>>>
>>>And don't forget Monsanto ... which is now backed by the Courts.
>>
>>Please expound on this point, I don't get it?
>>John
>
>Monsanto has developed a strain of Canola that is resistant to herbicides and for which you need a license if you want to grow it.
>
>The Courts however, have no concept of "dust in the wind"; or in this case, "seeds".
>
>Farmers are getting sued by Monsanto for "illegally" growing Monsanto Canola. The Courts have sided with Monsanto. Farmers are having to destroy their crops if they don't pay up, even though they maintain they haven't done any seeding using Monsanto's Canola. There's no other evidence than this stuff growing here and there.
>
>It's a reflection of how the system works in Canada. (Western) Farmers also can't sell wheat on the open market, even if it rots in the silos. They have to go thru marketing boards. The alternative is fines, confiscation and/or jail.
>
>So when someone starts talking Socialism/Communism/Nationalism, it triggers a gagging reflex in me.

You forgot another little aspect of this Monsanto/canola thing...
A few months before the court ruling came down some European country found that same stuff growing in one of their fields. Full field of the stuff (not wind-blown). Investigation determined the source to have been a shipment from North America on date xx/yy/zz. Monsanto's answer was that it was a mistake.
I, and I'm sure many others, find this a bit hard to swallow. Here you have a product that is so valuable to them that they send out private planes/helicopters to detect it growing in unlicensed fields. You also have a very strong anti-GMO tendency among many European governments. Yet Monsanto simply claims a shipping error and forgets about it?
They know that, once it's "out there" there's no stopping it. So they made sure it got out there, in my humble opinion.

By the way, I agree that the Canadian Wheat Board and its powers does not fit in our society, based on things I've heard reported.