Iraqi Farmers Aren't Celebrating World Food Day (Pay Monsanto, or starve)

[Robbien]

As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations -- including seeds the Iraqis themselves developed over hundreds of years. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve.
When the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) celebrated biodiversity on World Food Day on October 16, Iraqi farmers were mourning its loss.

A new report <1> by GRAIN and Focus on the Global South has found that new legislation in Iraq has been carefully put in place by the US that prevents farmers from saving their seeds and effectively hands over the seed market to transnational corporations. This is a disastrous turn of events for Iraqi farmers, biodiversity and the country's food security. While political sovereignty remains an illusion, food sovereignty for the Iraqi people has been made near impossible by these new regulations.

"The US has been imposing patents on life around the world through trade deals. In this case, they invaded the country first, then imposed their patents. This is both immoral and unacceptable", said Shalini Bhutani, one of the report's authors.

http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/iraq_seeds.htm

[Career Prole]

1. They did the exact same sh*t in Africa. Starve the beast! n/t

[Robbien]

2. Also in India, South America and everywhere else

they could just to make a buck. This invasion of Iraq was not just for oil, its purpose was to grab and sell all Iraqi assets.

[SharonAnn]

15. In Iraq, they also have to sell the water, electric, sewer, etc. to

private companies. So they can pay the private companies for water, etc. or die.

The privatization of Iraq was the second major reason for the Invasion of Iraq.

[Crunchy Frog]

3. That is a move that is just about guaranteed

to keep the insurgency well fuelled as long as we remain there.

I wouldn't be willing to bet on a long lifespan for a Monsanto official sent to Iraqi farms to enforce this new policy.

[cosmicaug]

4. Document the claims!

Robbien wrote:

As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds.

Where does the law say that Iraqi farmers will not be permitted to save their seed? I see claims that there will be no intellectual property protection afforded to such a seed which was the case also before the invasion, but why the inference that that means they cannot plant such seed?

Do I think it's right? No, the administration is foolishly trying to turn Iraq into a utopia of neoliberal economic policy and they'll undoubtedly screw it up. These decisions should be up to the legitimate Iraqi government (granted that's a bit of a problem since they don't actually have one yet) and the U.S. shouldn't be imposing these policies beyond what is strictly needed until the a legitimate government gets voted in.

The fact that think it's a mistake, however, doesn't mean that I approve of grain.org inventing stories regarding Iraqi farmers being forced to buy certain types of seed (as I'm assuming to be the case).

[Robbien]

5. The new Iraqi law states you cannot save your own seeds

You have to buy international patented seeds. You wanted documentation, well look here:

http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf

In the pdf it clearly states it is illegal for Iraqi farmers to use saved seed from their own stocks from last year's harvest or purchased from local markets. When the new law is put into effect, seed saving will be illegal and the market will only offer proprietary "PVP-protected" planting material "invented" by transnational agribusiness corporations.

[cosmicaug]

7. Could you quote the exact passage?

Robbien posted the following:

http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf
You have to buy international patented seeds. You wanted documentation, well look here:

http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf

In the pdf it clearly states it is illegal for Iraqi farmers to use saved seed from their own stocks from last year's harvest or purchased from local markets. When the new law is put into effect, seed saving will be illegal and the market will only offer proprietary "PVP-protected" planting material "invented" by transnational agribusiness corporations.

Since you claim that this is so clearly stated, I assume you must have read that document. Could you please give me the exact quote where it is claimed that seed saving will be illegal? I must confess that I have not read all of that (legalese, not my idea of fun and all that) and that the closest I could find in a very quick scan was the following:.

Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 81 states as follows:

66) Chapter Threequater, Article 15 is added to read as follows:
“A. Notwithstanding Article 14 of this Chapter, the breeder's right shall not include the following acts of third parties for personal non-commercial purposes, for purposes of experimentation or education of new varieties.
B. Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph (C) of Article 14 of this Chapter.”

Note that the above refers to protected varieties and derivations thereof. Whatever the local varieties farmers happen to have been growing all of these years do not constitute protected varieties and thus what I quoted form the PDF you supplied does not apply to it.

Now, of course, if the farmers happen to be growing the latest Monsanto GM variety (probably developed from varieties grown in the continental U.S. so it might not be such a hot idea), they would not be allowed to save that seed, that's all that's saying.

So if you can tell me where it says what you says it says, I would be most appreciative because indeed it would be an outrage (and, given the implications regarding individual property rights, it would stand against everything Republican types claim to stand for, I might add).

