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- Posts : 221
Join date : 2012-12-21
http://www.globalresearch.ca/order-81-re-engineering-iraqi-agriculture/870
ORDER 81: Re-engineering Iraqi agriculture
The ultimate war crime: breaking the agricultural cycle
By Jeremy Smith
Global Research, August 27, 2005
The Ecologist, Vol 35, No. 1, 2005 27 August 2005
Theme: Crimes against Humanity, Environment, Global Economy
In-depth Report: IRAQ REPORT
4 0 0
72
Under the guise of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the US
is setting out to totally re-engineer the country’s traditional farming
systems into a US-style corporate agribusiness. They’ve even created a
new law – Order 81 – to make sure it happens.
[Text of Order 81]
Coals to Newcastle. Ice to Eskimos. Tea to China. These are the acts
of the ultimate salesmen, wily marketers able to sell even to people
with no need to buy. To that list can now be added a new phrase – Wheat
to Iraq.
Iraq is part of the ‘fertile crescent’ of Mesopotamia. It is here, in
around 8,500 to 8,000BC, that mankind first domesticated wheat, here
that agriculture was born. In recent years however, the birthplace of
farming has been in trouble. Wheat production tumbled from 1,236,000
tons in 1995 to just 384,000 tons in 2000. Why this should have happened
very much depends on whom you ask.
A press release from Headquarters United States Command reports that
‘Over the past 10 years, this region has not been able to keep up with
Iraq’s wheat demand. During the Saddam Hussein regime, farmers were
expected to continuously produce wheat, never leaving their fields
fallow. This tactic degraded the soil, leaving few nutrients for the
next year’s crop, increasing the chances for crop disease and fungus,
and eventually resulting in fewer yields.’ For the US military, the
blame clearly lies with the ‘tactics’ of ‘Saddam’s regime’.
However, in 1997 the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
found: ‘Crop yields… remain low due to poor land preparation as a result
of lack of machinery, low use of inputs, deteriorating soil quality and
irrigation facilities’ and ‘The animal population has declined steeply
due to severe shortages of feed and vaccines during the embargo years’.
Less interested in selling a war perhaps, the FAO sees Iraqi agriculture
suffering due to a lack of necessary machinery and inputs, themselves
absent as the result of deprivation ‘during the embargo years’.
Or it could have been simpler still. According to a 2003 USDA report,
‘Current total production of major grains is estimated to be down 50
percent from the 1990/91 level. Three years of drought from 1999-2001
significantly reduced production.’
Whoever you believe, Iraqi wheat production has collapsed in recent
years. The next question then, is how to get it back on its feet.
Despite its recent troubles, Iraqi agriculture’s long history means
that for the last 10,000 years Iraqi farmers have been naturally
selecting wheat varieties that work best with their climate. Each year
they have saved seeds from crops that prosper under certain conditions
and replanted and cross-pollinated them with others with different
strengths the following year, so that the crop continually improves. In
2002, the FAO estimated that 97 per cent of Iraqi farmers used their own
saved seed or bought seed from local markets. That there are now over
200,000 known varieties of wheat in the world is down in no small part
to the unrecognised work of farmers like these and their informal
systems of knowledge sharing and trade. It would be more than reasonable
to assume that somewhere amongst the many fields and grainstores of
iraq there are samples of strong, indigenous wheat varieties that could
be developed and distributed around the country in order to bolster
production once more.
Likewise, long before Abu Ghraib became the world’s most infamous
prison, it was known for housing not inmates, but seeds. In the early
1970s samples of the many varieties used by Iraqi farmers were starting
to be saved in the country’s national gene bank, situated in the town of
Abu Ghraib. Indeed one of Iraq’s most well known indigenous wheat
varieties is called ‘Abu Ghraib’.
Unfortunately, this vital heritage and knowledge base is now believed
lost, the victim of the current campaign and the many years of conflict
that preceded it. But there is another viable source. At the
International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) in
Syria there are still samples of several Iraqi varieties. As a revealing
report by Focus on the Global South and GRAIN comments: ‘These comprise
the agricultural heritage of Iraq belonging to the Iraqi farmers that
ought now to be repatriated.’
If Iraq’s new adminstration truly wanted to re-establish Iraqi
agriculture for the benefit of the Iraqi people it would seek out the
fruits of their knowledge. It could scour the country for successful
farms, and if it miraculously found none could bring over the seeds from
ICARDA and use those as the basis of a programme designed to give Iraq
back the agriculture it once gave the world.
