--- Worldwatch Institute <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 11:19:37 -0600
> Subject: "Farming's New Feudalism" Brought About by
> Biotechnology and Seed Patents
>
>
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>
> "Farming's New Feudalism" Brought About by
> Biotechnology and Seed Patents
>
>
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>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> Monday, April 11, 2005
>
> Contact: Darcey Rakestraw
> 202.452.1992 x 517
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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>
> Contents
>
> - WORLD WATCH MAGAZINE -- MAY/JUNE 2005
> - "FARMING'S NEW FEUDALISM"
> - TOWARDS A MUTUALISTIC PARADIGM: CORPORATIONS AND
> SOCIETY
> - DO WILD FORESTS MATTER?
> - GREEN GUIDANCE
> - ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE
> - MATTERS OF SCALE
> - NOTES TO EDITORS
>
>
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>
> "FARMING'S NEW FEUDALISM" BROUGHT ABOUT BY
> BIOTECHNOLOGY AND SEED
> PATENTS Plus Corporations and Society, Forests that
> Matter, and More in
> World Watch magazine's May/June 2005 issue
>
> [ View Full Magazine:
> http://www.worldwatch.org/press/prerelease/183.pdf ]
>
> [ View Full Article:
>
http://www.worldwatch.org/press/prerelease/183-farming.pdf
> ]
>
> Washington, D.C. - Feudalism has come full circle
> for Percy Schmeiser,
> writes Robert Schubert, editor of the online news
> service Crop Choice,
> in "Farming's New Feudalism" (World Watch, May/June
> 2005).
>
> Karl and Anna Schmeiser, Percy Schmeiser's
> grandparents, left 19th
> century Germany--where they worked a baron's vast
> tracts of land in order
> to shelter and feed their family--for the New World,
> where they settled
> in the prairies of western Canada. These days,
> however, farmers on those
> prairies are not finding the independence Karl and
> Anna did. They are
> struggling to keep their livelihoods in the face of
> industrial
> agriculture, which has steadily consolidated its
> power through various
> strategies including the commodification of seed.
> "It's as if the barons
> have arisen from the grave and brought the old
> feudal system back with
> them," Schubert quotes Schmeiser.
>
> Until recently, agriculture was more a way of life
> than an industry. Up
> until the 1970s, public institutions licensed seed
> companies to sell to
> farmers and usually claimed a royalty, and farmers
> were permitted to
> save successive generations of seed for planting on
> their own farms.
> Patents changed this relationship; when coupled with
> contracts that
> enforced the patent rights, they provided the means
> of legal control
> over seeds needed to increased profits for the
> burgeoning multinational
> biotechnology industry, which was busy absorbing
> seed companies.
>
> Using biological means (genetic engineering) and
> social means
> (patenting), agriculture giants further consolidated
> their power and
> bolstered their bottom lines. The effects have been
> disastrous for
> farmers, who are now hampered by legal actions such
> as those suffered by
> Schmeiser, argues Schubert. Monsanto has sued 90
> farmers in 25 states
> and won over $15 million in judgments for breach of
> contract or patent
> infringement. Monsanto sued the Schmeisers after
> seeds from their canola
> harvest were found to contain the company's Roundup
> Ready genes.
> (Schmeiser had learned that the stray plants growing
> in ditches on his
> property contained Monsanto's genes, yet he saved
> and replanted seed
> from his harvest without informing Monsanto. In May
> 2004, the Supreme
> Court of Canada ruled that he had infringed the
> patent on the gene
> because it was present in the seed from his field.
> However, it was ruled
> that Schmeiser owed Monsanto none of his profits
> because he had not made
> money from its patented invention.)
>
> Schmeiser fears for the future of North American and
> world agriculture.
> "Farmers are going out of business....The
> corporations are becoming the
> barons and the lords, which are what my grandparents
> thought they'd
> escaped."
>
>

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Director, Proyecto de Bioseguridad http://www.bioseguridad.blogspot.com
Research Associate, Institute for Social Ecology http://www.social-ecology.org/
Senior Fellow, Environmental Leadership Program http://www.elpnet.org/

http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com



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