U.S. makes it a crime for Iraqi farmers to save and plant their own seeds, citing intellectual prope

U.S. companies, through influence with the Iraqi government, are trying to corner the market for Iraq's food supply.

Agriculture started in the Fertile Crescent and was the key to the development of fixed settlements - the cornerstone of civilization, essential to man's survival as a species. Over thousands of years, farmers have bred and crossbred different food-yielding plants, invented new farming techniques and new ways of increasing the output of the field. The most basic of these techniques include using seeds from this year's crop for next year's planting and trading seeds with other people.

For the first time since the development of written language, it is illegal in Mesopotamia to replant seeds or to trade seeds from crops farmers have grown. Paul Bremer, former American Administrator of the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority, made a change to Iraq's intellectual property law last April that requires Iraqi farmers to pay a yearly license to North American companies for each year's crops.

Without a renewed license, Iraqi farmers cannot replant each year's seeds, like 97 percent of them currently do. Also, they cannot sell or trade the seeds - because the genetic materials of the crops are patented.

...

Genetically manipulated food isn't new. Farmers have been throwing away seeds that yield bad crops in favor of seeds that yield good crops for millennia, creating optimum crops through human-guided artificial selection. Even before direct gene modification was possible, genetic engineering was done through splicing and hybridization. What is new is the idea that agribusinesses are able to patent their crops' DNA.

Bremer's order makes it especially hard to work as a farmer in Iraq, and makes a convenient incentive for Iraqi farmers to sell their farms to American interests.

If American agribusiness corporations establish a stranglehold on Iraqi food, Iraqis will essentially live and die at their whim. This decision to place the interests of a powerful American industry above the basic necessities of Iraqis illustrates why so many Iraqis are so desperate to kick the American invaders out of the country and why it is vital for all Iraqis they succeed.

The Daily Texan

We invade their country, and then using patent laws, to patent seeds, force them to buy food from us, instead of growing it themsleves. Even if the wind blows seeds onto your land, you are legally responsible for those seeds. An American company could sue you, you being a poor Iraqi farmer, for using "thier" seeds. What next? Are we going to make them buy our patented water?

This cant be real...
Now I've heard everything and this is unbelievable, not that I dont believe it but this is just insane.
Yes we truly are in Iraq to make Iraquis free

I have read about American farmers who were sued because of manipulated seeds which were blown into their land. The famers tried to get the seeds away, but it was impossible and they lost the lawsuit.

But this is really insane!!!

Blobber

Very clear, that is not only the iraqi oil what our government wants to privatized even the food the newly "free iraqi" will be eating will be provided by private investors.

Funny.

``
Dang, they're doing that almost too quick.

those NWOers of the BushRegime are almost arrogantly over-confident.

the 'free' elections are still +6 weeks future!
~~

I sorta thought the 'toll booths' and the touristy 'babylon-world' theme
parks would open up first in 'central' Iraq.

The manditory schools to re-educate into westernized social-order should
have been dispensing the 'vaccines' before the processed-FrankenFoods
Control system was booted-up....but thats why theres been +9 changes of Heads at the cabinet level of BushRegime already....huh???

goo-dnite all

First Iraq, then the US - then what ?

The world ?

Personally I think that anyone who voted for this evil (yes - EVIL) Administration is responsible for their actions.

When Bush burns in hell, so do his supporters, and the sooner the better.

This is fecking sick. Greedy bastards need stringing up !!!!

This is getting beyond a joke - I'm beginning to understand just exactly what Colonel was talking about when he spoke of the 'Repugnants'.

This is deplorable. I would love to see CNN air this...

www.utne.com...
www.grain.org...
www.uslaboragainstwar.org...

The American government is just one sick twist group of criminals that should be hanged.

Deep

All I can say is WOW, how the hell are they getting away with this?

So much for helping the Iraqi people, what BS!

