Editor's Note: This is an action notice initiated by the Institute of Near Eastern and African Studies (INEAS). Visit their website and offer your support for International Seeds Day which will be observed on April 26! - Eds

There is a conspiracy going on against the freedom of farmers to use the free seeds they have used for generations. Monsanto and other transnational corporations are attempting to monopolize food production on the planet. Nothing less. Resistance to this plan is crucial. In Germany the attempt of Monsanto to monopolize corn has been overruled recently by the government (mid April 2009). But weaker countries are easy prey. Take Iraq.
 
Historically, the Iraqi constitution prohibited ownership of biological resources. Farmers in Iraq have operated in a mostly free-to-little-regulated, informal seed supply system. Farm-saved seeds and the free exchange of planting materials among farmers have long been the basis of agricultural practice in Iraq. Yet all of this has become history. On April 26, 2004, Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), issued and signed Order 81, which prohibits farmers from reusing seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law. When ownership of a crop is claimed, seed saving will be banned and farmers will have to be pay royalties to the registered, so-called seed owner. The Order arises from USAID program in Iraq, which confirms that foreign aid programs are mainly "commercial opportunity" programs designed to benefit companies in the USA and Europe. It fits perfectly into the US vision for the future of Iraqi agriculture following a system dependent on large corporations selling chemical inputs and seeds.

The purpose of Order 81 is to facilitate the establishment of a new seed market in Iraq, one in which Iraqi farmers are forced to make their annual purchase of seeds, including those that are genetically modified, from transnational corporations. The law awarded US Corporations complete control over farmers’ seed for 20 years. Iraqi farmers had to sign an agreement to pay a “technology fee” plus an annual license fee. Plant Variety Protection (PVP) made seed reusing and saving illegal as well as “similar” seed plantings punishable by severe fines and imprisonment. Agribusiness wants the same rights everywhere, including in the USA. This will jeopardize the future of organic and independent farming. Many developing countries in Africa and Asia particularly in Afghanistan, India and Iraq have been suffering from these unjust laws and the monopoly by the agricultural giants.
 
These unjust laws will fatally affect the future of agriculture. We have to act united against this attempt to monopolize what belongs to all: the produce of the earth. Like air and water, seeds cannot be privatised. Therefore we appeal to organizations, activists, organic food advocates, farm owners and farmers around the world, we appeal to peace organisations, the green movement, the North-South movement, the counterglobalist movement, trade unions and farmer organisations to join forces to advocate for patent-free seeds and biodiversity and to inform the public and educate the farmers about the criminal practices by agricultural corporations.

We have to support and legally defend civil disobedience of the farmers in Iraq and elsewhere. We ask the European governments to protest against this criminal privatization of Iraqi farming and we ask them to follow Germany’s example and overrule attempts to privatize and monopolize European farming. We ask the United Nations and the World food Organisation to condemm these practices. We ask the president of the United States of America to repeal order 81.  We ask him to dismantle the attempts of Monsanto and other companies to monopolize world food production. This is a crime, not only against farmers, but against humanity and against the planet.  
 
The initiative was launched by INEAS and the petition is an initiative of the BRussells Tribunal on the occasion of the first  International Seeds Day on April 26 2009.

SOURCE: PLEASE VISIT THE INSTITUTE OF NEAR EASTERN AND AFRICAN STUDIES (INEAS):

"Organizations, activists and people from various professional and linguistic backgrounds will observe April 26 as International Seeds Day (ISD) advocating for patent-free seeds, organic food and farmers' rights. ISD will be an educational day for the public to learn about genetically modified food and its health hazardous effects and the agribusiness of major US and European companies and their monopoly over the agriculture in Africa and Asia with emphasis on India, Iraq and Afghanistan.  It will be a day of solidarity with farmers in countries devastated by war (Afghanistan, Iraq & others) and of resistance."