Iraq is a breadbasket of the Middle East and the genetic origin of wheat. Is
the US putting legislation in place in Iraq in preparation for
commercialising GM wheat there in order to get a foothold in Asia?

----

World Food Day: Iraqi farmers aren't celebrating
GRAIN, 15 October 2004

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