Supreme Court of Canada decision Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser, 2004, was a patent challenge revolving around canola seed. Monsanto did alter the genetic make up of canola and subsequently patented the altered genetic make up.
The wind picked up the seeds and blew them around the area beyond the boundaries of the property of neighboring field.
A farmer had collected the seeds from neighboring canola field that had be strewn upon the road and stuck on power poles.
When Monsanto discovered that the farmer was growing and then selling the patented canola crop, litigation followed.
While sitting in my property law class I was reminded of the smell of the yellow fields in northern Alberta. Some days we would ride our bicycles down the dirt road out to the Rape Seed fields. We were told Rape Seed was another name for canola.
In fact, canola and Rape Seed are not the same. However, the memories triggered from my youth and the sea of yellow along the highway on our way to Grande Prairie or Edmonton. We would travel these roads often after the onslaught of domestic abuse that often occurred within the four thin walls of our mobile home (aka trailer park).
Rape’s Seed
ocean’s yellow
pollen rays’ heat
fields prairie’d canola
line after line
after line
seeded affects transform
seasoned processes copulate
birth sprouts erupt seeds sown
blossomed rape spurts into fields
waves and swells roll out
aired reproduction
nasal pollenated rape
annual swells roll
in expansion
fluids collect
through rolling ocean’s
swollen yellow
rape pollenates children’s lungs
