CAROLINE JONES, PRESENTER: Hello. I'm Caroline Jones. Tonight: the conclusion of our story about childhood friends in the West Australian wheat belt and their epic neighbourhood dispute. At the centre of it is a struggle between genetically modified crops versus organic farming. But for Stephen Marsh and Michael Baxter, their falling out has been devastating and it's split their close-knit rural community. We begin with this short recap:

(Recap of previous episode)

GARY MARSH, STEPHEN MARSH'S BROTHER: Kojonup’s on the highway. A town of about 2,500 people. We grow sheep, grain and we grow international news stories (laughs).

CHRIS ROBINSON, AGRONOMIST: When the case started, really it was just between two neighbours across the fence.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: We grow predominately organic oats. I believe I have an obligation to produce food as safely as we can.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: I’ve never seen a viable organic farmer yet. Most of the organic farmers end up going broke and going back to normal farming.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: In 2008 I went to see Michael just to explain how it could possibly affect us in the future if GM crops were commercially released in WA. Autumn 2010: Michael informed me that he intended to grow GM canola on the range.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL'S WIFE: The phone rang and it was Stephen Marsh on the phone. And he more or less said to me, "I found canola on my farm and I’m not happy."

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER (home video): This plant has still got a number of seeds on it.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: We signed a contract. We’d have to notify our certifying body. In the end, NASAA de-certified nearly three-quarters of the property.

ROSE MARSH, STEPHEN'S MOTHER: I never, ever thought in my wildest dreams that the Marshs and Baxters would ever come to a falling out as this.

(End of recap)

NEWSREADER (voiceover, Dec. 2010): An organic farmer in the Great Southern says he will sue the owner of a neighbouring farm after being stripped of his certification because GM canola was found on his property.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: I heard the story on the radio about, you know, the GM farmer affecting an organic farmer. And straight away, well, I knew they were talking about me. We just carried on at that stage 'cause there was nothing we could really do. The harvest went really well. We had some great yields and some great results - on a dry year too, because it was a very dry year that year.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: It’s a pretty hard thing to do to try and keep your cool and not let it worry you, with the kids and the schooling and Christmas time coming up, which is supposed to be a happy time.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: And we couldn’t see how we could, you know, get into trouble for doing something legal and we hadn’t done anything wrong.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: There’s always worries in farming and what can blow across the fence. Farming’s a big gamble with Mother Nature.

(footage of Michael reviewing crop with son)

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER (to son): Not too much grass growing underneath. It must've got a pretty good kill with the spray. Looks like there's plenty of seed in the head. It's going to be a week and a half to two weeks at the most, probably.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: Monsanto obviously made the GM canola. Yeah, well, the seed’s more expensive than normal seed. You had to buy it off Monsanto every year.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: I had seen the results and the weed control in our crops, so I couldn’t see any harm in that. We probably didn’t realize how big a thing it was going to end up to be.

NEWS REPORTER (voiceover): Kojonup farmer Steve Marsh alleges that GM material blew in from a neighbouring property belonging to Michael Baxter.

SUE MARSH, STEPHEN'S WIFE: We’re very private and my husband was computer illiterate before this as well. We had phone calls from different media - and that would be five days a week. So basically we were doing farm work two days out of the week. And, as anybody that runs a business of any sort would know that, you can’t survive doing two days a week.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: You know, I’d never dealt with media before. I-I’d never obviously dealt with an impact on our business like this before. It was a pretty stressful time. Sue and I were just trying to deal with so many things. You’re still trying to run a farm. You know, we had to quarantine sheep. We used up our hay resources trying to quarantine that. We were in a pretty bad year as well. It was a bit of a drought year, 2010.

SUE MARSH, STEPHEN’S WIFE: In a way, you’re floundering because you didn’t know what you were allowed to do. You sort things out to the best of your ability. You don’t really get to know what’s going on around you, because you’re in the eye of a storm. And you’re basically doing what you can at the time.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: Obviously, once we lose the certification we’re losing, you know, in some cases half our grains income. We don’t know how long you're going to be decertified. So you don’t know how long these losses are going to continue for. Is it going to be one year, two years, five years, 10 years?

