Percy Schmeiser has spent fifty years farming his land near Bruno, Saskatchewan. Now suddenly, Schmeiser is fighting what may be the strangest battle in the history of agriculture. There was no such thing as chemical companies, or even seed companies. They were free and independent. Schmeiser learned a long time ago that the wind is often a farmer's worst enemy.
Wind blows the seeds and pollen of weeds into farm fields, choking out crops.
But now the wind may have brought a new threat to Schmeiser's farm, forcing him to fight for control of the seeds planted in his field. Monsanto makes the weedkiller called Roundup. Spray it onto a field and it kills everything growing there. But now Monsanto has genetically engineered a canola seed so that Roundup doesn't hurt it. That means a farmer can spray Roundup herbicide over an entire field, kill all the weeds growing there, and not hurt the canola crops, as long as it comes from Monsanto's special seed.