by Christopher Kelly-Bisson

There is a invisible string of four amino acids that unites all life deep within our cells.  Watson and Crick made this discovery in the 1950s, which confirmed an idea that people around the world had held spiritually since time immemorial; that we are all part of one common heritage of life.  But what is life?  And can life be patented?

These are the questions at the core of Seeds a play written by Annabel Soutar and produced by Chris Abrams.  I recently saw Seeds at the National Art Centre in Ottawa, running as part of the English Plays series.  The play is an excellent example of documentary theatre covering the legal case of Monsanto vs. Percy Schmeiser; every character, and their lines are taken verbatim from interviews.  And the protagonist is none other than Annabel herself as she embarks on a mission of investigation to discover the truth: did Percy steal patented technology from Monsanto, or did Monsanto engage in dishonest predatory litigation.

The story follows the monumental legal case that took place in the early 2000s when Monsanto accused a canola farmer in Bruno, Saskatchewan of using patented Roundup-Ready resistant canola seeds on 95-98% of his 1,000 acre farm.  The defence revolved around proving that the Monsanto genetic property blew into his field from farms in the area that was growing Monsanto seeds; and whether Schmeiser knew that he was deliberately violating patent laws by using the seeds without paying royalties to the company.

Those who followed the case would know, (spoiler alert!), that Schmeiser was initially found guilty of the charges in 2004.  However, he was later exempted from paying the cost of using the seeds, and the legal fees of Monsanto, when it was determined that he never stood to gain financially from the infringement.  Though he lost, Schmeiser’s case sparked international outcry among the food sovereignty movement, which brought a public debate on the ethics of GMO patenting into popularity.

The play was promoted as a balanced depiction of the legal case.  Soutar stressed that the viewer was meant to come away from the play with their own conclusions.  This message was given in a “point-of-view” session just before the play.  Soutar explained her process to writing the play, and discussed the importance of the case as a centrepiece in the public debate over GMO patenting.  Juxtaposed next to her was the very Monsanto executive character depicted in the play.  The executive was very quick with neat and polished PR statements to counter every claim against GMO patenting that was made in the play.  She was effective at inserting some very clear inaccuracies on the science and economics of GMOs, and it was rather convenient that there were a handful of well-placed farmers in the audience with well articulated statements declaring their pride in using Monsanto products on their farms.  It was clear after this session, and after watching the play, that if you walked away with a positive view of Monsanto, you were probably on the payroll.

That said, the play did leave some huge questions hanging; what is life if its components can be patented?  The author includes one Long Island ecologist that makes the case that one cannot patent life because it is necessarily a phenomena that takes place as a whole system.  That is, life is not something that is the sum of its parts; life is the phenomena of all the parts working together as a system.

This made me think of the things we talk about in permaculture design.  What is permaculture?  Is it all of the strategies and elements that we incorporate into a living system?  No, it is the process and harmony that we create in the perpetual evolution of living systems.  It is resilient and dynamic rather than simply a complex natural system.  Permaculture is a living design practice, and therefore cannot be broken-down into patentable parts.  The conclusion of this thought to me was that the second anyone claims to own any aspect of what we do, it no longer exists as permaculture.