For the record:"US declares Iraqis can't save seeds"-Pay Monsanto or die

[poe]

"As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds, which include seeds the Iraqis themselves have developed over hundreds of years. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations. 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 ."

"The American Administrator of the Iraqi CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) government, Paul Bremer, updated Iraq's intellectual property law to 'meet current internationally-recognized standards of protection'. The updated law makes saving seeds for next year's harvest, practiced by 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002, and is the standard farming practice for thousands of years across human civilizations, to be now illegal.. Instead, farmers will have to obtain a yearly license for genetically modified (GM) seeds from American corporations. These GM seeds have typically been modified from seeds developed over thousands of generations by indigenous farmers like the Iraqis, and shared freely like agricultural 'open source.'"
According to Order 81, paragraph 66 - , issued by L. Paul Bremer , the people in Iraq are now prohibited from saving seeds and may only plant seeds for their food from licensed, authorized U.S. distributors.

The paragraph states, "Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph of Article 14 of this chapter."

Written in massively intricate legalese, Order 81 directs the reader at Article 14, paragraph 2 to paragraph of Article 4, which states any variety that is different from any other known variety may be registered in any country and become a protected variety of seed - thus defaulting it into the "protected class" of seeds and prohibiting the Iraqis from reusing them the following season. Every year, the Iraqis must destroy any seed they have, and repurchase seeds from an authorized supplier, or face fines, penalties and/or jail time."
www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KHA501A.html

Guess who wins the elections?

Monsanto World Headquarters
800 North Lindbergh Boulevard
St. Louis, Missouri 63167
Phone:[phone]

[katinmn]

1. WTF? This is too over the top for me.

:argh:

[havocmom]

6. the real problem with genetically altered foods is the PATENT

Farmers in the US & Canada have been sued when patented seeds sprout in their fields.

I live where wheat is grown and believe me, grain blows off trucks. But when Monsanto or other patented grain blows and grows, farmers loose money or the farm for patent violation.

If you think it's a bother having huge cartels controlling the price of fuel for your car, think how much fun it will be when they control your stomach.

[proudbluestater]

2. Have they had enough "freedom" yet?

Methinks it's not all Bush cracks it up to be, on an hourly basis.

"... farmers will have to obtain a yearly license for genetically modified (GM) seeds from American corporations. These GM seeds have typically been modified from seeds developed over thousands of generations by indigenous farmers like the Iraqis, and shared freely like agricultural 'open source.'"

No wonder Bremer has Secret Service protection.

[ragin_acadian]

8. oh yea, they have been given the freedom to be free, and enjoy

freedom. they've also been granted the freedom to declare that they are free, and be free. see, it's all about freedom. their freedom was free, although it cost the freedom loving people of the U.S. 80 billion a year to grant freedom so those iraqians could be free. free don't ya see?

i don't have the specifics, but i understand that paul bremer restricted the unionization of iraqi government employees too. hell, that's freedom for free people to service other free people for free.

[Solly Mack]

3. how do some people live with themselves?

unreal...

[DRoseDARs]

4. So the land that has grown crops since the dawn of civilization...

...can't use their own seeds now? Wtf?

[ragin_acadian]

10. very capitalist.

take the cradle of civilization,
destroy it
rebuild it, sort of.
bribe the US government via campaign funds to give you exclusive rights to peddle franken-food to the destitute and demoralized population(maybe that's why venneman left?)

reap what they sow.

it would be a haiku if it wasn't so wordy.

[katinmn]

5. I sent this info to the Organic Consumers Association

http://www.organicconsumers.org/aboutus.htm
I hope they see the merit of getting involved.

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) The OCA is a grassroots non-profit public interest organization which deals with crucial issues of food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, corporate accountability, and environmental sustainability. We are the only organization in the US focused exclusively on representing the views and interests of the nation's estimated ten million organic consumers.

The OCA represents over 600,000 members, subscribers and volunteers and hundreds of companies in the natural marketplace. Our US and international policy board is broadly representative of the organic, family farm, environmental, and public interest community.

[poe]

9. Monsanto World Headquarters Address and Phone

800 North Lindbergh Blvd.
St. Louis, Mo.
63167
phone: [phone]

[necso]

7. Every robber baron's dream -- "buy or die".

Towards sellers, as opposed to buyers, the robber baron's dream is "take the offer or die". -- The less free the choice, the more the robber barons like it.

And these sorts of interests are supposed to foster a "free" market? Then again, I suppose that they do... if you are a top-tier robber baron (corporate or otherwise).

[A Simple Game]

11. I can't see Iraqis enforcing this against fellow Iraqis.

So does that mean that U.S. troops will have to enforce this?

