Grains: Monsanto contre Schmeiser

by Annabel Soutar

Grains raconte le célèbre procès intenté par la multinationale Monsanto contre un cultivateur de la Saskatchewan. En 1998, le géant des produits chimiques et des biotechnologies accuse Percy Schmeiser d’avoir violé son brevet sur une semence de colza génétiquement modifié : le canola Roundup Ready. Schmeiser prétendait que les graines étaient arrivées dans son champ par contamination aérienne. L’histoire de sa longue résistance — et de sa défaite en Cour suprême du Canada — a fait le tour du monde.

Poussant plus loin l’investigation, Annabel Soutar entraîne le lecteur dans les coulisses de l’agrobusiness en lui faisant vivre « de l’intérieur » les méthodes qu’emploie Monsanto pour introduire ses semences OGM dans les communautés agricoles du Canada et du monde entier. Intimidation, délation, pots-de-vin, campagnes de dénigrement et, bien sûr, poursuites judiciaires sont au menu, pendant que l’État canadien abdique son rôle de surveillance de l’industrie et d’information du public.

Dans cette pièce de théâtre documentaire, genre dont elle s’est fait une spécialité, l’auteure entremêle la transcription du procès et ses propres entretiens avec Schmeiser, des avocats, des cultivateurs, des industriels, des chercheurs, des fonctionnaires et des militants. Loin de tout manichéisme, elle met en scène son enquête, ses doutes quant aux véritables mobiles de l’accusé ainsi que son questionnement sur la possibilité de breveter et de privatiser le vivant.

Genres: Plays, 21st Century, School, Theatre

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

Annabel Soutar is a Montreal-based playwright and producer. In 2000 she co-founded the theatre company Porte Parole Productions with actor Alex Ivanovici and she has acted as artistic director of the company since its inception.

Annabel takes a documentary approach to theatre and since 1998 has applied it to her original plays: Novembre, 2000 Questions, Santé!, Import/Export, Sexy béton, J'aime Hydro, and Fredy.

In 2012 Seeds was published in both English (Talonbooks) and French (Les Editions ecosociété) and presented across Canada in Montreal (Centaur Theatre), Calgary (Theatre Junction), Vancouver (PUSH Festival for the Performing Arts), and in Ottawa (National Arts Centre of Canada) in a production directed by Chris Abraham, a tour remounted in 2016.

In 2012 Annabel was commissioned with Chris Abraham of Crow’s Theatre in Toronto to write a new documentary play about fresh water for the 2015 Toronto Pan American / Para Pan American Games cultural program, Panamania. That play, The Watershed, premiered at the Berkeley Street Theatre (Canadian Stage) in Toronto during the Games.

Soutar lives in Montreal with actor Alex Ivanovici and their two daughters Ella and Beatrice.

Reviews

[Lily Taillefer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting matter but found it hard to read.

[mel🕯]

got assigned this play for a class im taking this semester about agri-food law and it was surprisingly not bad ? it's interesting story and case and its nice to know more about canada’s gmo system

[Lilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Madison De Asis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda lame ngl but this was my first exposure to documentary theatre which is a pretty cool genre

[Suze · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see this documentary style play being successfully staged if slick and fast paced. Using many interviews and court transcripts, Soutar presents waves of information and many tangents to the genetically modified food issue, based on a Saskatchewan farmer who took on Monsanto in the courts. I was both fascinated and overwhelmed, and closed the book realizing that the truth did not live with either side. But came away agreeing with the underlying question that needs to be answered: What is life and who owns it?

[Dominic Fortin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fort instructif... Par contre, il faudrait une suite vu tout le nouveau des dernières années.