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Originally Posted by theknife
didn't know that had already been posted Miss S...
Sinner, what part of the link didn't you think i read? the part you reposted?
yup, i read that it doesn't apply to seeds they already have - that's not the point of the post. the point of the post is this: by allowing Monsanto et al to insert this into the CPA rules, we then set up thousands of Iraqi farmers to be the next Homer McFarlings, because the only new varieties allowed into Iraq are gonna be from corporations, not individuals. Iraq is a breadbasket of the Middle East and the genetic origin of wheat. should US agribusiness be allowed to own that heritage?
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Here is Order 81
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulat...atents_Law.pdf
Nowhere does it say Iraqis must use GMO seeds. They can continue to farm the way they have for years. Order 81 is a WTO-style patent for protections on genetically engineered crops.
Also
A quote form Chris Horner the spokesman for Monsanto,- "For the record, Monsanto has no plans to introduce biotechnology in Iraq," -- "It doesn't fit with our business plans." If security and other factors improve, Horner says, "there could be opportunities for conventional seeds and chemicals. ... I would not characterize it as an emerging market." The outcry about Order 81 has "no basis in fact," says Horner. "How many new patented seed varieties are there in Iraq? Zero."
This is not an Iraqi problem, these laws have been around for years, i am not saying this law is right but to say Bush and America is trying to control farmers in Iraq is complete Bullshit. Want something to argue --
---Under NAFTA, "there wasn't supposed to be genetically modified corn coming to Mexico," yet GMO corn from the United States was discovered there in 2001. This February, a coalition of 70 groups from six Central American and Caribbean countries announced that GMOs – specifically, the infamous StarLink maize not authorized for human consumption – had been detected in U.N. food aid and commercial imports from the United States.---
Again i am not saying I am for these laws but that article is BS.....
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History's lessons
Critics of American agribusiness warn that this confluence of privatization policies, GMO-friendly patent protections and U.S. exports is a volatile mix that could further destabilize war-ravaged Iraqi farmers while producing few benefits for their American counterparts.
"Any profit that's made will go to the companies that export it to Iraq, not to farmers," says George Naylor, Iowa farmer and president of the National Family Farm Coalition. Foisting Iraqi growers into a privatized free market will "destroy" small family farms there, just as similar policies have done in the United States, Naylor insists.
Mark Ritchie, president of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, argues that the U.S.-led overhaul of Iraq's agriculture is a "completely ideological" endeavor that ignores historic lessons. Well-recorded failings of large-scale industrial agriculture in the former Soviet Union and in the United States, he says, "haven't deterred people who ideologically think that's the way to go, so we're going to repeat the mistakes again if we have a chance."
Ultimately, Ritchie says, American taxpayers may also pay a stiff price for any wartime export bubble. He points to the Vietnam War, during which the American rice industry was temporarily enriched by huge exports. Then the postwar market evaporated, and the industry was propped up with big subsidy payments. "The U.S. can create a giant export flow for underpriced commodities, and taxpayers can just pay through the nose," Ritchie warns. "The dangers to producers there are real, and the dangers to American taxpayers are equally real, and Vietnam has shown us how devastating this is."
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