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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Many Topics Including The Oldest Dinar Community. Copyright © 2006-2020


    SyrianGirl Reports on Syrian Situation

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    Post by ksp Fri 21 Dec 2012, 8:53 pm

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    Post by ksp Fri 21 Dec 2012, 9:03 pm

    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.

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