In the meantime, there are better, safer, and more economical short-run measures than genetically engineered foods. Just two cents per pill. In 1998, Monsanto surprised Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser by suing him for doing what he has always done and, indeed, what farmers have done for millennia- save seeds for the next planting. Schmeiser is one of hundreds of Canadian and U.S. farmers the company has sued for reusing genetically engineered seeds. Monsanto has patented those seeds, and forbids farmers from saving them.
Seed is the most important link in the food chain.
From the United States to India, small-scale ecological agriculture is proving itself a viable alternative to chemical intensive and bioengineered agriculture. Another study, published in the American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, found that ecological farms in India were just as productive and profitable as chemical ones. The country where alternative agriculture has been put to its greatest test, however, is Cuba. Cuban agriculture featured enormous production units, using vast quantities of imported chemicals and machinery to produce export crops, while the country imported over half its food. Although the Cuban government's commitment to equity and favorable terms of trade offered by Eastern Europe protected Cubans from undernourishment, the collapse of the East bloc in 1989 exposed the vulnerability of this approach.