They are getting away with this because america would rather be doing anything else other than writing, calling, faxing our congressman and demonstrating letting them know how disgusted they are.

"Nah, I won't bother....let the other fools do it...I'd rather watch tv."

Keep watching tv. Go right ahead. YOU JUST KEEP WATCHING TV WHILE EVERY BIT OF FREEDOM YOU EVER KNEW IS BEING SUCKED RIGHT OUT FROM UNDER YOU. Yeah, YOU.

s'cuse me, back to my tv show now, how DARE you interrupt me. Hmm, what's this news report here...huh? "All civilians will be detained and sent to..." They are coming to take me away in a box car with chains and shackles? And I can't call my lawyer? And they can hold me till whenever they want? No trial...WHAT? Martial law? I am considered a terrorist because I wrote that article on that website?...huh? no way....why those, those dirty, dirty...WAIT...oh no, SURELY not. I can't even get online now. WHAT IN THE HECK? But, but, I wanted to play that cool game....OH MAN, I am REALLY pissed now... Ok, ok, think, think.....what do I do? hmm, ok, I know, I'll get my gun and when they come to the door, I'll just....(knock, knock on door). DAMN! that fast? Oh my God!!! (Knock turns into pounding, door is kicked in.) "DROP THE GUN NOW, OR WE WILL SHOOT TO KILL." "Hey, you can't do this to me! I am an american. I pay taxes and I'll sue you!" "YOU AIN'T SUING NOBODY, YOUR LAWYER IS ALREADY IN CUSTODY. EVERYONE IS. NOW DROP THE GUN, OR YOU WILL DIE."

WHAT


ARE


YOU


GOING

TO


DO


NOW


BOY.


(thinks, man, all that crazy talk online, I thought they were just kiddin, trying to make money off...)

A bright warm, loving light approaches fast, as the last sensations of momentary pain fade into a foggy memory. The ignorant unacting fool looks at the his own murder scene from a point above his bloody body, as his last thoughts ring into the darkness of space and the universe.

Pinch yourself again, pal. This is not a dream. And I ain't kidding.

Oh no not the privatization of food!

Come on the World trade agreements were about exactly that: Privatizing anything and everything that wasn't privatized before...Education, health, agriculture... the works.

Welcom to "pax" americana wait that's surely "bellum (bella? my latin is rubbish) americana".

Funny, this is old news.We have been doing this to SOUTH AMERICA for say the last 10-14 years! So just because we are at war in Iraq you notice this?

This has been brought up before. Its infact something of a lie. GM crops are usually made to not produce seeds and pollen and what not, so that they don't breed on thier own and hybridize with regular crops. This is smart. So seed have to be maintained seperately. The companies that produce and own the seeds sell them to people who want to use them.

Pretty simple no?

It is not illegal for "Iraqi Farmers to save and plant their own seeds". If they want GM seeds, then they are required to buy them. If they don't want to buy them, then they don't have to, and they can use the native seeds and crops that they've been using since the dawn of civilization.

The way I understand it is: for thousands of years, Iraqi farmers used their seeds. They mixed seeds up, to produce better seeds. The the US comes and says, "Those seeds you are using, in the USA, they have a patent. You follow our rules now, so by breaking the USA patent, you now break the new Iraqi patent. If you don't want to break this patent, buy from us."

The USA took their law, to make it illegal to do what the Iraqis have been doing for thousands of years. It would be like if a store was called 'Disney'. No one cared during Saddam's rule. Now the US has their laws, and the name has to be changed. You can just change the name of your store, but you cannot just stop farming. Iraqis MUST pay for seeds NOW, after the US says it violates US patents, that now exist in Iraq.

I think some may be reading too much into this, I mean, trying to apply precedents in the US and Canada. Check out
GRAIN. Tell me what you think. I'm trying to learn about this stuff, because I never heard of patented seeds before.

