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by Laurel Hopwood, NEO Environmental Justice co-chair
 When George W. Bush spoke of planting the seeds of democracy, few
realized he might have had in mind Monsanto seeds. Under Bush,
Paul Bremer drafted a series of laws, or Orders, to govern Iraq,
which at the time had no legally constituted government. Among
the Bremer laws was Order 81, which states: “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.” In plain English, this gives patent
holders the rights over use of their patented seeds.
Iraqi farmers have existed for about 10,000 years, recycling seeds
from one harvest to plant the next or swapping seeds with their
neighbors at little or no cost. Enter Bremer’s Order 81.
The new U.S. imposed patent law introduced a system of monopoly
rights over seeds. Instead of providing food security for hungry
Iraqis, Order 81 turned the food future of Iraq over to multinational
giants, like Monsanto. Order 81 does not prohibit Iraqi farmers from using or saving
traditional seeds. However, after Order 81 was issued, USAID
began delivering
genetically manipulated (GM) wheat seeds to desperate Iraqi farmers,
touted as improved wonder seeds. Desperation and a promise of
huge gains are trapping Iraqi farmers into dependence on the
multinational
seed industry. Iraq is becoming a giant live laboratory for testing
GM wheat and Iraqis are the human guinea pigs of the
experiment. The Order makes it illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested
from new varieties registered under the law. Farmers would have
to purchase afresh every single cropping season. Iraqi farmers
who chose to plant GM seeds must sign an agreement with the seed
company holding the patent that they would pay a technology fee
and yearly license fee for planting the patented seeds. Farmers
who replant the seeds in following years would be subject to heavy
fines from the multinational seed giants.
Even more remarkable, half of the GM wheat seeds were meant for
pasta, which is foreign to the Iraqi diet, so half of the grains
being developed were meant for export. So much for producing food
for war weary Iraqis. Iraq has the potential to feed itself. But
instead of developing this capacity, the U.S. has shaped the future
of Iraq’s food and farming to serve the interests of U.S.
corporations.
In India, Monsanto salesmen travel from village to village
touting the so-called benefits of Monsanto’s genetically manipulated
cotton seed. Farmers have been rushing to the banks to secure the
cash needed to get on board with Monsanto. The same goes the next
season, and the next season after that. When it comes to GM seeds,
Monsanto owns the intellectual property inside each hull, so farmers
wishing to reuse Monsanto’s seeds must pay to relicense them
from the company each and every growing season. When the GM cotton
crop failed, farmers suffered financial devastation. The PBS special “The
Dying Fields” claims that one farmer commits suicide in India
every eight hours. Will Iraq's farmers find themselves in
the same predicament? "Iraq’s new patent law: A declaration of war against
farmers" was
included in Project Censored 2006.
To learn more, read Against
the Grain at http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=6
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