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: I believe to some extent Steve and Michael were caught up in a much bigger debate.

(footage of anti-GM protesters)

PROTESTERS: Hell, no GMO! Hell, no GMO!

PETER CUNDALL, HORTICULTURALIST AND CONSERVATIONIST: We don’t know what happened. This is non-proven science.

BILL CRABTREE, PASTORALISTS AND GRAZIERS ASSOC: They can have GM and non-GM side by side, but you can’t have GM-free because nature won’t allow it.

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: Outside of Kojonup we’ve got a huge debate raging about the future of food. And will food be GM? Will it be GM-free? Will it be organic? And that debate has raged ever since GM came on the scene in North America.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: We tried to prevent it happening. We still believe to this day that it shouldn’t have happened.

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: When I heard Steve on the radio talking about his contamination, I was shocked and saddened because this is something that I had dreaded.

JOHN SNOOKE, PASTORALIST AND GRAZIERS ASSOC.: Advocates of the technology were genuinely watching the space. Given the claims that were being made by Steve Marsh and the organic organisations in the country, I was sceptical. I had formed a view that they meant business. They were going to stop GM canola, come what may. Whilst I didn’t know Michael Baxter, I could see from a publicity point of view that his days and weeks ahead were going to be challenging.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: After harvest we'd go down to Albany fishing, which is about three hours south from here. And while we were down there on holidays I did receive a call from Pastoralists and Graziers - PGA we call them - from John Snooke, which is one of the organisers.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: And we’re not members with PGA. We had been long-time members with the WA Farmers Federation.

JOHN SNOOKE, PASTORALIST AND GRAZIERS ASSOC: There was no doubt he was overwhelmed by the situation. It wasn’t insurmountable, I told him. We had sought legal advice and we thought he had really solid ground to stand on.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: Yeah, when we came back to the farm we had these letters in the mailbox from Stephen’s lawyer.

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: Steve always wanted to avoid suing his neighbour and he communicated that.

EXCERPT OF LETTER FROM STEPHEN'S LAWYER (voiceover): I acknowledge and understand that this is likely to be a very difficult and stressful time for you.

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: It’s not that simple as having a beer and having a chat over the back fence. Let’s be frank about it: Steve’s lost potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars into the future. So I don’t quite know how that happens, that conversation, but it does need to be quite a clear and direct conversation.

EXCERPT OF LETTER FROM STEPHEN'S LAWYER (voiceover): So as to avoid unnecessary costs my client would prefer to enter into a dialogue with you in terms of their claim for damages, rather than commence court action.

JOHN SNOOKE, PASTORALIST AND GRAZIERS ASSOC: Michael’s first instinct was to make this go away as quick as he could, to alleviate the pressure on himself, firstly, but his family.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: And PGA supported us and found us a lawyer and...

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: They said, "Well, we’ll set up a fighting fund", which is just a thingy out for farmers to put some donation in there to try and help for the legal costs.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: Then Monsanto came out for a chat and said "Oh, maybe we should just pay out Stephen Marsh." I said, "No. If you’ve got that attitude, you might as well leave now." Because we’re here to fight for the farmers and for us: our future, our boys’ future. Because if we lay down, well, it’s going to open a can of worms and everyone will be suing everyone for, you know, for the most silliest things where we had nothing to do with it.

JOHN SNOOKE, PASTORALIST AND GRAZIERS ASSOC: I don’t think anything was going to stop this issue. And the only way it was going to be resolved, ever, to get the facts on the table, was for it to go to court.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: After the summer rains, we started to find the first lot of GM canola plants growing.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER (voiceover, home video, 2011): we’re now approaching the second GM canola plant to self-germinate on Eagle Rest.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: And then, of course, during the growing season after we seeded our crops in 2011, as the crops were growing we started to find self-sown canola plants in those crops.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER (voiceover, home video, 2011): We’re filming a canola plant growing in my oats crop in paddock 12.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: When we tested those crops, most of them were genetically modified.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER (voiceover, home video, 2011): We can now clearly see two pink lines. This particular canola plant has tested positive to GM.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: We were sort of bonded, Michael and I, because we were fighting for the same cause: to save the farm, to protect our family. Monsanto were great and supportive. They don’t get the recognition for all the good things they do. Everyone just hates the rich person. We went to New Zealand for Monsanto and we were one of the speakers for one of their big meetings. They just sort of looked at us as amazing that we’ve, you know, stuck by our guns. They’d always ring up and see how we're going and just, you know, touch base to see if everything was alright.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: So it's certainly is a relief that you’ve got a fair bit of backing behind you.

