Iraq first. Will we be next?

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by ho-hum, Dec 27, 2005.

  1. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Iraqi farmers, the people who gave us wheat, have been saving seed for about 5000 years. Not any more.



    https://www.grain.org/articles/?id=6

    Please make sure you bend your politician's ear over this matter. We are complicit in what happens in Iraq because of our involvement.

    Cheers

    Floot
     
  2. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    Floot, what about this bit?


    So this 'only' (I use the word advisedly) means they're vulnerable to prosecution over Monsanto 'escapees' right? Not that they can't save traditional seed?

    Isn't this the same point where every country which has allowed GM crops is at?
     
  3. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    Unfortunately, GM seeds don't stop at the border of the farm on which they are growing.

    If a government really wanted to be nasty, they could probably test any crop (anywhere) that has a GM crop of the same type growing in the area, esp upwind. They would almost certainly find that the GM has crossed with the OP crop.

    THEN they could fine the farmer of the OP crop, even if he didn't want to cross with the GM variety, make the fine high enough so he can't pay it, take his land, and plant it with the newest GM crop.

    Diabolical, eh?

    Sue
     
  4. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    That's already happened in Canada hasn't it Sue? I seem to recall seeing a doco and reading a few articles about a Canadian farmer who was sued by Monsanto for having their GM 'escapees' on his land. He was even down here in Oz on a speaking tour I believe. The doco showed how far the GM seed was being spread at harvest time through transportation as well as natural means...it was very frightening to see how potentially powerless the non-GM farmers were against the twin might of government and the GM industry.

    I'm not sure how the case ended up...or if indeed it is still going...
     
  5. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Jez,

    The farmers name is Percy Scmeisser, and he is awesome. He fights those assholes at every step of the way, and his fight is pivotal in what happens next in the fight against GMOs.

    Monsantos treatment iof him, and thousands of other farmers (his is only the most famous, not the most egregious breach of faith and property related problems from genetic pollution and pollen drift from Monsantos GMO crops) is a big part of why I hate Round Up.

    (Not to start yelling about Round Up again, but:) Over %90 of GMO crops are designed to accept direct spraying and increased usage of Round Up. Every penny that Monsanto makes from Round Up is an endorcement of the technology. Every dollar spent on their producst, andy Monsanto products, is a validation of their business and their business practices....

    Monsanto is evil, evil, evil, evil.

    To know how evil, check https://www.organicconsumers.org/ and then https://www.organicconsumers.org/Monsanto/bioserf.cfm which shows the slavery and serfdom GMOs subject farmers to.

    Ugh. I hate Monsanto!

    C
     
  6. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Jez,


    What you say is correct and how it applies to us.

    The issue with Iraq is two-fold.

    They have had their seed banks devastated by 12 years of sanctions and starvation and basically have none left for broadscale farming.

    Secondly, anything they import must be used for food, they are not allowed to save any of it for planting so they are locked into the chemical company cycle of who can and cannot supply seed.

    What'd really piss me off if I was an Iraqi farmer is that there is no significant ''benefits'' to using GM wheat like their are to using GM soy or GM corn. [Please dont attack me for using the word 'benefits' I cant think of an alternative] As far as I know there are no substantial GM wheat crops grown anywhere on earth.

    There is also the secondary problem with cross-contamination from GM to non-GM crops and from GM crops to the original grasses we cultivated wheat from thereby robbing us of being able to go 'back to scratch' and start again.

    Cheers & Thankyou

    Floot
     
  7. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Oh yes,

    The reason for my original post was to show just how complicit US big business is with the US government.

    The interim authority in Iraq handed over 200 Iraqi national institutions to american companies.

    I believe the Free Trade Agreement we have with the USA is fraught with danger for us as Australians as the march of american multinationals now has a jackboot ring to it.

    Whilst that law may not appear any more onerous than our situation, not one Iraqi was canvassed for their opinion when this became 'law'.

    I can remember a few years ago people on the internet making light of copyright laws and the Record Industry and how they 'wouldnt be bothered chasing down the little guy'. Well they are doing just that now.

    Cheers
     
  8. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Floot,

    FYI, wheat farmers in the US and Canada have been able to impose a moratorium on the introduction of GMO wheat.

