There was/is a big push, via lobbying, by Monsanto and Cargill (and likely other corps) to outlaw ‘traditional’ seed and its (re)use. Iragi Order 81 made it illegal for any farmers in Iraq to use anything other than corporate-bought seed. No farmers were allowed to use any of the seed stock that had been great for them for centuries. It was dictated that they had to buy new strains from specific sellers. Period.
I do not know if this still stands today and what is becoming of its impact on agriculture there. A very scary thing, imho, to make an area known as Fertile Crescent totally dependent upon a system that a corporation dictates for its own benefit. Pay up or quit farming - not very beneficial to those who already had well-established strains going for them, 'eh?
Seems a pretty good example of Teh Evil to me anyways.
So I will assume you recognize the rat’s nest that will unfold if these genes spread. How would you propose the law deal with it?
That’s an argument for monopolies as well. The law must make sense, and this doesn’t. Also, people still create all sorts of new tools even though they can’t control the products made with those tools. Monsanto has plenty of ways to protect their investment through their processes.
You didn’t answer the most important question. Why can’t I patent my children? They are unique genetic combinations that I should own. No one should be able to reproduce using my son’s genetic material and steal my unique design according to your logic.
No, they really don’t. They could sell their seeds with the terminator gene – that would protect their process. But they were vilified for suggesting that, weren’t they?
You didn’t design anything. You can’t patent your children because they did not come into being as a result of any particular intellectual innovation on your part, and that’s the purpose of the patent system.
Isn’t it true that the regulations on GMOs essentially make it hard for smaller companies to manufacture them basically creating a monopoly for Monsanto which already has sizable capital?
The good old fashioned way, by natural reproduction. I’m not claiming it’s happened. I’m asking you if you know if the law has accounted for this. It’s alright if you don’t know, I don’t expect you to be the defender of Monsanto, just curious if you do know the answer.
No idea. Why would they be vilified for taking a precautionary measure?
I certainly did design my children (well one of them, the other one I bought the rights to). I spent considerable time finding the set of complementary genes to my own unique and superior ones to produce a brilliant and unemployed human being. And I have serious objections to the string of harlots who have attempted to steal that genetic combination to produce their own line.
From here:
“[FONT=Verdana,Arial][FONT=Verdana,Arial][SIZE=2]Back to one of the most blatant orders of all: Order 81. Under this mandate, Iraq’s commercial farmers must now buy “registered seeds.” These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the World Wide Wheat Company.[/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]”
I do find somewhat conflicting info on this, but the vast majority of what I see states how farmers cannot use their traditional seed - its corporate or nothing. I would like to know exactly what’s up with it, but haven’t the time time atm to find absolute citing(s). I have no problem being corrected on this, for sure.
Here’s another that mentions not using their traditional seed, and how Order 81 defined the usual seed as ‘infringing’ upon he corporations… (exerpted):
"Remember that 97 per cent of Iraqi farmers save their seeds. Order 81 also puts paid to that. A new line has been added to the law which reads: ‘Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph (C) of Article 14 of this Chapter.’
Not very nice to large-scale farming, particularly when they were expected to grow strains meant for export for pasta of all things, LOL. Pretty much changed everything for farming there it seems. Pay up, or do not grow certain plants they had always grown.
And the patent system is on the move towards first-to-file system instead of a first-to-invent, so if someone wanted to sequence their genes for hair color and select potential mates on the same genes, they might be able to patent a few human natural hair colors if they’re quick.
That article (no idea how valid it is) is from 2005. Out of curiosity, how many Iraqi’s have starved due to that policy since then? Has their agricultural industry collapsed? Is their output less today than in 2005? Just want a fuller picture before here.
Just curious here…no snark intended…but do you see corporate manipulation of the energy industry (or the transport industry…or, well, all other industries) as equally evil? Especially in the energy and transport industry your life (and a hell of a lot of other peoples) equally are at stake, after all.
To me, I see corporate manipulation as, well, simply corporate manipulation…neither good nor evil automatically. It COULD be either of those things, depending on what exactly the given corporation is doing, and how they are going about doing it (and what the outcome of their manipulation is exactly), but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. The concept that somehow doing this in the agriculture industry makes it worse because people depend on it ignores the fact that in the modern world we are as dependent on energy, transport and a host of other goods and services to survive as well. People tend to forget that as many people would be dead if the power shuts off (or the internet for that matter) as if all the GM crops caught the creeping crud and died off.
Not necessarily. Part of my saying Teh Evil is, apparently, how the strains Iraqis were made to grow were for benefit of not locals or traditional markets, but for different markets, those located on other side of world or far from where the markets existed before. The farmers were ordered to grow what they did not want or need to grow, but what someone else told them to, or go to jail and/or give the corps all their money, thus ruining the business outright. Pretty sure a fair portion of seed made available was for pasta, of all things - which was not what was grown prior. I’ve never heard of Iraqi pasta myself. But Bremer made such into law.
Out of scope of this thread, of course, but the market was captured, literally, for the use of the corporation(s) of other countries (export focus, iirc) and not for the farmers/growers’ interests that had existed prior to the Order(s) Bremer left behind.
