Maine farmers get a second chance to win court war with Monsanto

Maine farmers get a second chance to win court war with Monsanto

(NaturalNews) Farmers in Maine will have another shot at agri-business
giant Monsanto when a federal appeals court agreed to hear a lawsuit
they filed after it had been dismissed by a lower court earlier this
year.

The suit was filed by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association,
an agricultural group based in Washington, Maine, against St.
Louis-based Monsanto and is slated to be heard Jan. 10, 2013, at the
Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., court documents said.

The
organic seed growers association, as well as 82 additional plaintiffs,
sued Monsanto in March 2011 in federal district court in New York over
the validity of a number of patents the agri-giant holds for genetically
modified crops, the Bangor Daily News reported recently.

'Numerous legal and factual errors'

In
addition, the group is seeking protection from lawsuits in case
Monsanto's GM seeds inadvertently contaminate their crops via natural
causes like seed drift and cross pollination, the paper said.

Despite
their claims; however, U.S. District Judge Naomi Buchwald in February
dismissed the suit before it even went to trial, ruling that plaintiffs'
claims of fearing patent infringement lawsuits from Monsanto were not
reasonable, adding that "these circumstances do not amount to a
substantial controversy and that there has been no injury traceable to
defendants."

But Jim Gerritsen, a seed potato farmer who is president of the Organic Seed Growers Association, told the paper the judge made "numerous legal and factual errors" in deciding the case.

Bringing the case before the federal appeals court will give plaintiffs - represented pro bono by the nonprofit Public Patent Foundation -
a second chance to explain to the three-judge panel how "reversible
errors were committed" and why the cause should be permitted to
continue, Gerritsen said.

In addition to the association's
rebuttals, the appellate court judges will also consider a pair of
amicus briefs, one by 11 law professors and the other by 14 nonprofit
consumer food and safety nonprofits, which were filed in support of the
position taken by the association.

Gerritsen said two of the three judges needed to side with his association in order to send the case back to the lower court.

"We
hope we are given a fair hearing by honorable judges that will take
[Judge Buchwald's] ruling, critique it and put it on a level field," he
told the paper.

Gerritsen said the case was vitally important
because it has implications regarding a farmer's ability to farm how
they want without living in fear of being targeted by a huge agri-giant
like Monsanto, which he says has a 75-person in-house legal team that
cannot be matched by independent farmers. Gerritsen said Monsanto has sued farmers 144 times, "and in each and every one they make the farmer out to be the villain."

Second chance to get it right

"The
fact is we are all at jeopardy, our livelihoods are at stake," he said,
noting that Monsanto's history is that of intimidating and suing farms
where GM crops have shown up.

"If Monsanto can gain ownership of our crops when they contaminate them, how can we possibly continue farming?" Gerritsen said.

As
is usually the case, Monsanto says it's blameless and that it is not
its policy "to exercise [their] patent rights where trace amounts of
[their] see or traits are present in [a] farmer's fields as a result of
inadvertent means," court documents said, according to the Bangor Daily News.

The
paper said the 83 plaintiffs consist of independent farmers, seed
companies and agricultural associations around the nation. Gerritsen
said the plaintiffs represent about 300,000 people and some 25 percent
of all certified organic farms in the U.S. and Canada.

Gerritsen
said now that another court date has been scheduled, he is working to
reestablish a fund to help compensate them financially for having to
travel to attend the court hearings.

"Farmers in general don't
get away from their farms, so we will need all this time to just prepare
a plan so the farmers can get away and travel to Washington, D.C.,"
Gerritsen said.


Source:-
http://www.naturalnews.com/038122_farmers_Monsanto_appeals_court.html