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Ira Wallace and other small organic farmers have banded together to challenge an mighty agricultural giant, arguing that Monsanto’s patented transgenic seeds do not benefit society.

My uncle Gordon’s partner Ira Wallace has been part of our family for more than 15 years. At holidays, my mother eagerly awaits Ira’s arrival for help with sprawling meals-Ira can cook anything, probably because she can grow anything.

“I grew up with my grandmother who gardened. We had ducks and guineas and, since this was in Florida, mangoes and avocado trees and pecan trees,” Ira said, laughing. “It was one of those big, old yards at the edge of town.” When she went off to college she hoped she would never have to weed again. But when her grandmother died the same year, Ira began feeling the absence of the family garden and started learning about seed saving, the process of using seeds from one harvested plant to grow the next year’s crop. Later, she helped start two communal farming communities in Virginia. “I’m not exactly the most organized teacher,” she said, “so it’s great living with people because some of the things that I value younger people can learn.”

In March, Ira learned that a tumor had grown near her brain, which her doctors expected to be benign. But when it was removed in early April, a biopsy revealed the tumor was a relatively rare, aggressive and malignant type, called Rhabdoid meningioma. The prognosis for survival with a good quality of life was between two and five years. Ira’s response was to throw her efforts primarily into one project, which encompassed the work she’d done with seeds and organic gardening throughout her life: a lawsuit against the multinational agricultural giant Monsanto.

One of the largest seed and herbicide companies in the world, Monsanto has a long history of prosecuting farmers on whose land Monsanto’s patented transgenic seeds have been found. It is widely documented that seeds may arrive on farmland by a number of routes beyond deliberate planting-including wind, birds, and spillover from passing trucks-but Monsanto has repeatedly sued farmers for patent infringement even if the farmers never intended to plant or harvest transgenic crops, and have a history of using only conventional or organic seeds. The plaintiffs, including the organization that Ira co-owns, called Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE), are preemptively suing Monsanto in a case that, if won, would protect them from such lawsuits in the future.