[Oilwellian]

12. Exactly

Just like they haven't been able to stop the poppy growers in Afghanistan. Oh, wait, that's a Bush crime family enterprise. Nevermind.

[poe]

21. poppy fields

Afghan drug trade-Karzai won't "allow" US to spray poppy fields-hmmmKarzai doesn't want U.S. to spray Afghan poppy fields



KABUL - The United States will not do any aerial spraying of opium crops in Afghanistan because of opposition from Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The U.S. bid to spray poppy fields to kill the plants is aimed at cutting the source of funding for terrorist groups, namely the production of opium for heroin.


Afghan men walk through a poppy field in Afghanistan in this 1999 photo. (AP file photo)

But Karzai says the spraying could harm villagers.

The U.S. State Department says Karzai may allow aerial spraying if other strategies to stop the production of opium fail.

Opium accounts for more than 60 per cent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.

The country is believed to produce nearly 90 per cent of the world's supply.


Karzai doesn't change scarves without phoning the US embassy and asking for permission. Of course the US State Department is concerned with defoliants harming villagers and sad about the continuance of the opium trade. History tells us this right? These boys don't want the 500-800 billion dollar/yr. drug trade to cut into the US T-Bills do they? It also gets messy trying to deal arms directly for cash much more fun to do some laundering and trade in poppy seeds. happy harvest.

[K-W]

43. Iraqi police and soldiers, like most police and soldiers

do thier jobs so they dont starve.

Yes they will enforce this.

[A Simple Game]

50. Ironically

if they do their job, they may starve in the long run.

[Tinoire]

13. Can't believe you poe. This is what happens when Activists get together!

I JUST posted this in another thread a thread about US invoking the powerful state secrets privilege

You know.. Sadly, everyone everywhere has 2 basic needs

Water and food.

By going against Iraq first, we seized the Middle East's premiere water supply. And in pitting various Middle Eastern regimes one against the other for the last few decades, in exhange for arms to protect themselves from the new "enemies" we created, we transformed them from agriculturally self-sufficient countries to countries dependent on our good whims to feed their people. The Iran/Iraq war we manufactured was instrumental in this. One of the first corporations to get contracts in Iraq was Monsanto. Syria is very dependent on our good whims no matter how much they don't like it.

[Karenina]

14. Kick!

:kick:

[poe]

16. yes my friend you are right

too many are trapped in the fruitless fields of political party shadow boxing thus maintaining a facade of participation through elections (even if honest) and further obscuring the real issues which are essentially the same as they have always been-Land.
i hope you don't mind if i borrow your words and put them beneath this seed stealing post. of course you will be duly cited.

Biopiracy-The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge by Vandana Shiva

[Tinoire]

17. You steal any of my words you want

They don't belong to me. They're words of rage and disgust. Anti-war. Anti-globalization. You 'steal' anything you want! Just let it be reciprocal so I can steal yours too ;)

[poe]

22. never believed they were mine-take it away-no-IPR's

patents etc. is all a facade to hide a theft from the commons. we can create alternative worlds. it's in the everyday-it's in the walking.

[Tinoire]

24. Damn. Your in-box is disabled. Would you PM me your e-mail?

or consider re-enabling your in-box?

Thanks for the permission :)

[poe]

26. What is PM?

and i don't know how to re-enable as i don't trade in the currency of computerese very often therefore am largely ignorant of the lingua franca of the machine messiah. so, yea how do i go about sendin' you my e-mail other than through a post. and i sure would like to know hoow to get photos in my message box. i've tried and others have tried to assist but to no avail. i have an emac and the mouse doesn't have left-right clicker which seems to be the case with others.

Our Goals
Direct Action to Stop the War Goals

These goals were updated and agreed to at the May 25, 2003 DASW Spokescouncil Meeting. The proposal for modifying DASW's goals stated in part, "Our intention is to make our goals a more relevant defining framework for long term organizing and for deepening our efforts to stop war and uproot the system behind it."

OUR GOALS:
1) End the war for empire and uproot the system behind it. War for empire includes three interlocking parts: * Military war and occupation, including: US military presence throughout the world and support for war and occupation through other regimes. * Economic war to impose corporate globalization on the world, including: the IMF, World Bank, WTO, NAFTA, FTAA, CAFTA, and Middle East Free Trade Agreement. * War at home, including: racial injustice, sexism and patriarchy; cuts in and privatization of basic services; environmental injustice and ecological destruction; and attacks on civil liberties, immigrants, low-income communities, communities of color, unions, waged and unwaged workers.

