[Commons-Law] World Food Day: Iraqi farmers aren't celebrating

[TAHIR AMIN]

New from GRAIN 
15 October 2004

World Food Day: Iraqi farmers aren't celebrating

NEWS RELEASE For immediate release 
http://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=253 


When the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
celebrates biodiversity on World Food Day on October
16, Iraqi farmers will be mourning its loss. 

A new report [1] by GRAIN and Focus on the Global
South has found that new legislation in Iraq has been
carefully put in place by the US that prevents farmers
from saving their seeds and effectively hands over the
seed market to transnational corporations. This is a
disastrous turn of events for Iraqi farmers,
biodiversity and the country's food security. While
political sovereignty remains an illusion, food
sovereignty for the Iraqi people has been made near
impossible by these new regulations. 

"The US has been imposing patents on life around the
world through trade deals. In this case, they invaded
the country first, then imposed their patents. This is
both immoral and unacceptable", said Shalini Bhutani,
one of the report's authors. 

The new law in question [2] heralds the entry into
Iraqi law of patents on life forms - this first one
affecting plants and seeds. This law fits in neatly
into the US vision of Iraqi agriculture in the future
- that of an industrial agricultural system dependent
on large corporations providing inputs and seeds. 

In 2002, FAO estimated that 97 percent of Iraqi
farmers used saved seed from their own stocks from
last year's harvest or purchased from local markets.
When the new law - on plant variety protection (PVP) -
is put into effect, seed saving will be illegal and
the market will only offer proprietary "PVP-protected"
planting material "invented" by transnational
agribusiness corporations. The new law totally ignores
all the contributions Iraqi farmers have made to
development of important crops like wheat, barley,
date and pulses. Its consequences are the loss of
farmers' freedoms and a grave threat to food
sovereignty in Iraq. In this way, the US has declared
a new war against the Iraqi farmer. 

"If the FAO is celebrating 'Biodiversity for Food
Security' this year, it needs to demonstrate some real
commitment", says Henk Hobbelink of GRAIN, pointing
out that the FAO has recently been cosying up with
industry and offering support for genetic engineering
[3]. "Most importantly, the FAO must recognise that
biodiversity-rich farming and industry-led agriculture
are worlds apart, and that industrial agriculture is
one of the leading causes of the catastrophic decline
in agricultural biodiversity that we have witnessed in
recent decades. The FAO cannot hope to embrace
biodiversity while holding industry's hand", he added.


FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: 

>From GRAIN Shalini Bhutani in India [Tel: +91 11 243
15 168 (work) or +91 98 104 33 076 (cell)] or Alexis
Vaughan in United Kingdom [Tel: +44 79 74 39 34 87
(mobile)] 

>From Focus on the Global South Herbert Docena in
Philippines [Tel:+63 2 972 382 3804] 

NOTES [1] Visit 
http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=6. 
GRAIN and Focus' report is entitled "Iraq's new patent
law: a declaration of war against farmers". Against
the grain is a series of short opinion pieces on
recent trends and developments in the issues that
GRAIN works on. This one has been produced
collaboratively with Focus on the Global South. 

[2] Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed
Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law
of 2004, CPA Order No. 81, 26 April 2004, 
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents
_Law.pdf 


[3] GRAIN, "FAO declares war on farmers, not hunger",
New from Grain, 16 June 2004, 
http://www.grain.org/front/?id=24



	
	
		
___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!  http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com