The US, however, has decided that, despite 10,000 years practice,
Iraqis don’t know what wheat works best in their own conditions, and
would be better off with some new, imported American varieties. Under
the guise, therefore, of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the US is
setting out to totally reengineer the country’s traditional farming
systems into a US-style corporate agribusiness. Or, as the
aforementioned press release from Headquarters United States Command
puts it: ‘Multi-National Forces are currently planting seeds for the
future of agriculture in the Ninevah Province’
First, it is re-educating the farmers. An article in the Land and
Livestock Post reveals that thanks to a project undertaken by Texas
A&M University’s International Agriculture Office there are now 800
acres of demonstration plots all across Iraq, teaching Iraqi farmers how
to grow ‘high-yield seed varieties’ of crops that include barley, chick
peas, lentils – and wheat.
The leaders of the $107 million project have a stated goal of
doubling the production of 30,000 Iraqi farms within the first year.
After one year, farmers will see soaring production levels. Many will be
only too willing to abandon their old ways in favour of the new
technologies. Out will go traditional methods. In will come imported
American seeds (more than likely GM, as Texas A&M’s Agriculture
Program considers itself ‘a recognised world leader in using
biotechnology’). And with the new seeds will come new chemicals –
pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, all sold to the Iraqis by
corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill and Dow.
Another article, this time in The Business Journal of Phoenix,
declares: ‘An Arizona agri-research firm is supplying wheat seeds to be
used by farmers in Iraq looking to boost their country’s homegrown food
supplies.’ That firm is called the World Wide Wheat Company, and in
partnership with three universities (including Texas A&M again) it
is to ‘provide 1,000 pounds of wheat seeds to be used by Iraqi farmers
north of Baghdad.’
According to Seedquest (described as the ‘central information website
for the global seed industry’) WWWC is one of the leaders in developing
proprietary varieties of cereal seeds – ie varieties that are owned by a
particular company. According to the firm’s website, any ‘client’ (or
farmer as they were once known) wishing to grow one of their seeds,
‘pays a licensing fee for each variety’.
All of a sudden the donation doesn’t sound so altruistic. WWWC gives
the Iraqis some seeds. They get taught how to grow them, shown how much
‘better’ they are than their seeds, and then told that if they want any
more, they have to pay.
Another point in one of the articles casts further doubt on American
intentions. According to the Business Journal, ‘six kinds of wheat seeds
were developed for the Iraqi endeavour. Three will be used for farmers
to grow wheat that is made into pasta; three seed strains will be for
breadmaking.’
Pasta? According to the 2001 World Food Programme report on Iraq,
‘Dietary habits and preferences included consumption of large quantities
and varieties of meat, as well as chicken, pulses, grains, vegetables,
fruits and dairy products.’ No mention of lasagne. Likewise, a quick
check of the Middle Eastern cookbook on my kitchen shelves, while not
exclusively Iraqi, reveals a grand total of no pasta dishes listed
within it.
There can be only two reasons why 50 per cent of the grains being
developed are for pasta. One, the US intends to have so many American
soldiers and businessmen in Iraq that it is orienting the country’s
agriculture around feeding not ‘Starving Iraqis’ but ‘Overfed
Americans’. Or, and more likely, because the food was never meant to be
eaten inside Iraq at all.
Iraqi farmers are to be taught to grow crops for export. Then they
can spend the money they earn (after they have paid for next year’s
seeds and chemicals) buying food to feed their family. Under the guise
of aid, the US has incorporated them into the global economy.
What the US is now doing in Iraq has a very significant precedent. The Green Revolution
of the 1950s and 60s was to be the new dawn for farmers in the
developing world. Just as now in Iraq, Western scientists and
corporations arrived clutching new ‘wonder crops’, promising peasant
farmers that if they planted these new seeds they would soon be rich.
The result was somewhat different. As Vandana Shiva writes in Biopiracy
– the plunder of nature and knowledge: ‘The miracle varieties displaced
the diversity of traditionally grown crops, and through the erosion of
diversity the new seeds became a mechanism for introducing and fostering
pests. Indigenous varieties are resistant to local pests and diseases.
Even if certain diseases occur, some of the strains may be susceptible,
but others will have resistance to survive.’
Worldwide, thousands of traditional varieties developed over
millennia were forsaken in favour of a few new hybrids, all owned by
even fewer giant multinationals. As a result, Mexico has lost 80 per
cent of its corn varieties since 1930. At least 9,000 varieties of wheat
grown in China have been lost since 1949. Then in 1970 in the US,
genetic uniformity resulted in the loss of almost a billion dollars
worth of maize because 80 per cent of the varieties grown were
susceptible to a disease known as ‘southern leaf blight’.
