Why Iraqi Farmers Might Prefer Death to Paul Bremer's Order 81

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092007N.shtml
Why Iraqi Farmers Might Prefer Death to Paul Bremer's Order 81
By Nancy Scola
AlterNet

Wednesday 19 September 2007

Anyone hearing about central India's ongoing epidemic of farmer suicides, where growers are killing themselves at a terrifying clip, has to be horrified. But among the more disturbed must be the once-grand poobah of post-invasion Iraq, U.S. diplomat L. Paul Bremer.

Why Bremer? Because Indian farmers are choosing death after finding themselves caught in a loop of crop failure and debt rooted in genetically modified and patented agriculture - the same farming model that Bremer introduced to Iraq during his tenure as administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American body that ruled the "new Iraq" in its chaotic early days.

In his 400 days of service as CPA administrator, Bremer issued a series of directives known collectively as the "100 Orders." Bremer's orders set up the building blocks of the new Iraq, and among them is Order 81 , officially titled Amendments to Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law, enacted by Bremer on April 26, 2004.

Order 81 generated very little press attention when it was issued. And what coverage it did spark tended to get the details wrong. Reports claimed that what the United States' man in Iraq had done was no less than tell each and every Iraqi farmer - growers who had been tilling the soil of Mesopotamia for thousands of years - that from here on out they could not reuse seeds from their fields or trade seeds with their neighbors, but instead they would be required to purchase all of their seeds from the likes of U.S. agriculture conglomerates like Monsanto.

That's not quite right. Order 81 wasn't that draconian, and it was not so clearly a colonial mandate. In fact, the edict was more or less a legal tweak.

What Order 81 did was to establish the strong intellectual property protections on seed and plant products that a company like the St. Louis-based Monsanto - purveyors of genetically modified (GM) seeds and other patented agricultural goods - requires before they'll set up shop in a new market like the new Iraq. With these new protections, Iraq was open for business. In short, Order 81 was Bremer's way of telling Monsanto that the same conditions had been created in Iraq that had led to the company's stunning successes in India.

In issuing Order 81, Bremer didn't order Iraqi farmers to march over to the closest Monsanto-supplied shop and stock up. But if Monsanto's experience in India is any guide, he didn't need to.

Here's the way it works in India. In the central region of Vidarbha, for example, Monsanto salesmen travel from village to village touting the tremendous, game-changing benefits of Bt cotton, Monsanto's genetically modified seed sold in India under the Bollgard® label. The salesmen tell farmers of the amazing yields other Vidarbha growers have enjoyed while using their products, plastering villages with posters detailing "True Stories of Farmers Who Have Sown Bt Cotton." Old-fashioned cotton seeds pale in comparison to Monsanto's patented wonder seeds, say the salesmen, as much as an average old steer is humbled by a fine Jersey cow.

Part of the trick to Bt cotton's remarkable promise, say the salesmen, is that Bollgard® was genetically engineered in the lab to contain bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium that the company claims drastically reduces the need for pesticides. When pesticides are needed, Bt cotton plants are Roundup® Ready - a Monsanto designation meaning that the plants can be drowned in the company's signature herbicide, none the worse for wear. (Roundup® mercilessly kills nonengineered plants.)

Sounds great, right? The catch is that Bollgard® and Roundup® cost real money. And so Vidarbha's farmers, somewhat desperate to grow the anemic profit margin that comes with raising cotton in that dry and dusty region, have rushed to both banks and local moneylenders to secure the cash needed to get on board with Monsanto. Of a $3,000 bank loan a Vidarbha farmer might take out, as much as half might go to purchasing a growing season's worth of Bt seeds.

And the same goes the next season, and the next season after that. In traditional agricultural, farmers can recycle seeds from one harvest to plant the next, or swap seeds with their neighbors at little or no cost. But when it comes to engineered seeds like Bt cotton, Monsanto owns the tiny speck of intellectual property inside each hull, and thus controls the patent. And a farmer wishing to reuse seeds from a Monsanto plant must pay to relicense them from the company each and every growing season.