2) Impose real economic, social and political costs on governments and corporations and stop business as usual until the war for empire ends. We publicly organize mass nonviolent direct action now, with the intention ending current war and occupation and deterring future war for empire.

3) Assert our power to transform our communities and the world from profits, oil and war to resistance and life! We work to create open, welcoming, inspiring spaces where the voices of the anti-war majority can be heard through real, direct democracy. We will help catalyze racially just, non-patriarchal, mass movements to challenge corporate and government power and create socially just, directly democratic, ecological, equitable, and peaceful alternatives.

[Tinoire]

28. It's a Private Message

That way you can get mail from other DUers. You have 2 options for receiving mail, one is the Private Message that goes in an in-box here and the other is a normal e-mail that goes to your e-mail.

To enable it...

Click here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/

Select "Options"

Select "Edit your preferences"

And then do what you want with the following choices

Allow other registered users to send you emails?
Selecting "yes" will allow other registered users to send you emails yes no

Allow other registered users to send you private messages?
Selecting "yes" will allow other registered users to send you private messages


Private messages is nice because when you get one, you have a blinking red note on the home page... :)

I can't help you with the photos since I know nothing about Macs but you can post that question in the Computer Help and Support Group.

DASW? Cool! Peace

[poe]

30. done

I think i pushed all the right buttons so maybe a test run is in order. i might need a tip on how to return e-mail. will your e-mail address be self evident or will i have to go to a special place to retrieve? i suppose it will manifest. hope this works if not i'll try again.

[CrispyQ]

15. Monsanto

most evil company on the planet, IMHO.

[Tinoire]

19. Definitely. If Monsanto could genetically engineer water

they'd do it with the US' government full blessing. Mondsanto had the FULL support of the last 3 administrations. What they have been doing is a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

How do supposedly decent Democrats defend this type of crime? Oh yeah, the glory of 401k pumping free-markets. Shiver.

[bloom]

18. that is horrible

"Freedom" to be dependant on US companies. :crazy: :eyes: :crazy:

[Spazito]

20. Wow, so the lucky people of Iraqi now have the freedom to....

have their oil stolen, their farming practices forbidden, their government to be made up of US puppets. Gosh, democracy reigns for sure.

[LiberallyInclined]

23. i don't see the average iraqi farmer going for this-

and i don't see the rest of the world appreciating it too much.

do the good ffolkes at Burpee know about this?

[rman]

39. The farmers will have no choice if the new government

makes a "trade agreement" with Monsanto and the likes.
As is to be expected from a government that has US interests at heart.

People who know about it don't like it, but most people don't know about it.

[LiberallyInclined]

47. just like we've gotten afghani farmers to stop growing opium poppies?

not.

if the Iraqi farmers have been doing what they've been doing, seedwise for centuries- i don't see them stopping because an american company says they have to- there will be a tremendous black market, and open resistance, if not rebellion over the matter.

[rman]

48. Because the US allows them to do so.

Drugs-trade, secret intelligence agencies, corrupt governments and like corporations - it's all one big mess.

www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=independent_news&collectionid=ctc

www.fromthewilderness.com

[scottxyz]

25. Monsanto needs to get it's corporate charter revoked

Monsanto is anti-life.

[poe]

27. this is true

Our Goals
Direct Action to Stop the War Goals

These goals were updated and agreed to at the May 25, 2003 DASW Spokescouncil Meeting. The proposal for modifying DASW's goals stated in part, "Our intention is to make our goals a more relevant defining framework for long term organizing and for deepening our efforts to stop war and uproot the system behind it."

OUR GOALS:
1) End the war for empire and uproot the system behind it. War for empire includes three interlocking parts: * Military war and occupation, including: US military presence throughout the world and support for war and occupation through other regimes. * Economic war to impose corporate globalization on the world, including: the IMF, World Bank, WTO, NAFTA, FTAA, CAFTA, and Middle East Free Trade Agreement. * War at home, including: racial injustice, sexism and patriarchy; cuts in and privatization of basic services; environmental injustice and ecological destruction; and attacks on civil liberties, immigrants, low-income communities, communities of color, unions, waged and unwaged workers.

2) Impose real economic, social and political costs on governments and corporations and stop business as usual until the war for empire ends. We publicly organize mass nonviolent direct action now, with the intention ending current war and occupation and deterring future war for empire.

3) Assert our power to transform our communities and the world from profits, oil and war to resistance and life! We work to create open, welcoming, inspiring spaces where the voices of the anti-war majority can be heard through real, direct democracy. We will help catalyze racially just, non-patriarchal, mass movements to challenge corporate and government power and create socially just, directly democratic, ecological, equitable, and peaceful alternatives.