Overall, the FAO estimates that about 75 per cent of genetic
diversity in agricultural crops was lost in the last century. The impact
on small farmers worldwide has been devastating. Demanding large sums
of capital and high inputs of chemicals, such farming massively favours
large scale, industrial farmers. The many millions of dispossessd people
in Asia and elsewhere is in large part a result of this inequity. They
can’t afford to farm anymore, are driven off their land, either into
their cities’ slums or across the seas to come knocking at the doors of
those who once offered them a poisoned chalice of false hope.
What separates the US’s current scheme from those of the Green
Revolution is that the earlier ones were, at least in part, the
decisions of the elected governments of the countries affected. The
Iraqi plan is being imposed on the people of Iraq without them having
any say in the matter. Having ousted Saddam, America is now behaving
like a despot itself. It has decided what will happen in Iraq and it is
doing it, regardless of whether it is what the Iraqi people want.
When former Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremer
departed Iraq in June 2004 he left behind a legacy of 100 ‘Orders’ for
the restructuring of the Iraqi legal system. Of these orders, one is
particularly pertinent to the issue of seeds. Order 81
covers the issues of ‘Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed
Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety’. It amends Iraq’s
original law on patents, created in 1970, and is legally binding unless
repealed by a future Iraqi government.
The most significant part of Order 81 is a new chapter that it
inserts on ‘Plant Variety Protection’ (PVP). This concerns itself not
with the protection of biodiversity, but rather with the protection of
the commercial interests of large seed corporations.
To qualify for PVP, seeds have to meet the following criteria: they
must be ‘new, distinct, uniform and stable’. Under the new regulations
imposed by Order 81, therefore, the sort of seeds Iraqi farmers are now
being encouraged to grow by corporations such as WWWC will be those
registered under PVP.
On the other hand, it is impossible for the seeds developed by the
people of Iraq to meet these criteria. Their seeds are not ‘new’ as they
are the product of millennia of development. Nor are they ‘distinct’.
The free exchange of seeds practiced for centuries ensures that
characteristics are spread and shared across local varieties. And they
are the opposite of ‘uniform’ and ‘stable’ by the very nature of their
biodiversity. They cross-pollinate with other nearby varieties, ensuring
they are always changing and always adapting.
Cross-pollination is an important issue for another reason. In recent
years several farmers have been taken to court for illegally growing a
corporation’s GM seeds. The farmers have argued they were doing so
unknowingly, that the seeds must have carried on the wind from a
neighbouring farm, for example. They have still been taken to court.
This will now apply in Iraq. Under the new rules, if a farmer’s seed can
be shown to have been contaminated with one of the PVP registered
seeds, he could be fined. He may have been saving his seed for years,
maybe even generations, but if it mixes with a seed owned by a
corporation and maybe creates a new hybrid, he may face a day in court.
Remember that 97 per cent of Iraqi farmers save their seeds. Order 81
also puts paid to that. A new line has been added to the law which
reads: ‘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.’
The other varieties referred to are those that show similar
characteristics to the PVP varieties. If a corporation develops a
variety resistant to a particular Iraqi pest, and somewhere in Iraq a
farmer is growing another variety that does the same, it’s now illegal
for him/her to save that seed. It sounds mad, but it’s happened before. A
few years back a corporation called SunGene patented a sunflower
variety with a very high oleic acid content. It didn’t just patent the
genetic structure though, it patented the characteristic. Subsequently
SunGene notified other sunflower breeders that should they develop a
variety high in oleic acid with would be considered an infringement of
the patent.
So the Iraqi farmer may have been wowed with the promise of a bumper
yield at the end of this year. But unlike before he can’t save his seed
for the next. A 10,000-year old tradition has been replaced at a stroke
with a contract for hire.
Iraqi farmers have been made vassals to American corporations. That
they were baking bread for 9,500 years before America existed has no
weight when it comes to deciding who owns Iraq’s wheat. Yet for every
farmer that stops growing his unique strain of saved seed the world
loses another variety, one that might have been useful in times of
disease or drought.
In short, what America has done is not restructure Iraq’s
agriculture, but dismantle it. The people whose forefathers first
mastered the domestication of wheat will now have to pay for the
privilege of growing it for someone else. And with that the world’s
oldest farming heritage will become just another subsidiary link in the
vast American supply chain.
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
ORDER 81: Re-engineering Iraqi agriculture
The ultimate war crime: breaking the agricultural cycle
By Jeremy Smith
Global Research, August 27, 2005
The Ecologist, Vol 35, No. 1, 2005 27 August 2005
Theme: Crimes against Humanity, Environment, Global Economy
In-depth Report: IRAQ REPORT
4 0 0
72
Under the guise of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the US
is setting out to totally re-engineer the country’s traditional farming
systems into a US-style corporate agribusiness. They’ve even created a
new law – Order 81 – to make sure it happens.