BRIAN BRADLEY, LAWYER FOR MICHAEL BAXTER: The arrangements that were put in place for Michael are confidential. That was a condition of the arrangements: that they be kept confidential. So I’m not at liberty to disclose what they were.

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: I called Stephen. I put him in touch with Slater and Gordon. They’re a big firm who get involved in a lot controversial cases. Slater and Gordon were happy to act under their public interest policy, which means they didn’t charge anything for their time. A year-and-a-half after the saga started, Stephen’s lawyers issued proceedings in the Western Australian Supreme Court and the fight was on.

BRIAN BRADLEY, LAWYER FOR MICHAEL BAXTER: There was no previous case like this in Australia or anywhere else in the world which I could find, where a GM farmer was being accused of having contaminated an organic farm in this way.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: Our boys - Rees, Ash and Cody - there’s a lot of strain on them at school. I remember Cody coming home one day and he’s the baby and he was only nine. And he came home in tears and said to me, "Mummy, are we going to lose our farm?" I felt like lashing out. We hadn’t seen hide or hair of Stephen or Sue. And they turned up for the chicken and champagne function. And I was carving the ham in the kitchen and it’s the first time I’ve ever looked at a knife in a different way. And I just put the knife down and I said to the ladies, "I think I need to go and have a drink." And the ladies just looked at me and went, "Are you OK?" And I said, "I will be. I just need to go calm the jets before I do or say something that I shouldn’t."

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: In 2012, November 2012, my wife and myself separated and the three boys stayed with me. And they, we became all the boys and me on the family farm.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: Why I left is because, before the GM episode, started my husband wandered.

SUE MARSH, STEPHEN’S WIFE: Since this case has been happening, a lot of the times we are just living one day at a time, basically. You either float or you sink. Stephen doesn’t always sleep well and he will get up and he will walk. You can always tell how much stress he’s under to how many footprints you can see, going from this hill, heading in different directions.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: Sue and I had discussed some time ago the possible consequences of losing and the cost on us: that we could lose our farm.

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: We needed to rally behind Steve and that’s what we did. We did that. We formed an arrangement whereby we would fundraise.

(excerpt from Safe Food Foundation video)

COSTA GEORGIADIS, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND TV HOST: Wherever and whenever you put something in your mouth, Steve Marsh is there.

PROTESTERS: I am Steve Marsh. I am Steve Marsh.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: We’ve had support from a wide section of people: people on farm stations, people from the environmental movement and the general public.

MATT PRESTON, FOOD JOURNALIST AND TV HOST: What’s Steve's doing is fighting that one big battle for everybody. And, really, everyone who has an interest in this case should get behind and support Steve.

(excerpt ends)

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: It’s on the record: we raised $750,000.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: I mean, every week in just about every newspaper, it's just about this poor Stephen Marsh. "Poor Stephen Marsh has been contaminated." We thought, "Shit, what about us? We’re the poor ones that have been threatened." No, and we’d done nothing wrong and we’d just been farming normally, trying to keep up with the modern times and do the right things. And they’d threatened us and telling us we’ve been the bad person.

ROSYLYNE ALLSOP, MICHAEL’S SISTER: Michael felt at times that he was victimized; that there was so much going on in the media that he hadn’t had his say. So he was really keen for this court case to happen, that he could have his turn.

NEWS REPORTER (voiceover): The landmark legal case is due before the Supreme Court due in Perth tomorrow.

NEWS REPORTER 2 (voiceover): In a case which could have a dramatic influence on the future of genetically modified crops.

