Percy Schmeiser has played a farming David to international crop protection giant Monsanto for more that a decade.
However, Schmeiser has become the giant to a small landholder a few kilometres south of Bruno, Sask.
Gord Bender has complained for years that drainage cut into fields near his home, allegedly by Schmeiser, threatened his house and yard.
Last year his farm home became a soggy-soiled island when a flood reached his doorstep, and under it.
Now, Jim Waggoner of the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority said the agency has ordered Schmeiser to close the ditches. If Schmeiser does not, the agency will hire a contractor and bill Schmeiser for the work.
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Neither Schmeiser nor Bender could be reached for comment.
Bender filed a formal complaint in 2007 asking that the ditches be filled in, but the watershed authority only ruled on the matter this March. It decided that four of seven ditches identified by Bender were damaging Bender’s property and had to be filled.
So far this season, Bender’s house hasn’t been flooded, but the water has flooded some of his land.
Schmeiser was sued by Monsanto in 1997 for growing plants from genetically modified seeds without proper permission from the company. He was found guilty by the Supreme Court of Canada seven years later, but did not have to pay damages.
During that time, Schmeiser became a global symbol for farmers’ rights – a David figure fighting the multinational chemical and biotechnology company.