[Text of Order 81]
Coals to Newcastle. Ice to Eskimos. Tea to China. These are the acts
of the ultimate salesmen, wily marketers able to sell even to people
with no need to buy. To that list can now be added a new phrase – Wheat
to Iraq.
Iraq is part of the ‘fertile crescent’ of Mesopotamia. It is here, in
around 8,500 to 8,000BC, that mankind first domesticated wheat, here
that agriculture was born. In recent years however, the birthplace of
farming has been in trouble. Wheat production tumbled from 1,236,000
tons in 1995 to just 384,000 tons in 2000. Why this should have happened
very much depends on whom you ask.
A press release from Headquarters United States Command reports that
‘Over the past 10 years, this region has not been able to keep up with
Iraq’s wheat demand. During the Saddam Hussein regime, farmers were
expected to continuously produce wheat, never leaving their fields
fallow. This tactic degraded the soil, leaving few nutrients for the
next year’s crop, increasing the chances for crop disease and fungus,
and eventually resulting in fewer yields.’ For the US military, the
blame clearly lies with the ‘tactics’ of ‘Saddam’s regime’.
However, in 1997 the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
found: ‘Crop yields… remain low due to poor land preparation as a result
of lack of machinery, low use of inputs, deteriorating soil quality and
irrigation facilities’ and ‘The animal population has declined steeply
due to severe shortages of feed and vaccines during the embargo years’.
Less interested in selling a war perhaps, the FAO sees Iraqi agriculture
suffering due to a lack of necessary machinery and inputs, themselves
absent as the result of deprivation ‘during the embargo years’.
Or it could have been simpler still. According to a 2003 USDA report,
‘Current total production of major grains is estimated to be down 50
percent from the 1990/91 level. Three years of drought from 1999-2001
significantly reduced production.’
Whoever you believe, Iraqi wheat production has collapsed in recent
years. The next question then, is how to get it back on its feet.
Despite its recent troubles, Iraqi agriculture’s long history means
that for the last 10,000 years Iraqi farmers have been naturally
selecting wheat varieties that work best with their climate. Each year
they have saved seeds from crops that prosper under certain conditions
and replanted and cross-pollinated them with others with different
strengths the following year, so that the crop continually improves. In
2002, the FAO estimated that 97 per cent of Iraqi farmers used their own
saved seed or bought seed from local markets. That there are now over
200,000 known varieties of wheat in the world is down in no small part
to the unrecognised work of farmers like these and their informal
systems of knowledge sharing and trade. It would be more than reasonable
to assume that somewhere amongst the many fields and grainstores of
iraq there are samples of strong, indigenous wheat varieties that could
be developed and distributed around the country in order to bolster
production once more.
Likewise, long before Abu Ghraib became the world’s most infamous
prison, it was known for housing not inmates, but seeds. In the early
1970s samples of the many varieties used by Iraqi farmers were starting
to be saved in the country’s national gene bank, situated in the town of
Abu Ghraib. Indeed one of Iraq’s most well known indigenous wheat
varieties is called ‘Abu Ghraib’.
Unfortunately, this vital heritage and knowledge base is now believed
lost, the victim of the current campaign and the many years of conflict
that preceded it. But there is another viable source. At the
International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) in
Syria there are still samples of several Iraqi varieties. As a revealing
report by Focus on the Global South and GRAIN comments: ‘These comprise
the agricultural heritage of Iraq belonging to the Iraqi farmers that
ought now to be repatriated.’
If Iraq’s new adminstration truly wanted to re-establish Iraqi
agriculture for the benefit of the Iraqi people it would seek out the
fruits of their knowledge. It could scour the country for successful
farms, and if it miraculously found none could bring over the seeds from
ICARDA and use those as the basis of a programme designed to give Iraq
back the agriculture it once gave the world.
The US, however, has decided that, despite 10,000 years practice,
Iraqis don’t know what wheat works best in their own conditions, and
would be better off with some new, imported American varieties. Under
the guise, therefore, of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the US is
setting out to totally reengineer the country’s traditional farming
systems into a US-style corporate agribusiness. Or, as the
aforementioned press release from Headquarters United States Command
puts it: ‘Multi-National Forces are currently planting seeds for the
future of agriculture in the Ninevah Province’
First, it is re-educating the farmers. An article in the Land and
Livestock Post reveals that thanks to a project undertaken by Texas
A&M University’s International Agriculture Office there are now 800
acres of demonstration plots all across Iraq, teaching Iraqi farmers how
to grow ‘high-yield seed varieties’ of crops that include barley, chick
peas, lentils – and wheat.
The leaders of the $107 million project have a stated goal of
doubling the production of 30,000 Iraqi farms within the first year.