    If it is introduced in Iraq, then a precedent has been established and it makes it easier for them (Monsanto) to get markets for their seed elsewhere....

    Evil, evil, evil, evil.

    C
     
  9. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    Oh, the merry sounds of money changing hands under the table, going from the bad to the worse (or from the worst to the worst?).

    One happy note: our crooked legislators have been stalled in their efforts to start drilling for oil in one of the last (relatively) pristine areas in this continent, the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

    Sue
     
  10. Mike_E_from_NZ

    Mike_E_from_NZ Junior Member

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    Hi Floot

    What a cool title for a topic.

    "Will we be next?"

    Probably not, but you can be damn certain you are on the list.

    Dubya said so. "If you aren't for us, you're agin us". And don't think he only meant the invasion of Iraq. Look up the legal definitions of terrorism and tell me that you couldn't twist it to include seed saving. Maybe not today, maybe not even tomorrow. But think about what you can get locked up for today, that you would have laughed at yesterday.

    Mike
     
  11. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    it sure does

    I know ALCOA vitually tells the govt what to do

    plus now over here we have Tenex firmly established in Cockburn sound along with other military contractors

    plus of course Haliburton owns the Ghan for the next 50 years and it seems it built it with the main purpose of transporting military tanks down from the new US training areas in the NT for training in SA during the wet season........

    and it is becoming obvious now ship nuclear waste back up to the new dumps

    what about all the new bases that we are told arent bases and the secret agreeement signed in 2004 re the US use of them ......... the only thing we do know for sure is that there will be no environmental studies before or after training https://www.bsharp.net.au

    America owns us aslong as we doa s we are told we are "allies" but I am positive if we show any sign of not doing as we are told we will be made to comply

    the jackboots are getting louder while most of Australia buries their head in the sand

    frosty

    who is definately on the "list" :lol: :lol: :lol: and keeping a eye out for the black helicopter
     
  12. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    "...the jackboots are getting louder while most of Australia buries their head in the sand"

    You ought to be here in the U.S. if you want to hear jackboots. But most of the people here are too well-trained to do as they're told to fuss about it. 1930's Germany all over again.

    Sue
     
  13. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    Thanks Chris - yep, he's doing a really fine job and we better all hope he is successful.


    Floot, are they not allowed to import heritage seeds and save them? I'm not getting that from the article...only that they can't save GM seeds. Or is any means of obtaining heritage seeds just not in the 'business plan' the US has 'helped' them develop?

    Almost every day I read an article on how the US has stiffed Iraq...just the other day I read an article which says most return on oil ventures average around 8-11% of total wealth gained for the company doing the work. Some companies in Iraq are taking as high as 72%...Iraq will lose hundreds of billions over the term of these arrangements compared to what it should be getting. Furthermore, Haliburton subsidiaries have stuffed up EVERY single project they were delegated which will get Iraq's oil flowing...at a cost again of billions for zero result.

    ....geez, don't get me started Floot... :lol:

    I read the other day that Kurdish forces have infiltrated the northern Iraqi Army to the point they make up around 90% of the soldiers - the rest being Arab. They are waiting for the word from above on when to kill their fellow soldiers who are Arab and re-take Kirkuk which Saddam kicked them out of and encouraged Arab settlement. The goal is a completely autonomous Kurdistan...the Shi'ites in the south are planning the same...an autonomous state...both the north and south hold all the oil reserves with little in between.

    Somehow I don't think the US public is going to consider that $300 billion well spent after the wider region is at war...a civil war will be an understatement because you can guarantee Turkey, Iran and Syria (at the very least) will get involved.

    I gotta stop here or I'll go all day...and this is probably getting too political for many people's liking...
     
  14. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Jez,


    You got it. No heritage seeds allowed to be imported. Five american companies have the monopoly on seed introduction.

    Grains are being imported into Iraq but ONLY to be converted into food.

    Maybe we should send some iraqis a care package with seeds in them.

    The legislation that Paul Bremer introduced wasnt 'aimed' at this happening but they have had 2 years to fix it and it is high on the list of 'priorities' for ratification by the new Iraqi Govt. Bremer knew full well the consequences of this law and his puppet masters in the US Govt have encouraged it.