MARK WALTER, LAWYER FOR STEPHEN MARSH: What surprised me was the level of international attention. We were receiving inquiries from Japan, Russia, Europe, America.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER (TV News excerpt): We shouldn’t be in this position. That’s the saddest part.

BRIAN BRADLEY, LAWYER FOR MICHAEL BAXTER: It was unusual. I’ve never had a case that was followed so closely by the media.

MARK WALTER, LAWYER FOR STEPHEN MARSH: Steve’s case in a nutshell is that his neighbour, Mr Baxter, grew GM canola in circumstances where Steve had repeatedly warned him of his potential for harm if GM got onto his organic farm. And indeed that’s what’s happened: large amounts of the canola blew onto Steve’s property and that led to loss of certification, his organic certification.

BRIAN BRADLEY, LAWYER FOR MICHAEL BAXTER: Michael argued that the GM plant material was harmless. And he alleged that the true cause of the loss that Marsh suffered was not the arrival of the GM canola but was the fact that Mr Marsh was wrongfully decertified by the certifying organisation.

NEWS REPORTER 3: What started as a dispute at the farm gate has now landed in the WA Supreme Court.

NEWS REPORTER 4: The trial has been set down for three weeks.

NEWS REPORTER 3: Organic farmer Stephen Marsh received a rousing reception from anti-GM protestors.

NEWS REPORTER 5: The landmark case not only pits neighbours against one another but the industry protocols for handling GM crops.

ROSYLYNE ALLSOP: The actual verdict day came. And Mike had to leave home really early in the morning, 'cause it’s a three-hour trip to get to Perth. On the way down, he decided that this warranted a suit for the occasion. So he pulled into the Westfield shopping centre, went straight in, found a black suit that he wanted, came out to the car park and put it straight on and continued driving into town, where I met him. And that's when I said, "Oh, flashed out with a new suit, did we?" (Laughs) So it was funny.

JOHN SNOOKE, PASTORALIST AND GRAZIERS ASSOC: Well, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife in the courtroom that morning. There’s no doubt about that. What surprised all of us was the quickness in which the judge delivered the verdict.

JAMES McHALE, NEWSREADER (ABC TV News, WA): Kojonup farmer Steve Marsh has lost his landmark court case.

REPORTER (TV News): In his judgment, Justice Kenneth Martin dismissed the claim for damages, saying that the claim based on common law negligence was without precedent.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: It certainly sends a cold shiver up your spine. But in saying that, given everything we’d been through, it wasn’t totally unexpected.

(footage of Michael Baxter outside court house with group of anti-GM protesters behind him)

TV NEWS REPORTER: What do you have to say to these people standing behind you?

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: Um, not too much.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: The worst part was there were the protestors. They stood around you and stood behind you and they were slandering things at you, like you’d done something bad or you poisoned the soils. And no, most of them people wouldn’t have a clue about anything. Just... You know, they come out of the jungle with all these stupid protest signs sitting up.

(Footage of anti-GM protesters outside court house)

BILL CRABTREE, PASTORALISTS AND GRAZIERS ASSOC: If you want to kill people with food, the best probability is to give them organic food.

PROTESTERS: Oh, bullshit!

MARK WALTER, LAWYER FOR STEPHEN MARSH: The judge found that it wasn’t the Baxter’s problem; that they didn’t owe any obligation to the Marshs and then that the true cause of the problem was that the certifier had applied the standards in a way which was incorrect.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: When you look carefully at the decision by Justice Martin you will see that, in the detail of his judgment, that it didn’t matter how much my land was contaminated with GM canola: I as an organic farmer or the GM-free farmer are responsible for cleaning it up. Now, we think that’s very unfair.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: And I can remember doing the dishes out the back, listening to the radio and waiting for the text message to come through.

NEWS REPORTER (voiceover): Defendant Mike Baxter says the court made the right decision.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER (voiceover): Absolutely. Been three years of going through this and finally we got the right result.

