after a little more research…

If you read it on the inter­net it must be true, right? I’ve had some ques­tions about a recent post that relayed some infor­ma­tion on farm­ers in Iraq being pro­hib­ited from sav­ing seeds. After doing more detailed research it looks like some of the exact facts need to be scru­ti­nized a lit­tle more crit­i­cally. But your con­clu­sions on the sit­u­a­tion may not change much.

All the blus­ter revolves around Order 81, a direc­tive on plant vari­ety pro­tec­tion that Paul Bre­mer, the U.S. Coali­tion Pro­vi­sional Author­ity admin­is­tra­tor, pushed pushed into effect (at the behest of Mon­santo, accord­ing to a 2008 inter­view with F. William Eng­dahl). The press release from Focus on the Global South and GRAIN that got the firestorm of opin­ion going declares that, “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.” If you look at the cur­rent ver­sion of the release you’ll see that it’s all marked up with cor­rec­tions and clar­i­fi­ca­tions, with a piece of emphatic clar­i­fi­ca­tion at the begin­ning of the release:

The law does not pro­hibit Iraqi farm­ers from using or sav­ing “tra­di­tional” seeds. It pro­hibits them from reusing seeds of “new” plant vari­eties reg­is­tered under the law. In prac­ti­cal terms, this means they can­not save those seeds for re-use either.

So is Focus on the Global South and GRAIN think­ing the law is benign and just? Their press release may be con­trite about the con­fu­sion they might have caused, but in the cur­rent rewrit­ten ver­sion still goes on to decry the order as a slap in the face against food sov­er­eignty at the same time it dri­ves big agribusi­ness into the tra­di­tional ways of tra­di­tional peoples.

It’s all fas­ci­nat­ing read­ing that gives more nuance and back­ground to the con­clu­sions that peo­ple were com­ing to. In the end it’s not only a case about people’s ways of life being destroyed, nor is it a sim­ple case of pro­tect­ing intel­lec­tual prop­erty. Here are a few sam­ples of what’s out there:

Iraq’s new patent law: A dec­la­ra­tion of war against farm­ers (the orig­i­nal press release, 2004–5)

Iraq and Washington’s ‘seeds of democ­racy’ by William F. Eng­dahl (2005)

Why Iraqi Farm­ers Might Pre­fer Death to Paul Bremer’s Order 81 by Nancy Scola (2007)

And if you’re brave, here’s the order itself, 2004, with Paul Bremmer’s sig­na­ture: COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY ORDER NUMBER 81: PATENT, INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, UNDISCLOSED INFORMATION, INTEGRATED CIRCUITS AND PLANT VARIETY LAW

I really would like to see a con­tem­po­rary analy­sis of the sit­u­a­tion. Was all this blus­ter? Or has the sit­u­a­tion played out as many feared? Based on sto­ries of the social and envi­ron­men­tal costs of reliance on Mon­santo crops has cre­ated in some parts of India, for instance, I sus­pect things can’t be going well in Iraq.

January 14 2009 06:03 am | Categories: gardening | Tags: • • • • •

3 Responses to “after a little more research…”

  1. Bird on 15 Jan 2009 at 4:29 am #

    Ugh, agribusi­ness shouldn’t be get­ting into bed with laws and pol­icy full stop, whether it’s bla­tant or sub­tle there is always a sin­is­ter manip­u­la­tion of farm­ers dri­ving it. Patent­ing liv­ing things? And chas­ing those patents through hun­gry war torn coun­tries? It’s so damn oppor­tunis­tic. Vultures.

  2. [ Lost in the Landscape ] » seed saving banned? on 15 Jan 2009 at 11:40 am #

    […] the update to this post here. Here’s a bit of polit­i­cal unpleas­ant­ness I read about in a seed descrip­tion in the Baker […]

  3. zine proposal | Food Justice and Sustainability on 16 Nov 2011 at 6:52 pm #

    […] http://www.soenyun.com/Blog/2009/01/14/after-a-little-more-research/ […]

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