[K-W]

45. We need a corporate death penalty!

Pro human life, pro corporate death.

[aneerkoinos]

51. Exactly

Kill Monsanto.

[Darranar]

29. Another helpful way to ensure Iraqi compliance with US power...

welcome to "democracy."

[Rapcw]

31. wow, just wow n/t

[Jack Rabbit]

32. Be sure to put Monsanto on your list

. . . of irresponsible corporations, Bush supporters and war profiteers to be boycotted and divested.

[Karenina]

33. Kick!

:kick:

[kendall]

34. Please show where the law says they *have* to use protected seed

You must be careful when posting stuff like these, and make sure all the facts are exactly as they are stated in these articles.

The problem is that if you read through the PDF:

http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf

And read paragraph 66, all it says is exactly what you quoted:

"Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph of Article 14 of this chapter."

Indeed, all this means is that IF they start using protected seed they cannot save it. But no-where in the order is this made mandatory, or is it said they cannot use their own seed as they wish. it only covers protected (patented) varieties, and has the standard boilerplate IP laws that are being pushed everywhere.

I have no love for Monsanto or overly powerful US IP laws. But you must complain about the problems it does cause, not imaginary problems that are not real issues. It draws energy away from fights of substance.

For instance, it would be best to try and educate Iraqi farmers to not take US grain for growing if possible before they fall into the trap of using it without understanding what they are doing. Or to try and fight to get grain sent in as a measure of assistance to be plain non-protected varieties not covered by Order 81. But to cry that all of Iraq's existing grain will be destroyed... when people go to put out that false fire another real one will burn that could otherwise perhaps have been abated.

[Tinoire]

37. Kendall, we've been following Monsanto for years

((as well as PNAC since you tried to tell us that there won't be a draft either)); we are very aware of how both PNAC and Monsanto operate. Even in the US and Canada, it's not even as simple as having a choice to use or not to use their seed (a choice they're not even being given in Iraq now); the GM plants easily end up on your property whether you want them there are not. When they do get there even innocently, you can't harvest your own seed without infringing a patent.

Read up on Percy Schmeiser vs. Monsanto


===

USA mandates Iraq must open to GM seed multinationals
by F. William Engdahl

(snip)

For generations and generations, farmers in Iraq as in most of the world have run an informal, unregulated seed supply system in which they experiment and breed the optimal seeds for essential food crops. Farmers traditionally save a portion of their seeds for the next plantings. Now, that will be forbidden. Monsanto and other foreign corporations now hold an Intellectual Property Right (IPR) which gives them an exclusive monopoly on all GM altered seeds and "similar" plant varieties. Iraqi farmers now not only have to cope with Allied bombing of their fields and streams. They have to pay foreign corporations for the right to plant what they have planted for hundreds of years.

Order 81 is a cleverly written law, with the deceptive title, "protection of new varieties of plants," or PVP. PVP is an Intellectual Property Right such as Washington and other major G7 countries got into the WTO rules, even though Iraq is not a WTO member. The Iraqi PVP law gives Monsanto and other international seed giants patent rights over plant seeds which they claim to have "discovered." The patent, under procedures of GM bio-engineering, is typically for a tiny alteration of the DNA or gene sequence of a given existing seed or plant such as soybean, cotton, rice or potato. Of course to do that alteration, Monsanto and others take the product of Iraqi farmers' own successful breeding and development, and, of course, without paying. There is strong suspicion that Monsanto and the other giant GM firms have secretly tapped the seed bank of Iraq, held in trust for farmers during the recent years by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in their center in Syria. CGIAR was established with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and World Bank to spread use of GM seeds across the developing sector countries.

According to the NGO, GRAIN.org, this Iraqi law insures that Iraqi farmers must pay foreign multinationals like Monsanto, to get seeds each year for planting. Using their own seeds will be illegal. Royalty fees to Monsanto or Syngenta for GM seeds will be necessary to "protect" the Intellectual Property Rights of Monsanto and friends. Their monopoly is exclusive and valid for 20 years for crops. The US State Department claims the new law will "ensure the supply of good quality seeds" for Iraq and pave the way for Iraq to enter the WTO. In effect it opens the country, one of the most fertile lands in the world, to total control by foreign corporations tied to Washington strategic interests.

(snip)

The question is, "free" for whom? Monsanto and other foreign firms? The example of Order 81 in Iraq underscores the unacceptable nature of the effort by large multinationals to claim patent on biological species or plant varieties. Seeds and the right of a nation to hold them in trust for its people is a fundamental human right, like the right to life. To open the Pandora's Box by allowing private commercial interests to patent small modifications to those seeds and thereby impose monopoly on entire seed species, extends the 'marketization' or what some call 'globalization' of the world economy to the very essence of life processes. By this logic, the air we breathe will soon be patented.