ZANTHE BAXTER, MICHAEL’S WIFE: And it came through and I just was yelling out and everyone come running, thinking I’d cut myself with a knife or something. And I said, "We won, we won." It’s bitter-sweet because our marriage is finished, kaput. People always ask if I’d go back. But I won’t go back because there’s just too much water under the bridge. If there’s no trust, there’s no relationship.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: Obviously the divorce is going to cost me a fair bit of money. And subsequently I could have purchased more land and expanded.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: I guess the thing that Sue and I look forward to the most is being able to look in our rear view mirror and see the lights of Perth in the background as we’re heading home. I’m still concerned that the GM canola seed that’s contaminated Eagle Rest could still be viable and we still don’t know if Baxters intend to grow it near our boundary.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: Yeah, we're walking along now. We’re coming up to Steve’s property, which adjoins me with a road in between us. He's got his - I’m not sure what he’s got growing in there: oats, I think. It’s a bit hard to tell with all the weeds that growing among it, all the radish. You see all the white flowers and rye grass and bits and pieces. So... and on the left he’s got pasture which grows. And he's had no sheep in there so all the weeds and the rye grass and spear grass has gone rampant.

SUE MARSH, STEPHEN’S WIFE: Yeah, unfortunately we had to sell our last sheep to cover the legal costs. Stephen had been funding all our legal costs up until Slater and Gordon and Safe Food came on and helped us.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: Even today, with the lost stock and our lost production, we’re still losing around $50,000 to $100,000 a year. These are still flow-on effects. These are what people don’t see. And I’d like you to go to Michael and ask him: what happens if he lost half his crop income for three years? Could he survive?

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: Always stood up to my rights and, you know, if I believe in what I’ve done, well, I’ll do that. And yeah, I just, you know, believe in striding out and looking towards the future and, yeah, just doing what comes natural.

SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC FOOD ADVOCATE: Steve’s world at the moment is coming to an absolute climax of concern and anxiety, where he’s lost the first trial. He’s gone to appeal. And my worst fear is that he loses that appeal and then has a costs order against him of up to $1 million. I don’t believe in our wildest dreams that if Steve owes $1 million that we can fundraise that in a few short months - which is what would be required.

GARY MARSH, STEPHEN MARSH’S BROTHER: I imagine it will cost him his farm and I imagine he will have to move out of the district, ultimately.

ROSE MARSH: It’s split the community. I have people who write to me and say, "Oh, he’s doing a wonderful thing. Just, you know, let him know that we support him." But it’s the people that don’t say anything: you wonder how they feel and what their reactions are.

GARY MARSH, STEPHEN MARSH’S BROTHER: I do get on well with Michael. He’s a neighbour and we work in the fire brigade together. And, of course, Stephen’s my brother. I’m proud of his determination and standing up for what he believes in. Yeah.

ROSE MARSH: The saddest part of the lot is: both boys want to grow what they want to grow. They both have every right to be able to grow want they want to grow on their own farms. There should have been things set in place to make sure that this didn’t ever happen and cause all this heartache.

ROSLYNE ALLSOP, MICHAEL BAXTER’S SISTER: Watching this from outside, I sort of wondered if the Government had put enough guidelines in. I was wondering about whether, you know, whether they were just letting it to the farmers to battle out.

STEPHEN MARSH, ORGANIC FARMER: Eagle Rest: not only is it your business and your workplace - a farm is also your home. It’s bad enough to lose a business but to lose your home as well: yeah, it’s pretty... pretty tough.

MICHAEL BAXTER, GM FARMER: Fight with Steve Marsh: well, just what I said. Unfortunate we’ve got involved in it and, you know, we’ve just got to follow it through now and see where the end gets to. But no, my most important thing is to carry on farming and, you know, make sure I can do the best for my boys and maybe, you know, find a future for myself.

END CAPTIONS:

The WA Supreme Court started hearing Stephen Marsh’s appeal today.

The National Association of Sustainable Agriculture (NASAA) says it "rejects" the court's criticism of its zero tolerance policy for GMOs which it says aligns with international standards.

Monsanto said the company was "not a party to the litigation... but hoped the matter would be resolved so the families and the community could move on from a difficult situation."

The WA Agriculture and Food Department declined to be interviewed but provided written responses.