Force Feeding

Via a diary on Kos

All the while I've been fretting about what type of democracy we'd leave in Iraq, behind the scenes it appears much bigger social engineering has been going on.

Under the umbrella of "Recognizing the demonstrated interest of the Iraqi Governing Council for Iraq to become a full member in the international trading system, known as the World Trade Organization, and the desirability of adopting modern intellectual property standards" (pdf file), back in April 2004 Bremer inserted into Iraqi law language that some are claiming "prevents [Iraqi] farmers from saving their seeds and effectively hands over the seed market to transnational corporations."

According to a report by GRAIN* and Focus on the Global South:

The new law is presented as being necessary to ensure the supply of good quality seeds in Iraq and to facilitate Iraq's accession to the WTO. What it will actually do is facilitate the penetration of Iraqi agriculture by the likes of Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow Chemical - the corporate giants that control seed trade across the globe. Eliminating competition from farmers is a prerequisite for these companies to open up operations in Iraq, which the new law has achieved. Taking over the first step in the food chain is their next move.

Regardless of how we view the success of Iraq's previous agricultural practices, this move represents a significantly invasive assault on Iraqi culture and sovereignty, IMO. As GRAIN noted:

For generations, small farmers in Iraq operated in an essentially unregulated, informal seed supply system. Farm-saved seed and the free innovation with and exchange of planting materials among farming communities has long been the basis of agricultural practice. This has been made illegal under the new law. The seeds farmers are now allowed to plant - "protected" crop varieties brought into Iraq by transnational corporations in the name of agricultural reconstruction - will be the property of the corporations. While historically the Iraqi constitution prohibited private ownership of biological resources, the new US-imposed patent law introduces a system of monopoly rights over seeds. Inserted into Iraq's previous patent law is a whole new chapter on Plant Variety Protection (PVP) that provides for the "protection of new varieties of plants." PVP is an intellectual property right (IPR) or a kind of patent for plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety. So the "protection" in PVP has nothing to do with conservation, but refers to safeguarding of the commercial interests of private breeders (usually large corporations) claiming to have created the new plants.

Culturally this potentially represents the death knell for many family farms. Morally it forces Iraq to accept genetically modified crops without having the national debate about it they should.

The new patent law also explicitly promotes the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) seeds in Iraq. Despite serious resistance from farmers and consumers around the world, these same companies are pushing GM crops on farmers around the world for their own profit.

However one feels about GM food, the Iraqi public should get to make that choice for themselves. Now it's totally possible that once Iraq has elections and forms a truly sovereign government, they would adopt these policies anyway. And, if all goes as it should, it's possible they will reject these laws as they currently exist. But both those decisions should be the Iraqis' to make without this kind of meddling. I'm sure the administration would argue they only have the Iraqis' best interests at heart, but given how this stands to benefit the transnational food corporations, that's just a bit hard to swallow as their primary motivation.

*GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge.

Comments

[Dirtfirst]

< lurking mode off>

If this is entirely accurate - and I have no reason to believe it is not - this makes me want to puke.

< lurking mode on >

[wilfred]

you da man edward! thanks to you (with a little help from this birdie) it's now flying up the Recommended list at Kos.

[Jesurgislac]

Does this actually surprise anyone?

The plan from the very beginning was for the corporations to whom the Bush administration is indebted to be able to loot Iraq. The only thing that has prevented it is the scale of the resistance to the occupation. Indeed, the plans to sell off all Iraqi industry to foreign ownership may well have been one of the triggers for the insurrection - certainly it did nothing to mollify the Iraqis who might not have resented the American occupation as they did, if it had not been so evidently planned to enrich American corporations at the expense of Iraq and of US taxpayers.

[dutchmarbel]

In one of the earlier Harvard Reviews this year (June of July) someone wrote an article who had spent about a year in regular contact with some Iraqi resistance fighters. IIRC In the article they said that funding was not a problem for the group, because a lot of (small) business man sponsord anything anti-American. The new laws that allowed foreign investors to buy Iraqi companies combined with the increased wages for the employed Iraqi's were a big threat to their businesses.

[mac]

God damn, but wasn't that the plot of Red Dawn?

[John Thullen]

Yeah, but did they get rid of the "death tax", so that when corporate mercenaries murder the small farmers in Iraq, their families can sell the land to the conglomerates and live for a day or to on the proceeds at the bombed out villa in Fallujah?

[insting]

"Iraqi resistance fighter"???

Ah, yes... those resistance fighters...

We resist you working to reduce poverty in Iraq. We resist your community-based projects. We resist you providing health care.

We are the Iraqi resistance fighters!!!

Aid Worker Hassan Believed Slain in Video

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Margaret Hassan, the British aid worker kidnapped after decades of helping Iraqis, is believed to have been murdered by her captors, a British government official said Tuesday, based on a video that showed a hooded militant shooting a blindfolded woman in the head.

[mac]

insting, why are you responding to one snide comment with another, when the topic of the post is enforcing American-style patent rights in Iraq? Do you see how that might be a conflict of interest, or just plain conflict?

[CaseyL]

I'm by no means defending the seed-monopoly law, but I am a patent paralegal, and there are a few questions it might be useful to answer first, before going into full outrage mode.

First, how is the patent enforced? Having a patent doesn't include automatic enforcement. It only gives you the right to take an alleged infringer to court. Detecting the infringement, proving it is an infringement, and the legal costs associated with that as well as with litigation, are the responsibility of the plaintiff. (Now, if the plaintiff wins the case, then the financial damages to the defendant are extreme. But first you have to win.)