After one year, farmers will see soaring production levels. Many will be
only too willing to abandon their old ways in favour of the new
technologies. Out will go traditional methods. In will come imported
American seeds (more than likely GM, as Texas A&M’s Agriculture
Program considers itself ‘a recognised world leader in using
biotechnology’). And with the new seeds will come new chemicals –
pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, all sold to the Iraqis by
corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill and Dow.
Another article, this time in The Business Journal of Phoenix,
declares: ‘An Arizona agri-research firm is supplying wheat seeds to be
used by farmers in Iraq looking to boost their country’s homegrown food
supplies.’ That firm is called the World Wide Wheat Company, and in
partnership with three universities (including Texas A&M again) it
is to ‘provide 1,000 pounds of wheat seeds to be used by Iraqi farmers
north of Baghdad.’
According to Seedquest (described as the ‘central information website
for the global seed industry’) WWWC is one of the leaders in developing
proprietary varieties of cereal seeds – ie varieties that are owned by a
particular company. According to the firm’s website, any ‘client’ (or
farmer as they were once known) wishing to grow one of their seeds,
‘pays a licensing fee for each variety’.
All of a sudden the donation doesn’t sound so altruistic. WWWC gives
the Iraqis some seeds. They get taught how to grow them, shown how much
‘better’ they are than their seeds, and then told that if they want any
more, they have to pay.
Another point in one of the articles casts further doubt on American
intentions. According to the Business Journal, ‘six kinds of wheat seeds
were developed for the Iraqi endeavour. Three will be used for farmers
to grow wheat that is made into pasta; three seed strains will be for
breadmaking.’
Pasta? According to the 2001 World Food Programme report on Iraq,
‘Dietary habits and preferences included consumption of large quantities
and varieties of meat, as well as chicken, pulses, grains, vegetables,
fruits and dairy products.’ No mention of lasagne. Likewise, a quick
check of the Middle Eastern cookbook on my kitchen shelves, while not
exclusively Iraqi, reveals a grand total of no pasta dishes listed
within it.
There can be only two reasons why 50 per cent of the grains being
developed are for pasta. One, the US intends to have so many American
soldiers and businessmen in Iraq that it is orienting the country’s
agriculture around feeding not ‘Starving Iraqis’ but ‘Overfed
Americans’. Or, and more likely, because the food was never meant to be
eaten inside Iraq at all.
Iraqi farmers are to be taught to grow crops for export. Then they
can spend the money they earn (after they have paid for next year’s
seeds and chemicals) buying food to feed their family. Under the guise
of aid, the US has incorporated them into the global economy.
What the US is now doing in Iraq has a very significant precedent. The Green Revolution
of the 1950s and 60s was to be the new dawn for farmers in the
developing world. Just as now in Iraq, Western scientists and
corporations arrived clutching new ‘wonder crops’, promising peasant
farmers that if they planted these new seeds they would soon be rich.
The result was somewhat different. As Vandana Shiva writes in Biopiracy
– the plunder of nature and knowledge: ‘The miracle varieties displaced
the diversity of traditionally grown crops, and through the erosion of
diversity the new seeds became a mechanism for introducing and fostering
pests. Indigenous varieties are resistant to local pests and diseases.
Even if certain diseases occur, some of the strains may be susceptible,
but others will have resistance to survive.’
Worldwide, thousands of traditional varieties developed over
millennia were forsaken in favour of a few new hybrids, all owned by
even fewer giant multinationals. As a result, Mexico has lost 80 per
cent of its corn varieties since 1930. At least 9,000 varieties of wheat
grown in China have been lost since 1949. Then in 1970 in the US,
genetic uniformity resulted in the loss of almost a billion dollars
worth of maize because 80 per cent of the varieties grown were
susceptible to a disease known as ‘southern leaf blight’.
Overall, the FAO estimates that about 75 per cent of genetic
diversity in agricultural crops was lost in the last century. The impact
on small farmers worldwide has been devastating. Demanding large sums
of capital and high inputs of chemicals, such farming massively favours
large scale, industrial farmers. The many millions of dispossessd people
in Asia and elsewhere is in large part a result of this inequity. They
can’t afford to farm anymore, are driven off their land, either into
their cities’ slums or across the seas to come knocking at the doors of
those who once offered them a poisoned chalice of false hope.
What separates the US’s current scheme from those of the Green
Revolution is that the earlier ones were, at least in part, the
decisions of the elected governments of the countries affected. The
Iraqi plan is being imposed on the people of Iraq without them having
any say in the matter. Having ousted Saddam, America is now behaving
like a despot itself. It has decided what will happen in Iraq and it is
doing it, regardless of whether it is what the Iraqi people want.
