New Iraq Patent Law Will Make Traditional Farmers Seed Saving Illegal

* And yet something else the U.S. government is doing to ruin Iraq for 'the people' who live there :-(

* Rambleman

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http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/iraq111704.cfm

From: THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER
November 15, 2004, Issue #380
Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness
From a Public Interest Perspective

EDITOR\PUBLISHER; A.V. Krebs
E-MAIL: avkrebs@earthlink.net
WEB SITE: http://www.ea1.com/CARP/
TO RECEIVE: Send name and address

IRAQI FARMERS FARM-SAVED SEED AND FREE INNOVATION TRADITION NOW RULED ILLEGAL UNDER NEW CORPORATE FRIENDLY PATENTING LAW

FOCUS ON THE GLOBAL SOUTH AND GRAIN, COALITION AGAINST BAYER, CBG NETWORK:
For generations, small farmers in Iraq operated in an essentially unregulated, informal seed supply system. Farm-saved seed and the free innovation with and exchange of planting materials among farming communities
has long been the basis of agricultural practice. This has been made illegal under the new law.

The seeds farmers are now allowed to plant --- "protected" crop varieties brought into Iraq by transnational corporations in the name of agricultural reconstruction --- will be the property of the corporations. While
historically the Iraqi constitution prohibited private ownership of biological resources, the new U.S.-imposed patent law introduces a system of monopoly rights over seeds.

Inserted into Iraq's previous patent law is a whole new chapter on Plant Variety Protection (PVP) that provides for the "protection of new varieties of plants." PVP is an intellectual property right (IPR) or a kind of patent for
plant varieties which gives an exclusive monopoly right on planting material to a plant breeder who claims to have discovered or developed a new variety.

So the "protection" in PVP has nothing to do with conservation, but refers to safeguarding of the commercial interests of private breeders (usually large corporations) claiming to have created the new plants.

To qualify for PVP, plant varieties must comply with the standards of the UPOV Convention, which requires them be new, distinct, uniform and stable. Farmers' seeds cannot meet these criteria, making PVP-protected seeds the exclusive domain of corporations. The rights granted to plant breeders in this scheme include the exclusive right to produce, reproduce, sell, export, import and store the protected varieties.

These rights extend to harvested material, including whole plants and parts of plants obtained from the use of a protected variety. This kind of PVP system is often the first step towards allowing the full-fledged patenting
of life forms. Indeed, in this case the rest of the law does not rule out the patenting of plants or animals.

The term of the monopoly is 20 years for crop varieties and 25 for trees and vines. During this time the protected variety de facto becomes the property of the breeder, and nobody can plant or otherwise use this variety without compensating the breeder.

This new law means that Iraqi farmers can neither freely legally plant nor save for re-planting seeds of any plant variety registered under the plant variety provisions of the new patent law. This deprives farmers what they and many others worldwide claim as their inherent right to save and replant seeds.

This is only half of the article. Read the other half here...

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