Energy and transport tends to not be as exportable in such circumstances, but I am no expert any any means on energy transport or export across oceanic distances. Not the best comparisons, afaik. It really seems like Order 81 was 100% meant to indenture those who were successful prior to the invasion. No choice given, and no options when many options already existed. Energy-stuff does not have that kind of optioning, afaik, right?
And I’d love to know what energy-source or transport mechanism can be outlawed based on genetics, or saving the natural reproductive output (seed, per se) for the next year’s use? Can coal, solar, nuclear or such be re-used for free the next year? If any could, would outlawing the naturally occurring free ‘offspring/seed’ re-use be considered Teh Evil? I’d call it such. Maybe compare it to re-using water downstream of a hydroelectric dam illegal unless you pay the dam’s owner fees every year/season? Not the best comparison, of course.
[QUOTE=Ionizer]
Not necessarily. Part of my saying Teh Evil is, apparently, how the strains Iraqis were made to grow were for benefit of not locals or traditional markets, but for different markets, those located on other side of world or far from where the markets existed before. The farmers were ordered to grow what they did not want or need to grow, but what someone else told them to, or go to jail and/or give the corps all their money, thus ruining the business outright. Pretty sure a fair portion of seed made available was for pasta, of all things - which was not what was grown prior. I’ve never heard of Iraqi pasta myself. But Bremer made such into law.
[/QUOTE]
I’d want to see more data first, before jumping to any conclusions. I’ve heard nothing about starvation (due to crops, seed or GM) in Iraq, for instance, nor have I heard that Iraqi farmers are going out of business because of any of these practices (granted, that means nothing, as most news about Iraq is about folks getting blown apart, not starving to death due to underhanded agriculture businesses).
Again, would need more data. Maybe it wasn’t in the local farmers interests, and maybe it was…it would depend on what the outcome was. Perhaps you had a situation where small farmers were using resources that were wasted on lower yield seed and methods…sort of like putting miners out of work by introducing dynamite and new drilling techniques instead of the pick and shovel that were good enough for pops. Pure speculation on my part, but I’d want to see the whole, unabridged story first and also see what the results are today. A lot of US farmers were put out of work with the introduction of new technology, including new seed…but the US agriculture industry today is so overly productive that food is almost literally dirt cheap and we export massive amounts all over the world. It’s a GOOD thing that we went from 90+% of the population being in agriculture in one way or another to it being less than 3% of the population involved in the business, and that might be the case in Iraq as well for all I know. Painful in the short term to those farmers, but in the long term it might be incredibly beneficial to them.
It wasn’t meant to be a point by point comparison, just a broad comparison that we are dependent on food, but equally dependent on energy as well…and, if you look around, a small number of energy companies control your access to this resource that is literally the difference between life and death to millions. Just like in agriculture. Your options are actually greater wrt agriculture than they are to power…and farmers options to which company they buy seed from is greater in most cases to which companies they get the power to make all that farm equipment stuff run (or the equipment itself) is.
Don’t have much time atm, but one point wrt to energy is that there is not a mandate that you must use a certain type, or pay a corporation to use the energy in a way that is not approved by said corps. I can store energy several ways should I choose (though not efficiently like natural seed) and not worry about going to jail for re-using that energy without paying a dictated fee to a private company.
Plus, if energy grew itself, it would be a much better comparison. Plants provide re-use at no great cost. Unless a corporation somehow makes it illegal to do so in order to purchase THEIR product. Doing so with seed is Teh Evil in this case. Criminalizing nature? Economics tends to make bad processes go away on their own, and economics were just fine for them afaik - but not for the victors. A capitalist always wants more, and they got it via Bremer’s Orders It was forced by mandate, not economics of the farmers from what I can tell. If it really was better, why make it into law? Them farmers would’ve wanted a better product if it was feasible for them. It wasn’t! That is where Teh Evil comes from. I can still mine minerals by shovel, but dynamite (which is NOT mandated by law, I bet) makes more sense. By far.
My stance on this is that the corps made it illegal to use a pretty a much free resource that had worked for thousands of years. I can’t think of another commodity that falls into such a definition where a law was made purely for corporate interest. Apples/oranges, of course. Surely the Iraqi farmers understand that if their crops were not sustainable year to year that they should change strains, right? They saw no need to change, but foreign companies MADE them change for foreign benefit - not theirs. Evil intent as viewed by those made to change, especially when lots of folks took up arms to defend their livelihood. America forced it at gunpoint (amongst many other changes for American benefit via Bremer’s orders, but getting way off-topic here, LOL). Sorry if I am rambling a bit, admit I probably said same thing several ways. Hope I am clear enough right now
It is preposterously obvious *just from the way it’s being quoted *that Order 81 does not force Iraqi farmers to buy seeds from a few agribusinesses or prevent them from saving their own seeds. I mean, you can tell just by how it’s cut and pasted.
Order 81 was a sweeping law covering basic patent protection. The specific part made it illegal to break patents on GM crops. It did not require Iraqi farmers to buy GM seed or prevent them from using other seeds.
Ionizer, your entire argument consists of opposing a law that never existed.
That is not “design” within the meaning or the reach of patent law. And the argument I offered in support of extending patent law to cover genetically engineered plants does not also cover having children – that is, I argued that if we do not protect genetically engineered plants as intellectual property, companies will not invest time and money to create useful genetically engineered plants. We don’t protect children’s genetic pattern as intellectual property, and plenty of people are having kids anyway.