When former Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremer
departed Iraq in June 2004 he left behind a legacy of 100 ‘Orders’ for
the restructuring of the Iraqi legal system. Of these orders, one is
particularly pertinent to the issue of seeds. Order 81
covers the issues of ‘Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed
Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety’. It amends Iraq’s
original law on patents, created in 1970, and is legally binding unless
repealed by a future Iraqi government.
The most significant part of Order 81 is a new chapter that it
inserts on ‘Plant Variety Protection’ (PVP). This concerns itself not
with the protection of biodiversity, but rather with the protection of
the commercial interests of large seed corporations.
To qualify for PVP, seeds have to meet the following criteria: they
must be ‘new, distinct, uniform and stable’. Under the new regulations
imposed by Order 81, therefore, the sort of seeds Iraqi farmers are now
being encouraged to grow by corporations such as WWWC will be those
registered under PVP.
On the other hand, it is impossible for the seeds developed by the
people of Iraq to meet these criteria. Their seeds are not ‘new’ as they
are the product of millennia of development. Nor are they ‘distinct’.
The free exchange of seeds practiced for centuries ensures that
characteristics are spread and shared across local varieties. And they
are the opposite of ‘uniform’ and ‘stable’ by the very nature of their
biodiversity. They cross-pollinate with other nearby varieties, ensuring
they are always changing and always adapting.
Cross-pollination is an important issue for another reason. In recent
years several farmers have been taken to court for illegally growing a
corporation’s GM seeds. The farmers have argued they were doing so
unknowingly, that the seeds must have carried on the wind from a
neighbouring farm, for example. They have still been taken to court.
This will now apply in Iraq. Under the new rules, if a farmer’s seed can
be shown to have been contaminated with one of the PVP registered
seeds, he could be fined. He may have been saving his seed for years,
maybe even generations, but if it mixes with a seed owned by a
corporation and maybe creates a new hybrid, he may face a day in court.
Remember that 97 per cent of Iraqi farmers save their seeds. Order 81
also puts paid to that. A new line has been added to the law which
reads: ‘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.’
The other varieties referred to are those that show similar
characteristics to the PVP varieties. If a corporation develops a
variety resistant to a particular Iraqi pest, and somewhere in Iraq a
farmer is growing another variety that does the same, it’s now illegal
for him/her to save that seed. It sounds mad, but it’s happened before. A
few years back a corporation called SunGene patented a sunflower
variety with a very high oleic acid content. It didn’t just patent the
genetic structure though, it patented the characteristic. Subsequently
SunGene notified other sunflower breeders that should they develop a
variety high in oleic acid with would be considered an infringement of
the patent.
So the Iraqi farmer may have been wowed with the promise of a bumper
yield at the end of this year. But unlike before he can’t save his seed
for the next. A 10,000-year old tradition has been replaced at a stroke
with a contract for hire.
Iraqi farmers have been made vassals to American corporations. That
they were baking bread for 9,500 years before America existed has no
weight when it comes to deciding who owns Iraq’s wheat. Yet for every
farmer that stops growing his unique strain of saved seed the world
loses another variety, one that might have been useful in times of
disease or drought.
In short, what America has done is not restructure Iraq’s
agriculture, but dismantle it. The people whose forefathers first
mastered the domestication of wheat will now have to pay for the
privilege of growing it for someone else. And with that the world’s
oldest farming heritage will become just another subsidiary link in the
vast American supply chain.
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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» The Minister of Industry and Minerals follows up on the technical and production performance of the
Today at 7:45 am by Rocky
» The Minister of Finance is following up on the field the progress of the newly implemented ASYCUDA s
Today at 7:44 am by Rocky
» Statistics: There are more than 15 million bank accounts in Iraq
Today at 7:42 am by Rocky
» Representative: One paragraph hinders the passage of a general amnesty within the House of Represent
Today at 7:37 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Finance: “The draft federal budget law will be devoid of new job grades.”
Today at 7:36 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary action to resolve the fate of “food security contracts” in 15 governorates
Today at 7:35 am by Rocky
» 300 factories turned into "iron scrap" in Diyala
Today at 7:34 am by Rocky
» A deputy expects the dollar exchange rate to reach 140 Iraqi dinars
Today at 7:32 am by Rocky
» Al-Yasiri: The American administration is working hard to destroy the Iraqi economy
Today at 7:31 am by Rocky
» Infographic: The highest annual salaries of leaders of Arab countries
Today at 7:30 am by Rocky
» Communications announces that the electronic signature project has reached advanced stages
Today at 7:29 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Integrity presents a file related to Kuwaiti violations of Iraqi oil
Today at 7:27 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary move to include amendments to Parliament’s internal regulations on the agenda (documen
Today at 7:25 am by Rocky
» The Iraqi President urges the Minister of Finance to expedite the payment of salaries to the Kurdist
Today at 7:23 am by Rocky
» Central Bank of Iraq sales exceeded $251 million at today’s auction
Today at 7:21 am by Rocky
» The Foreign Minister questions the "Iraqi resistance" attacks against Israel: the other side did not
Today at 7:20 am by Rocky
» The Minister of Labor announces progress in the electronic payment system
Today at 7:17 am by Rocky
» Interior Ministry: For the first time, we controlled the smuggling of petroleum derivatives by 98 pe
Today at 7:16 am by Rocky
» International companies offer offers to invest in the Dhi Qar marshes.. What distinguishes them?
