God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” — Genesis 1:29

By Kathleen Kern

The ancient inhabitants of what is now Iraq developed, among other firsts, the first recorded forms of agriculture. Mesopotamian farmers domesticated wild wheat, barley, rye and lentils around 8,000 B.C.

Thus, for at least 10,000 years, the residents of Iraq have been developing crop varieties that grow well in their climate. They have saved seeds from crops that produced the most abundantly, replanting and cross-pollinated them with varieties that had different strengths, so that the crops continually improved.

U.S. efforts to meddle with these traditions recently appeared in the 2006 Project Censored’s list of the 25 most under-reported news stories of 2004-05.

Before he left Iraq in 2004, Paul Bremer, U.S. head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, issued “100 Orders” that were translated into Arabic only after they had gone into effect. Order 81 bears the title “Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety.” Essentially, the law gives multinational corporations the right to patent seeds in Iraq. It also mandates that Iraqi farmers cannot save patented seeds for the next harvest but must buy the seeds new every year.

The United States, working through Texas A&M University, will “donate” patented seeds and new equipment to impoverished Iraqi farmers.

Jeremy Smith wrote in the January 2005 issue of The Ecologist: “After one year, farmers will see soaring production levels. Many will be only too willing to abandon their old ways in favor of the new technologies. Out will go traditional methods. In will come imported American seeds (more than likely GM [genetically modified]). . . . And with the new seeds will come new chemicals — pesticides, herbicides, fungicides — all sold to the Iraqis by corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill and Dow.”  

Planting the few varieties of patented seeds available will erode crop diversity, making Iraq’s food supply more susceptible to pests. Furthermore, Order 81 allows corporations to patent varieties of crops grown by Iraqi farmers over thousands of years — crops that the corporations supposedly “discover.”

Even more insidiously, it gives them control over varieties that are “similar” to strains the corporations have modified genetically. For example, if a corporation develops a blight-resistant variety of wheat, and an Iraqi farmer is growing another variety that has the same attribute, the farmer will not be allowed to save his own seeds.

These patents violate the provision in the 1970 Iraqi constitution that prohibits private ownership of biological resources. Even if such ownership were allowed, however, one would think it should apply to farmers rather than foreign corporations.

Sadly, some of my acquaintances and family members supported the invasion of Iraq. A few supported the war because of the belief — promoted and then discarded by the Bush administration — that Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction.

However, most of the people I know who supported the war did so because they felt genuine compassion for the Iraqi people. They believed the United States entered Iraq to rid them of a sociopathic dictator and make democracy possible. Not one of the people I know who supports the war and military occupation of Iraq does so because he or she thinks U.S. corporations should tell Iraqi farmers what they can plant.