(snip)

http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2004/06/20040609.php

[SoCalDem]

38. ..."once they start using it"... is the key phrase..

In Mexico a while back, a bunch of farmers were "busted" by some Agri-business scoundrels for the same thing.. except they had NOT opted to use the GM seeds.. they were using (or so they thought) the same methods that they had always used...but.. THEIR native maize had become "infected" with the GM DNA, so their OWN seeds were now GM seeds by default.. The wind, insects, birds, mice.. all of these critters pollinate, and in doing so, "corrupt" the native species..
I think these farmers "won" their case, but they were told that they were going to be "scrutinized"...

[Tinoire]

35. Chavez, thankfully is creating a large seed bank for the world

I hope the Iranians, Syrians and others in that region are aware of this and saving their seeds.

Venezuela: Chavez dumps Monsanto

Jason Tockman, Caracas

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has announced that the cultivation of genetically modified crops will be prohibited on Venezuelan soil, possibly establishing the most sweeping restrictions on transgenic crops in the western hemisphere.

Though full details of the administration’s policy on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are still forthcoming, the statement by President Hugo Chavez will lead most immediately to the cancellation of a contract that Venezuela had negotiated with the US-based Monsanto Corporation.

Before a recent international gathering of supporters in Caracas, Chavez admonished genetically engineered crops as contrary to interests and needs of the nation’s farmers and farmworkers. He then zeroed in on Monsanto’s plans to plant up to 500,000 acres of transgenic soybeans in Venezuela.

“I ordered an end to the project”, said Chavez, upon learning that transgenic crops were involved. “This project is terminated.”

Chavez emphasised the importance of food sovereignty and security — required by the Venezuelan Constitution — as the basis of his decision. Instead of allowing Monsanto to grow its transgenic crops, these fields will be used to plant yuca, an indigenous crop, Chavez explained. He also announced the creation of a large seed bank facility to maintain indigenous seeds for peasants’ movements around the world.

(snip)

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/581/581p17.htm

[ellie]

42. Wow, Go Chavez!

The more I read about him, the more I like him. No wonder buscho wants to stop him.

[LibertyorDeath]

36. Monsanto are Pure fucking Evil

Despite what their mission statement says.

[loudsue]

40. Monsanto is the devil. The root of all evil dwells in the halls of that

horrible place.

I can't wait until someone starts reining in the corporations. I hope someday it happens!!! I wish there were about 200 "Chavez"-type leaders in important countries around the world.

These out-of-control corporations seem to be getting more sinister and insidious by the day....encroaching on the peace of the planet.

:kick::kick::kick:

[blindpig]

41. such poignant irony

to pull this shit in the Cradle of Agriculture! If Monsanto had been around in about 6000 BCE.............well, we wouldn't have to worry about all of this now, would we?

Maybe that's not such a bad idea, in retrospect.

Don't know how much more Irony I can stand.

[Willy Lee]

44. Yes, Monsanto is Vile. However-

in the US and other countries it is only the genetically modified strains that cannot be re-used and must be purchased every year. It is my understanding- and I could be wrong- that any existing crop's (non-frankenstein) seeds can be saved and replanted the following season.

[MadHound]

46. Almost sounds like this is a test run.

Next stop, the US. Monsanto, ADM and the other giant ag companies would like nothing better than to force every farmer into using GM seeds, and hence their other products, herbicides, pesticides, etc. They are working very hard to force the burgeoning organic food industry out of business. Once that is done, our food supply will be in the control of a handful of multinational agriculture corporations.

I would suggest that all of you gardeners out there to start patronizing the Seed Savers Exchange<http://www.seedsavers.org/Home.asp> or other such purveyors of heirloom plants. Those such as ADM and Monsanto are dead set on wiping these plants out for their own profit and they are receiving no organized opposition. It is up to us then to preserve these species, so that there is something left when the GM crops crash.

[aneerkoinos]

52. With Monsanto

It's open war, all effective tactics allowed.

Greenpeace, French farmers etc. vandalizing and threatening to vandalize Monsanto fields helped a lot to kick the evil bastard out of Europe. In India and elsewhere farmers are taking up paralegal means in self-defence against Monsanto.

[aneerkoinos]

53. With Monsanto

It's open war, all effective tactics allowed.

Greenpeace, French farmers etc. vandalizing and threatening to vandalize Monsanto fields helped a lot to kick the evil bastard out of Europe. In India and elsewhere farmers are taking up paralegal means in self-defence against Monsanto.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

49. INSIDIOUS!