From a recent Slashdot posting…
The American Administrator of the Iraqi CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) government, Paul Bremer, updated Iraq’s intellectual property law to ‘meet current internationally-recognized standards of protection.’ The updated law makes saving seeds for next year’s harvest, practiced by 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002, the standard farming practice for illegal. Instead, farmers will have to obtain a yearly license for genetically modified seeds from American corporations.
From http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=6
As part of sweeping “economic restructuring” implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations — including seeds the Iraqis themselves developed over hundreds of years. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve.
More details can found here :
http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/iraq_seeds.htm
The full text of the law can be found here:
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf
