Another Tool in the Organic Toolbox

About fifteen years ago, reports began to show up that Monsanto was suing farmers if the ag giant’s GMO seeds showed up in neighboring fields due to wind-borne seed drift. I wondered why organic farmers weren’t banding together in class-action countersuits claiming that Monsanto was ruining their organic certification. That certification isn’t easy or cheap, and I immediately understood that GMO contamination put that certification at risk.

Some did, although I hadn’t heard. A suit by an organic farming association was dismissed because the court didn’t find any evidence of farmers being sued in this situation.

Monsanto denied doing this and claimed to be happy to support a mixed organic-chemiculture-GMO farming culture. But according to the watchdog group Center for Food Safety, the multinational corporation “Monsanto had a department of 75 employees with a budget of $10 million for the sole purpose of pursuing farmers for patent infringement,” at least as far back as 2003.

It turned out that some chemiculture (conventional-ag) wheat farmers also filed suits over non-approved GMO crops being released into the market, rather than threat to organic certification. Those suits were settled.

All this is prelude to a news story in yesterday’s Daily Hampshire Gazette (my local paper) describing a lawsuit by a local pot farmer over pesticide contamination from an adjoining chemiculture berry farm. Apparently, because Massachusetts state law prohibits any pesticide residue in pot, the farmer lost one year’s crop to contamination and at least two more years because their storage freezers were filled with the contaminated crop, which the state is requiring them to keep as evidence—leaving them no room for current crops.

First, the obvious question: if these pesticides shouldn’t be ingested by adults eating or smoking cannabis products, why are we allowing kids to eat them unwashed as they accompany their parents in the u-pick fields? Why should pesticides be allowed on fruits whose sprayed surfaces are directly consumed? While an especially thorny issue (pun intended) for berries, it’s also an issue for apples, pears, plums, cherries, etc. And frankly, even rind fruit is not necessarily uncontaminated.

Second, could this admittedly extreme case finally set legal precedent allowing farmers to sue successfully over threats to their organic status?