But farmers who chose to bet the farm, literally, on Bt cotton or other GM seeds aren't necessarily crazy or deluded. Genetically modified agricultural does hold the tremendous promise of leading to increased yields - incredibly important for farmers feeding their families and communities from limited land and labor.

But when it comes to GM seeds, all's well when all is well. Farming is a gamble, and the flip side of the great potential reward that genetically modified seeds offer is, of course, great risk. When all goes badly, farmers who have sunk money into Monsanto-driven farming find themselves at the bottom of a far deeper hole than farmers who stuck with traditional growing. Farmers who suffer a failed harvest may find it nearly impossible to secure a new loan from either a bank or local moneylender. With no money to dig him or herself out, that hole only gets deeper.

And that hole is exactly where farmers have found themselves in India's Vidarbha region, where crop failure - especially the failure of Bt cotton crops - has reached the level of pandemic.

In may be that Bt cotton isn't well-suited to central India's rain-driven farming methods; Bollgard® and parched Vidarbha may be as ill-suited as Bremer's combat boots and Brooks Brothers suits. It may be the unpredictable and unusually dry monsoon seasons that have plagued India of late. But in any case, the result is that more and more of India's farmers are finding themselves in debt, and with little hope for finding their way out.

And the final way out that so many of them - thousands upon thousands - have chosen is death, and by their own hands. Firm statistics are difficult to come by, but even numbers on the low end of the scale are downright horrifying. The Indian government and NGOs have estimated that, so far this year, at last count more than a thousand farmers have killed themselves in the state of Maharashtra alone. The New York Times pinned it as 17,000 Indian farmers in 2003 alone. A PBS special that aired last month, called "The Dying Fields," claimed that one farmer commits suicide in Vidarbha every eight hours.

Continued>>>>
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092007N.shtml

whether anyone should be able to patent what is in effect a protein molecule which exists in life anyway.

It was the use of "terminator" seeds which produce sterile grain - ok for consumption <maybe ?> but usless for replanting.

Subject in general : http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2006/0828.html

this one ranks right up there with the use of depleted uranium weapons and unleashing corporate mercenaries on the populace . . . killing a nation's agriculture by banning traditional seed saving in favor of the mandatory purchase of patented seeds from U.S. corporations could (and should) be, almost by definition, a "crime against humanity" . . .

"And what coverage it did spark tended to get the details wrong. Reports claimed that what the United States' man in Iraq had done was no less than tell each and every Iraqi farmer - growers who had been tilling the soil of Mesopotamia for thousands of years - that from here on out they could not reuse seeds from their fields or trade seeds with their neighbors, but instead they would be required to purchase all of their seeds from the likes of U.S. agriculture conglomerates like Monsanto.

"That's not quite right."

In this case, "That's not quite right" is understatement for "That's completely wrong."

Rather, what it says, and I paraphrase: Use Monsanto seeds, and you can't reuse them; but since I'm only talking about GM seeds, if you use traditional seeds, well, I'm only talking about GM seeds.

It's what the original order said. It's what accurate paraphrases say. It's what accurate interprets present. Emphasis on 'accurate'.

:shrug:

Last year I joined the National Farmers Union. I can't recommend this organization highly enough. I live in the city; I am not a farmer. But I do value what family farms bring to society and I support the NFU in their national and international efforts to achieve Food Sovereignty for us all.

Here's a list of US-based farmers unions.

Via Campesina is working with Indian farmers to develop a "pro-farmer policy". Give them all the support you can, whether financial or moral. They are in the struggle for everyone on the planet who believes that traditional farming practices, developed over thousands of years and living with a spirit of land stewardship, are the key to real food production -- and not the raping of Mother Earth for obscene, short-term profit.

Support the Ban Terminator campaign.

Avoid all use of pesticides, especially those manufactured by Monsanto and Bayer.

Eat local food. Find a family farmer to grow your food. It's called Community Supported Agriculture, and it secures food supply for cities by making family farms profitable again.