Today at 7:15 am by Rocky
» “Tough” comments on interest rates raise the dollar globally
Today at 7:14 am by Rocky
» Iraq is the fifth largest oil supplier to South Korea in a month
Today at 7:12 am by Rocky
» Recovering more than 100 billion as a result of more than 200,000 employees on social welfare
Today at 7:11 am by Rocky
» The Sudanese consultant announces the completion of Baghdad Metro track designs
Today at 7:08 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani stresses ending the problem of triple-shift schools
Today at 7:07 am by Rocky
» Iraq begins building two new tankers to transport petroleum products
Today at 7:06 am by Rocky
» Forming a council for “competition and preventing monopoly”
Today at 7:04 am by Rocky
» Features of an Iraqi-Turkish agreement regarding the status of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party
Today at 7:02 am by Rocky
» {Al-Buzrajiya} between the hammer of fraud and the power of the owners
Today at 7:01 am by Rocky
» Ministry of Oil: The gas sector is witnessing great development
Today at 6:59 am by Rocky
» An agreement with Britain in the field of securities
Today at 6:58 am by Rocky
» Discussions between Baghdad and Ankara to open a new port
Today at 6:57 am by Rocky
» Trade: About 11 million citizens updated their new card information
Today at 6:56 am by Rocky
» Electronic payment is sustainable growth
Today at 6:55 am by Rocky
» Experts: Iraq qualifies to be an important tourist country
Today at 6:54 am by Rocky
» Amending the Health Professions Law “robs” scientists of the central appointment 3 years after it wa
Today at 5:20 am by Rocky
» Is the “blessings package” that Erbil paid to the citizens of Kurdistan related to the elections?
Today at 5:19 am by Rocky
» Exceeded 5,000 projects.. Allocating 10 trillion dinars to support governorate reconstruction plans
Today at 5:18 am by Rocky
» “His need no longer exists.” Parliamentary Finance confirms the necessity of returning the retiremen
Today at 5:17 am by Rocky
» To communicate with the bases... 12 directives from Al-Sadr, including blocking numbers for non-gove
Today at 5:15 am by Rocky
» In an interview with "Baghdad Today"... an Iranian researcher reveals the importance of Haniyeh's vi
Today at 5:14 am by Rocky
» After it was 63 trillion in 2023... the 2024 budget deficit will rise to 80 trillion dinars
Today at 5:13 am by Rocky
» Parliament reveals the date of the first evaluation of the governors and determines the party respon
Today at 5:11 am by Rocky
» The President of the Republic informs Al-Araji and Al-Basri: Momentum must be mobilized to eliminate
Today at 5:10 am by Rocky
» Can the Federal Court sue others? A legal clarification of its response mechanism to abuse
Today at 5:09 am by Rocky
» Despite promises to soon stop burning gas.. What is the secret behind Iraq renewing the Iranian gas
Today at 5:07 am by Rocky
» Advisor to Al-Sudani: The dollar is on the way to further decline, and 70% of Iraqi traders have ent
Today at 5:06 am by Rocky
» Iraq exported more than 99 million barrels of oil last February
Today at 5:04 am by Rocky
» Barzani “gives good news” to Kurdistan employees: salaries, land, and loan exemptions
Today at 5:03 am by Rocky
» Alia Nassif: Nour Zuhair returned to the port of Umm Qasr to make deals.. An influential Shiite forc
Today at 5:02 am by Rocky
» The Prime Minister announces the movement of nearly 500 stalled projects
Today at 5:00 am by Rocky
» A government strategy to enhance investments.. Iraq is on the verge of a new era of economic develop
Today at 4:59 am by Rocky
» Ranging between 20% and 50%.. The Kurdistan government decides to reduce service fees, customs dutie
Today at 4:58 am by Rocky
» Al-Sudani: The reform approach in the security services is an integral part of reform in other secto
Today at 4:56 am by Rocky
» Everyone in Iraq wants the Sudanese visit to Washington to be successful, even the factions!