[Robbien]

10. The seed strains they are using now are owned by Monsanto

What this rule states is that the Iraqis can no longer use seeds from their own plants since Monsanto owns the patent to the strain. So each year Iraqis now have to buy new seeds from Monsanto.

edit to further explain: During the last two years while the war was going on many of the Iraqi fields have withered and died because there hasn't been enough irrigation, or money to pay the labor to support the fields. Grain houses have been destroyed. Crops have been contaminated. The agricultural economy has collapsed... hard to grow and sell your produce when there are warplanes bombing your village.

The US solution to this problem is to provide GMO seeds, which require a license to use. The Iraqis don't have much choice in the matter... the economy has been devistated, and they need to take whatever they can get.

[cosmicaug]

12. For all practical purposes, you might be correct.

Robbien wrote:

During the last two years while the war was going on many of the Iraqi fields have withered and died because there hasn't been enough irrigation, or money to pay the labor to support the fields. Grain houses have been destroyed. Crops have been contaminated. The agricultural economy has collapsed... hard to grow and sell your produce when there are warplanes bombing your village.

The US solution to this problem is to provide GMO seeds, which require a license to use. The Iraqis don't have much choice in the matter... the economy has been devistated, and they need to take whatever they can get.

If this is true (actually, if we have provided any significant quantities of seed whatsoever, it probably is true as it is my understanding that whether a crop is bioengineered or not has little to do with whether it may be considered a protected variety* --just like if you go to your friendly neighborhood nursery and pick up any randomly chosen rose bush variety, it will also be considered to be protected by intellectual property law), then it is indeed a despicable tactic. However, both vegsource.com and grain.org seem to be making a broader claim that the new law bans seed saving in the general sense and that it that it requires the use of plant material that is tainted by intellectual property claims. It's looking to me like that is false.

So for all practical purposes you may be right (with the caveat that American provided seed stock must be widespread at the present for this to be the case) but the phrasing both at vegsource.com and at grain.com is highly misleading.

* Though I could be wrong.

[Career Prole]

6. "why the inference that that means they cannot plant such seed?"

If it can be done here, it can be done there.

The two men were private investigators. They had been watching him.
Monsanto, the St. Louis agribusiness giant, had sent them. They wanted to know about his beans.

Under advice of his lawyer, Good finally told them: The beans had been grown from seed saved from the previous harvest, a practice that goes back to the beginning of farming.

But those unassuming, pea-sized yellow beans were high-tech Monsanto beans.

Good, 42, is now the target of a federal lawsuit he fears could break him financially. It is one of about two dozen pending suits, not to mention hundreds of complaints, pursued by Monsanto about alleged misuse of its genetically altered cotton, canola, corn and soybean seeds.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/bigbeans022602.cfm

[cosmicaug]

8. I expressed myself poorly.

Career Prole posted the following:

If it can be done here, it can be done there.

When I asked why that means that they cannot plant such seed, I was actually referring to the local unprotected varieties, not the protected varieties.

On edit: I expressed myself poorly again and tried to fix it by changing my original sentence to something somewhat comprehensible (changed "why the that that means they cannot plant" to "why that means that they cannot plant").

[Career Prole]

9. I see...carry on, then!

:hi:

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Tell me one more time, those of you who defended this war . . .

. . . that it is liberation, not colonialism.

[OrwellwasRight]

13. F%$k Monsanto!! Does anyone

know if they have any actual consumer products we can boycott? I'm so effing sick of this nonsense.

On the one hand: the market is infallible, a sacred cow, we can't mess it up through regulation.

On the other: but we are going to force farmers to grown and consumers to buy GM products --and, here's the truly evil part: we won't give those "free market" consumers the information they need to avoid these products if they wish to.

Sometimes, I wish the Luddites had won.

[Emillereid]

14. Buy organic. Buy locally produced stuff as much as possible.

Monsanto is one of the most evil companies on the face of the planet. Stay away from equal sugar substitute -- I'm not sure if they still own it, but it's not good for you anyway.

[OrwellwasRight]

16. Thanks.

I will spread the word about equal. I am the boycott guru in my circile of friends so I will spread the word.

BTW, I do buy, local, green, and organic, sometimeseven when it dents my mediocre public servant income. :-)

[Emillereid]

17. If there's a farmer's market near you -- that's better still.

They are often cheaper too.

[Gut Check]

18. what would happen if the farmers used their own seeds? nt