Second, what exactly do the patents cover? A patent on, say, seed corn can't cover every type of seed corn there is or ever was. It can only cover the specific seed corn described in the patent: a description which may include genetic code, method of fertilization, or even how the seed is manufactured. Corporate infringers get around this all the time, by varying the genes or methods or some other aspect just enough to evade the "scope" of the patent.

Also, traditional and natural seed can't be patented, and isn't protected by patent. There are terms in patent law - like "prior art" and "obviousness" and "novelty" - that I won't bore everyone by discussing, but which do make it impossible to patent, or to say your patent covers, agricultural methods which have been in common use. The natural genetic code can't be patented, nor can traditional farming methods, nor innovations in farming methods which anyone "skilled in the art" (another legal patent term) can come up with.

Finally, what countries are those patents granted in? There's no such thing as a "global" patent. Patents are granted country by country, and only apply to that country. There are regional patent application processes - in Europe, for example - but even those have to be "validated" in individual countries before they're enforceable. And some countries are better than others in protecting patents: Many large companies don't even bother getting patents in places notoriously lax or corrupt in enforcing patents.

Patent law is a strange and complex thing. The more pertinent problem, to me, is how an attractive patented technology can crowd out older, non-patented technology. It can be hard to hang onto the old ways of doing things when the new ways promise higher crop yields, less loss from pests or disease, and are standardized via cloning. Environmental damage is a long-term problem: most farmers are more worried about next year's crop.

[CaseyL]

Oh, one other thing (sorry to be a pedant about this): Patents aren't forever, either. They expire after a given number of years. The standard patent term is 20 years after first filing. Considering that biotech patents can take 5 years or more to issue, that means the patent is only good for 20 years minus those 5+ years. After that, the technology is public domain.

[John Thullen]

insting and mac:

I don't mind a snied answer to my snied comment. Isn't snied covered in the First Amendment? And Hassan's murderers should be brought to justice. It's funny, and I mean sniedly hilarious, that Hassan carried out her humanitarian work in Iraq for how many decades, without being slaughtered like a dog? No, Iraq was not Shangri-la, but what changed?

No, her murder is not justified. (go ahead, I dare you to accuse me claiming it is.) But there it is. What changed?

By the way, insting, with all due respect, the Chinese plan on invading my homeland to reduce poverty, start community-based projects, and provide healthcare to those who don't have it. They're sincere as heck with wonderful intentions and may even eradicate the death tax.

Sounds good, huh. I've got a video camera, some rudimentary weapons, and lots of hiding places. Wanna join me?

I mean, for a beer, cause I am a little snied and always feel guilty about it afterwards.

[Edward]

Thanks for that awesome indepth analysis of the issue, CaseyL.

I couldn't help when reading it though to think that at least a few of your suggestions as to why this isn't necessarily as invasive as it looks center on Iraqis ability to work around the law.

"Corporate infringers get around this all the time, "

This phrase in and of itself represents the, er, kernel of what I see as morally wrong here. We're talking about a country with a long tradition...a tradition which should be considered the foundation or base that corporations need to "get around" if they want to enter into the food business there. But that's not what's happening. With the stroke of a pen, Bremer has given the corporations the legal upper hand. No debate among the Iraqis, just make the farmers need to turn to possibly criminal activity to continue to compete in the way they're accustomed to.

It's wrong.

[Laura]

Just how difficult will it be to prove infringement of patents in a few years after all the native grain has incorporated genetic modification from corporately patented grain due to lack of environmental controls protecting native species? From Mexico to India traditional and natural grains are showing evidence of genetic modification in areas that are near fields of patented grains. This story may only get the attention of those outraged with the moral bankruptcy of our invasion of Iraq but it is just one more step in a global effort to limit (and own) the control of the world's food supply.

Arguing that savvy farmers want these GM grains to take the risk out of food production highlights two things: 1) Farmers are under serious economic pressure to play because of the real risks of varied environmental conditions and the destruction of local markets. Nothing new there, but don't think that buying GM seed is an insurance policy for farmers. It comes with a price and rules and regulations about how you farm and who you sell your products to; 2) Shrinking genetic diversity may make all our bread taste the same but it is a whopping gamble that we won't all become victims of a global grain shortage caused by a bug that develops a taste for GM grains or by destroying another part of the food chain that we didn't consider important.

I think Monsanto and other companies should test and develop GM seed and plants, but we cannot allow them to infect native grains, we should make sure that people buying those foods are aware of it and still have a choice not to, and we cannot allow all the farmers to be forced into Monsanto's service. It's not wise.

[Peter]

CaseyL, perhaps you might want to look at Monsanto vs Schmeiser up in Canada. He never planted Round-up ready seeds on his farm, but those patented seeds were detected on his property by some snitches, and he was sued. It cost this guy a fortune to fight this battle.

All it would take to get your neighbor punished would be to toss a couple handfuls of patented seeds over the fence. Bingo, that guy now owes monsanto $15/acre.

How does one detect RoundUpReady genes? With a simple field test kit. Takes about half an hour.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/columbia.html

[CaseyL]

Canada's Supreme Court has a final decision on this one, and Schmeizer does NOT have to pay Monsanto a dime:

"I do not have to pay Monsanto one cent for profits, damages, penalties, court costs or their technology use fee of $15/acre. I feel good about this ruling, as I have said all along that I didn't take advantage or profit from Monsanto's technology in my fields. I am pleased that the Supreme Court felt that way as well. It has been my position that I didn't want their technology in my fields, that I didn't use their technology by spraying, didn't sell their technology as seed to another farmer and didn't earn any profit from it. I felt it hard to accept that I should have to pay them for it."

There's more at http://www.ielrc.org/content/n0404.htm. Very interesting commentary on the case.