Today at 4:55 am by Rocky
» Sources and experts expect the agenda.. in his bag is the Baghdad dollar and the factions’ truce, bu
Today at 4:54 am by Rocky
» The decision to raise gasoline prices arouses the ire of drivers...a reminder of the large demonstra
Today at 4:53 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary services: 3 important hospitals in Baghdad will enter service at the end of the year
Today at 4:52 am by Rocky
» Iraq signs a contract to supply Iranian gas for a period of five years
Today at 4:50 am by Rocky
» Parliament adds a voting paragraph on amending the Penal Code to its agenda
Today at 4:49 am by Rocky
» His political advisor: We are not afraid of Sudanese entering the elections alone
Today at 4:48 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary services explain the reasons for the rise in real estate prices in Baghdad
Today at 4:46 am by Rocky
» Attia, criticizing the government's decisions: "The citizen's feathers will be ruffled without servi
Today at 4:45 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Communications: Zain Iraq and Asiacell did not pay their debts
Today at 4:44 am by Rocky
» The Governor of Karbala announces the imminent establishment of the largest industrial city in the c
Today at 4:43 am by Rocky
» A government determination to end the issue of displaced persons in the middle of this year
Today at 4:42 am by Rocky
» Iraq buys gas from Kurdistan to generate electricity
Today at 4:41 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary signatures to include an amendment to the internal regulations to decide the choice of
Today at 4:40 am by Rocky
» In Basra.. a demonstration against foreign workers in Iraqi companies (video)
Today at 4:38 am by Rocky
» Al-Samarrai: Presidency of Parliament is an entitlement to the constituents, and calling it a “frame
Today at 4:36 am by Rocky
» Electronic food supplies in 6 governorates... covering 11 million Iraqis and “writing off” about 700
Today at 4:34 am by Rocky
» Corruption of the Ministry of Transport.. Representatives express their surprise at the minister’s s
Today at 4:32 am by Rocky
» The biggest supporter of the invasion of Iraq.. The death of former US Senator Joe Lieberman
Today at 4:31 am by Rocky
» Iraq is ranked “late.” A list of the most and least safe Arab countries for women
Today at 4:30 am by Rocky
» The Council of Ministers exempts the Gulf Interconnection Authority from guarantee fees: it is a gov
Yesterday at 7:48 am by Rocky
» The Iraqi government raises the size of the 2024 budget, and Parliament is “surprised”
Yesterday at 7:46 am by Rocky
» Popular Movement: We have many economic options away from American hegemony
Yesterday at 7:42 am by Rocky
» The Oil Parliament stresses the need to transfer part of the revenues to the producing governorates
Yesterday at 7:41 am by Rocky
» It will cover 14 regions in eastern Iraq.. A deputy reveals the “border electricity” project
Yesterday at 7:40 am by Rocky
» Experts Warn Mass Migration Threatens US Food Security
Yesterday at 7:37 am by Bama Diva
» Al-Fateh: America occupies Iraq through agreements
Yesterday at 7:37 am by Rocky
» Anger in Iraq over a "sudden decision"... and a reminder of a "general strike" that paralyzed the co
Yesterday at 7:34 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Committee: Parliament is discussing today a decision that “disturbed” the Iraqis
Yesterday at 7:33 am by Rocky
» Ministry of Electricity: Our production will reach 27 thousand megawatts by May
Yesterday at 7:31 am by Rocky
» Diagnosing the “most important” problems in the oil file between Baghdad and Erbil.. What is the rel
Yesterday at 7:30 am by Rocky
» The Iraqi Fiqh Academy and the Sunni Endowment issue a fatwa to pay Zakat al-Fitr
Yesterday at 7:28 am by Rocky
» The National Bank of Iraq continues its digital transformation by launching its new banking system a
Yesterday at 7:26 am by Rocky
» Parliamentary Investment and the Central Bank are discussing the housing initiative
Yesterday at 7:25 am by Rocky
» The Prime Minister announces the restart of 500 suspended projects
Yesterday at 7:23 am by Rocky
» Al-Barti assesses the region's employees: Your salaries are insured and will be paid after resettlem
Yesterday at 7:21 am by Rocky
» Iraqi-American discussions in anticipation of the Sudanese visit
Yesterday at 7:20 am by Rocky
» Iraq and Turkey hold meetings in Ankara to discuss technical issues related to the development road
Yesterday at 7:17 am by Rocky
» A government parliamentary agreement to support budget revenues and governorate allocations for inve
Yesterday at 7:16 am by Rocky
» Oil: The gas sector is witnessing great development
Yesterday at 7:15 am by Rocky
» A Kurdish-French agreement to develop trade and economic relations
Yesterday at 7:13 am by Rocky
» Exchange companies in Mosul demand that they be entered into the currency selling window
Yesterday at 7:12 am by Rocky