    No wonder the poor folks of iraq are deeply angry. This is just one of the commercial injustices being foisted upon them.

    Cheers

    Floot
     
  15. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Jez,


    While we are being political google 'operation shekinah' and see what we are doing in iraq.


    As an aside, GW Bush intends to split Iraq into 3 seperate zones to be known as Leaded, Unleaded & Diesel.... :lol: :lol:

    Floot
     
  16. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    That's a pretty good idea Floot...if a few of the organic seed sellers here and the Seed Savers networks all got together along with individuals, a big difference could be made once seed stocks are multiplied on the ground over a number of years...


    Awww bugger...I think I hear a black helicopter landing in my vegie patch again... :lol:
     
  17. heuristics

    heuristics Junior Member

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    Iraq first

    No Jez/ Floot
    We are NOT being “too political” with this thread. We're discussing current affairs/world events...
    And one of my pet themes is that permaculture is intensely political.
    Bill M is the master of rants... He doesn't shy away from having a spray about the deals/govts and corrupt shenanigans that have created and perpetuated disorder .... there is every reason to canvas these issues here.... if not here – where?
    And permie people SHOULD be very, very concerned about these issues.... our “radical” ideas and practices leave us extremely vulnerable under emerging totalitarian global regimes.
     
  18. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Heuristics,

    You touched on a very important issue, that seed saving, food production without chemical usage, or GMOs subject to intellectual property law and patents, decentralized farming is intensely political!

    In the future, what permaculture offers is a way to jump start agriculture when the wheels fall off (peak oil, systemic copllapse from agriculture that is capable of happening on marginal land and would simply NOT be possible without massive inputs, but is "productive" because of the availability of cheap (in purchase price) synthetic fertilizers, etc, etc, etc,) and the business as usual practices are no longer apparently sustainable. (I say "apparently" because the majority of agriculture practiced now only appears to be sustainable because of the relative price and availability of a nonrenewable resource, petroleum.)

    The other thing is that to the big companies, and Monsanto is definitely one of the five companies doing this to Iraq, nations and countries are irrelevent, except for in terms of markets and malleability of governments. So while these companies are "American", they are really quite beyond national boundaries (except when a timely intervention on their behalf by the US government would boost their revenues).

    Iraq is now utterly dependent on the US (who caused the problem in the first place by invading a sovereign nation under fale pretexts), and is extremely vulnerable to the sort of corporate predations that are these companies bread and butter.

    First they export the herbicides, and Round Up is THE herbicide, used worldwide, with an aggressive ad campaign to promote it as "safe", and then they hope to export the GM seeds that can handle direct spraying of herbicides, which ends up with even more Round Up being used.

    What is happening in this case is just a slightly extreme and more visible example of the sort of neocolonialism we will be seeing more of in the future, where countries are colonies to corporations, not to other countries. I think of the spread of agrichemical technology as agricultural imperialism, except, again, the imperialist powers are quasi stateless, even though Monsanto is an American company, it has no allegiance tgo any nation, and it sees the whole world as nothing more than a market to sell its products.

    Permaculture turns that whole model into an irrelevency.

    Localized food production based on a broad genetic foundation of appropriate crops, free from imported inputs is empowering to local farmers, empowering to poor people, empowering to nations that lack foreign currency to purchase these inputs. Localized food production in a permaculture context frees farmers from dependency on external sources for the tools to grow food, frees them from the need to convert enough food to money, money to petroleum derived inputs, to food, to money, to inputs, to food...

    When South Africa was under Apartheid, people boycotted South Africa, and justifiably. When Monsanto enslaves farmers with GMOs and chemicals, when they pollute the genetic legacy of agriculture, when they undermine local food production systems with ones that foster dependency on them and their products, when they sue farmers for "stealing" their pollen, resulting in crops that they cannot sell, that they did not want, then they are worthy of being boycotted, too.... (another reason NOT to buy Round Up!).

    (Jez)

    Permacultures is extremely political! I, myself, think that what you are saying, Jez, is important to be said, because the media isn't talking about it, and we need to force these issues into the discussion of what is food, where is agriculture going.

    Will step off my pebble now :lol: .

    C
     

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