seed-saving now illegal in iraq

this was posted on the mailing list for the CSA i'm involved with. i posted this in the america attacks forum as well, but i wanted to post it here, too. this is outrageous! people need to be made aware of this, and its vile implications. i am reminded of the conquistadors forbidding the aztecs to grow amaranth.


This Friday, Peacework Farm will be hosting a seed saving workshop and soil health program. If they were in Iraq, this would be illegal.

-Debby
*****************************************************
10/17/2004
American Multinational Firms Stealing Iraqi Grain Seeds
Staff of GRAIN

When the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) celebrated
biodiversity on World Food Day on October 16, Iraqi farmers will be
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.

The new law in question [2] heralds the entry into Iraqi law of
patents on life forms - this first one affecting plants and seeds.
This law fits in neatly into the US vision of Iraqi agriculture in
the future - that of an industrial agricultural system dependent on
large corporations providing inputs and seeds.

In 2002, FAO estimated that 97 percent of Iraqi farmers used saved
seed from their own stocks from last year's harvest or purchased from
local markets. When the new law - on plant variety protection (PVP) -
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. The new law totally
ignores all the contributions Iraqi farmers have made to development
of important crops like wheat, barley, date and pulses. Its
consequences are the loss of farmers' freedoms and a grave threat to
food sovereignty in Iraq. In this way, the US has declared a new war
against the Iraqi farmer.

 

damn, not really a suprise...but still...just another control the US 'higher ups' are trying to place on life

They ( :X ) just keep on pushin........

 

That is just fucked up, first invade their country, now force them to buy crap they could get cheaply or free!

 

you don't understand, it's not "just another control". read the article again: 97% of iraqi farmers save seeds from their own stocks...unless i'm misreading the article, they will no longer be able to save seeds from their own crops, and will be forced to purchase GE seeds from multinational corporations like montsanto. they aren't allowed their own food! "PVP" means GE crops with terminator seeds and other frankenfood nightmares. biodiversity is so important; the problems and dangers with GMO's are too numerous to mention. if the farmers are only allowed to grow a few varieties of GE wheat, for example, and the crops get hit by a disease, the entire nation's wheat crop could be devastated. i'm no agriculture expert, but i have studdied enough botany to understand that monoculture is certain death; monoculture genetically designed to self-destruct is insane.

we're already feared and hated over there - they consider us invaders (which we are) and believe that we are waging a war against islam and their way of life. seed saving is more than tradition, for many it's the only way to grow affordable crops. we are threatening more than their way of life, we're threatening their food source. we're already killing them, and food is already scarce, now we're telling them they're not allowed to feed their families unless it's enriching some already bloated corporation? this is madness! do you understand how devastating this could be?

 

I nkow it's all about the GE crap and all... PVP? Seems to be the opposite to me...

 

I don't mean to sound naive, but, is this all still about oil? They've got the oil that we want, so we take the food they need? What the hell! Forcing the farmers to give up saving their seeds is so retarded. Leave it to an American to come up with that genius wasteful plan.

 

oh, it's about more than oil, sharon, it's about globalization. corporations like montsanto hate seed-saving, and the idea that resources like food can be obtained without fattening their already swollen profits. they want nothing less than total control over the world's food supply. privatization of water is next - that's right, water, a substance essential for basic life. i'm not kidding, they're already working on it. and even though this is a US-imposed law, it's not just the US. corporate globalization is truly a global problem.

 

Hi Kitty. Im not sure if you understood my post right.....I wasn't playing down the importance of the issue by deaming it "just another control". I was adding it to the much too long list of the United States' attempts & success' of spreading this darkness seen.

 

Corporate Globalisation is a Problem for the world. But it is a Problem that will disolve in the near future when the cost of Oil becomes prohibitively expense for global trade.


What I worry about is, if global trade breaks down as Oil gets expensive, and countries around the world have crops with GM Terminator seeds that die after one season, what will countries do when the ship no longer turns up to sell them their seeds.

Seed saving is absolutely the most critical element of survival. from now on out local solutions are goning to be increasingly the best way of doing things.

Once your dependant on someone else delivering your seeds from half way around the world, you are in serious trouble.





This is beyond belief. If this happens in too many countries, we are practically dooming them to Death if the global trade network cannot be maintained.

And it cannot. Peak oil production will mean global trade breaks down.

 

The really scary thing is that enough people thought it was a "good" idea that they're passing (or have passed) it into law. Isn't that tantamount to genocide?

 

Well, we can't beat the Scourge of Islam through war alone. We need to starve them out. They're planning a food shortage to make them dependant on the USA, it has to start by only allowing them to buy imported seeds. Then, as soon as a grain disease "mysteriously" breaks out in Iraq, guess who can swoop in and save the day (after starving them out a while, and for a tidy profit of course)? The good ol USA.

Well, it's a pretty good conspiracy theory, anyways. Regardless, this is a pretty shitty thing to do to them. I can't believe the Iraqi people would stand for it? But then, it's not like the US has control of the country anyways, so it might never even happen.

 

i don't think the will of the people, in the US, and certainly not in iraq, had anything to do with this decision, sharon. these decisions are usually made in secret, and rushed through the process as quickly as possible before anyone notices. there's a reason why you haven't seen anything about this in the newspaper. chances are everyone involved with making this law has millions invested in GE technology.

forget everything you think you know about fairness and freedom and justice or even sanity, sharon. the government is owned by special interests that don't give a fat damn about genocide, unless of course they can become richer by it. there is no santa claus, but the monster under the bed is real and it is out to get you. it's not "terrorists" that will suffer because of this, it's families, children, ordinary people. although many of them may decide to become "terrorists" after this. it's sheer madness!

 

<<there is no santa claus, but the monster under the bed is real and it is out to get you. it's not "terrorists" that will suffer because of this, it's families, children, ordinary people. although many of them may decide to become "terrorists" after this. it's sheer madness!>>

I think it's absolutely insane. We call them the terrorists when we turn around and do this shit to them? Granted, I don't agree with the nutjob suicide bombers and their half-assed tactics, but that doesn't excuse doing essentially the same thing to them and calling it a "preemptive strike". I don't see how what's so valaint and noble about raping their land and murdering innocent children.

 

I had to sit here a while and think about this because it's so ubelievably evil. It's also a sure sign of things that are intended for everyone on the planet.

 

yep

insane.......

well this is another reason why i dont want to even remain in this country

the government here i am ashamed of(cant use the choice words here that i really want to use but everyone knows what ones id like to use.........)

its all about the money, of course, just like with anything else


its horrible and evil yes, i cant believe it, its insane

i dunno what else to say, at a loss of words,........

but i am not surprised either,

and thats a sad thing also,

 

It's the same way in the US. Farmers cannot keep the seed that they harvest because they have not invested the money to develop the seed. Sounds a lot like common sense to me.