legally purchased Triffid from the University of Saskatchewan,and follow their path of changing and renaming and reinventing into various other companies right up and until the present time even though they have de-registered.

The courts will not be fond of actions that leave garbage for others to pick up, by merely changing names. I would contact infected and non-infected farmers who recognize there is a loss, and initiate a class action.

I would target two causes for claim. 1. Personal lost sales such as yours, and
2. Markets lost in the EU for someone like borderbloke where the grain just isn't moving.

I would also refer the Court to the bill the NDP just had passed in the house of Commons as a support of the validity of my claim. Even the MP's can see there is some loss of market share. In my opinion, and it is only an opinion, deceptive parties, who I believe to often be payrolled hacks, will pretend that loss does not exist. But as you said Tom, it does.

I would employ Cameron Plett. Pars

[cottonpicken]

Tom,i thought you are a certified seed grower,your
telling us you never sold any certified seed for 16
bucks,that its all in your bin?

[parsley]

"need a refresher. Did some rats die somewhere - or develop Triffid tumors? Were some babies born deformed because their mothers ate Triffid flax? Did someone die, or even get seriously ill? Has a renowned scientist found GM caused carcingens in any foods - of any kind? What about the rice? Same questions. Canola? Soybeans? Corn? Beer? French cheeses? Penicillin?"

1. If your wife's cupboards were delivered and installed and they were bright orange painted plywood, instead of the walnut ones she'd ordered, could the cupboard company use your argument?

[parsley]

"need a refresher. Did some rats die somewhere - or develop Triffid tumors? Were some babies born deformed because their mothers ate Triffid flax? Did someone die, or even get seriously ill? Has a renowned scientist found GM caused carcingens in any foods - of any kind? What about the rice? Same questions. Canola? Soybeans? Corn? Beer? French cheeses? Penicillin?"

1. If your wife's cupboards were delivered and installed and they were bright orange painted plywood, instead of the walnut ones she'd ordered, could the cupboard company use your argument?

[parsley]

"need a refresher. Did some rats die somewhere - or develop Triffid tumors? Were some babies born deformed because their mothers ate Triffid flax? Did someone die, or even get seriously ill? Has a renowned scientist found GM caused carcingens in any foods - of any kind? What about the rice? Same questions. Canola? Soybeans? Corn? Beer? French cheeses? Penicillin?"

1. If your wife's cupboards were delivered and installed and they were bright orange painted plywood, instead of the walnut ones she'd ordered, could the cupboard company use your argument?