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Re: [seedsavers] This would be sad ways to do agriculture for us seedsavers
>Andrea, with that blinking banner saying I was the number so and so
visitor I closed quickly before the article had opened. I would
appreciate not to get such links.
Anders
I cannot know where that blinking window came from, Anders, but it
seems to have been bad luck or you have picked up a tracking cookie
from somewhere. I appereciated getting the link and info Andrea.
For Anders I have reposted the link and article here. I am considering
where I ought to send it so my politicians can know that we are aware
and don't like it one little bit.
BillSF9c
http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/iraq_seeds.htm
In the Vegetarian & Vegan News...
News | VegSource Interactive, Inc.
Iraqi Farmers Aren't Celebrating World Food Day
Nov 11, 2004
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 -- which can include 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.
Becoming Monsanto customers at the barrel of a US gun.
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.
"If the FAO is celebrating 'Biodiversity for Food Security' this year,
it needs to demonstrate some real commitment", says Henk Hobbelink of
GRAIN, pointing out that the FAO has recently been cosying up with
industry and offering support for genetic engineering [3]. "Most
importantly, the FAO must recognise that biodiversity-rich farming and
industry-led agriculture are worlds apart, and that industrial
agriculture is one of the leading causes of the catastrophic decline in
agricultural biodiversity that we have witnessed in recent decades. The
FAO cannot hope to embrace biodiversity while holding industry's hand",
he added.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
From GRAIN Shalini Bhutani in India [Tel: +91 11 243 15 168 (work) or
+91 98 104 33 076 (cell)] or Alexis Vaughan in United Kingdom [Tel: +44
79 74 39 34 87 (mobile)]
From Focus on the Global South Herbert Docena in Philippines [Tel:+63 2
972 382 3804]
NOTES
[1] Visit http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=6. GRAIN and Focus' report
is entitled "Iraq's new patent law: a declaration of war against
farmers". Against the grain is a series of short opinion pieces on
recent trends and developments in the issues that GRAIN works on. This
one has been produced collaboratively with Focus on the Global South.
[2] Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated
Circuits and Plant Variety Law of 2004, CPA Order No. 81, 26 April
2004,
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf
[3] GRAIN, "FAO declares war on farmers, not hunger", New from Grain,
16 June 2004, http://www.grain.org/front/?id=24
source: http://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=253 16oct04
Related articles:
* Monsanto's Royalty Grab in Argentina
At 23:47 2008-01-28, you wrote:
>
>
>Hello everyone,
>
>Can you imagine if this happened to us?
>
>Check out this article, it dates from 2004, but I doudt anything has
changed?
><http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/iraq_seeds.htm>http://www.vegsource.
com/articles2/iraq_seeds.htm
>
>Andrea
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