I think the crux is, this was never done before the occupation. Now Iraqi farmers must pay, putting quite the burden on farmers, to wake up one day, and find out you have to pay for what your father, and father's father, did for free. Which, would seem to hurt farmers, trying to make a living in post-Saddam/current occupation, but benefit US interests. One would think you would want to stabilize the economy, the food source, in order to rebuild a country. Not make it so difficult that you must sell your farm to US interests. I mean what Iraqi farmer can pay all of these new fees? Where is the economy that would allow the farmers to have the money to pay the United States to farm? It seems that the US is just trying to squeeze money from a stone. If that stone doesn'y pay? Break it.

I am still looking for info on this subject. But as it now stands is that Bremer changed the Iraqi law, it will be almost impossible for the Iraqi farmers to grow their normal seeds as they from now on must fend off the patented seeds, which is impossible. Just like in the US where farmers lost lawsuits because patented seeds were blown by the wind on their land. So the Iraqis are indirectly forced to buy patented seeds from Mosanto.

The same article mentioned those law suits too, in fact this problem is already known for years in the US.


Edit: and the US brought patented seeds to the war torn country "as relief" rather than normal seeds.


Blobber



[edit on 9-12-2004 by Blobber]

Originally posted by curme
The way I understand it is: for thousands of years, Iraqi farmers used their seeds. They mixed seeds up, to produce better seeds. The the US comes and says, "Those seeds you are using, in the USA, they have a patent.

Incorrect. The iraqis, like everyone else, have their own seeds. Sometimes they buy other ones on the market. Now an american company comes over and is like 'hey, this rice also produces vitamin E, this wheat is resistant to this strong pesticide, this kind can grow in those salty marshes over there, and this kind can survive flooding." They buy it, and they have to agree to not sell the seeds to someone else for a profit, and usually the crops don't produce seeds on their own, so if they want more next year, they have to buy more.

If they don't think its worth haveing the modififed crops, then no one is forcing them to buy them. If they do buy them, they can't trade them illegally.

The USA took their law, to make it illegal to do what the Iraqis have been doing for thousands of years.

Incorrect. The iraqis have not created these products and have no right to them.




I think some may be reading too much into this, I mean, trying to apply precedents in the US and Canada. Check out
GRAIN. Tell me what you think. I'm trying to learn about this stuff, because I never heard of patented seeds before.
I personally find it bizzare too, but not as bizzare as patenting entire model organisms which some places are doing. From what I understand, some naturally occuring genes themselves have been patented, not artifically created ones, but natural ones. I, personally, don't understand that. But this business with the seeds, its perfectly sensible. The corporation funded the research and did the work and invested the money and took all the risk in creating these crops. Now they can make wheat or rice that can, say, prevent children from going blind from vitamin deficiency, or survive in droughts and prevent famines from wiping out entire populations, or produce mind control agents. Wait, did I say mind control agents? Ha. Erhm, no no, I meant, um, puppies. Thats right, they've got wheat the makes and raises little puppies.

this was never done before the occupation.

They didn't have these crops before the occupation, and lots of things weren't done back then. They can still use the crops that have feed them since, what, 6-7,000 bc.

So Nygdan, does this help, or hurt Iraqi farmers? It seems to only help big business, while hinder Iraqi farmers trying to make a living during the occupation. It seems that big business is trying to get it's hands on the food source, for profit, as opposed letting Iraqis farm their own food, for morality.

Originally posted by curme
So Nygdan, does this help, or hurt Iraqi farmers?

Helps 'em.

It seems to only help big business, while hinder Iraqi farmers trying to make a living during the occupation.

How do you figure? If they want the product, they can buy it.

It seems that big business is trying to get it's hands on the food source, for profit, as opposed letting Iraqis farm their own food, for morality.

Appearances are deceiving I guess. The companies are selling a new product, one that is better than the previous one, but more expensive. Is it worth it? Well, the iraqi farmers will get to decide that, if its worth it, they'll buy it, if not, they'll stick with their non modified crops.