In Canada, farmers can grow different varieties of corn or wheat. Some are modified while others are not. Although farmers try to grow GM crops in separate fields, it’s hard to guarantee that the different crops won’t get mixed somewhere in the process.

The seed market is now dominated by a few giant transnational corporations, all competing to take out patents which claim the right to own and exploit crops such as a variety of Basmati rice, grown for many years by third world farmers.

Due to the strict rules regarding harvesting, seed storage and repurchase, the system established by the marketing of patented GM seeds could force poor farmers onto an expensive treadmill of dependence on the firms seeds and chemicals.

If you use GM seeds, you must pay for a new batch of them the following year and are barred from using seeds from the plants themselves to replant the following year.

This system is established exclusively to protect the marketing strategy and bottom lines of the firms that have patented these seed varieties, regardless of their actual role in creating the seeds, regardless of the natural pollination process, and regardless of the motives of the firms in selling the seeds.