Copyright and IP, It's Not Just The Internet Either

[wkmac]

The food chain could be effected as well

New Delhi, India - The seed is the first link in the food chain - and seed sovereignty is the foundation of food sovereignty. If farmers do not have their own seeds or access to open pollinated varieties that they can save, improve and exchange, they have no seed sovereignty - and consequently no food sovereignty.
The deepening agrarian and food crisis has its roots in changes in the seed supply system, and the erosion of seed diversity and seed sovereignty.
Seed sovereignty includes the farmer's rights to save, breed and exchange seeds, to have access to diverse open source seeds which can be saved - and which are not patented, genetically modified, owned or controlled by emerging seed giants. It is based on reclaiming seeds and biodiversity as commons and public good.


The past twenty years have seen a very rapid erosion of seed diversity and seed sovereignty, and the concentration of the control over seeds by a very small number of giant corporations. In 1995, when the UN organised the Plant Genetic Resources Conference in Leipzig, it was reported that 75 per cent of all agricultural biodiversity had disappeared because of the introduction of "modern" varieties, which are always cultivated as monocultures. Since then, the erosion has accelerated.


The introduction of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the World Trade Organisation has accelerated the spread of genetically engineered seeds - which can be patented - and for which royalties can be collected. Navdanya was started in response to the introduction of these patents on seeds in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - a forerunner to the WTO - about which a Monsanto representative later stated: "In drafting these agreements, we were the patient, diagnostician [and] physician all in one." Corporations defined a problem - and for them the problem was farmers saving seeds. They offered a solution, and the solution was to make it illegal for farmers to save seed - by introducing patents and intellectual property rights [PDF] on those very seeds. As a result, acreage under GM corn, soya, canola, cotton has increased dramatically.

But the most interesting part in the article is this:

Even as the disappearance of biodiversity and seed sovereignty creates a major crisis for agriculture and food security, corporations are pushing governments to use public money to destroy the public seed supply and replace it with unreliable non-renewable, patented seed - which must be bought each and every year.

IMO this begs 2 questions for the defenders of the status quo. The first would be for those who defend gov't as necessary for the public good and the other would be for those who defend business, especially large scale corp. business as also some kind of public good. But it also begs the question, could big business ever get such without the state in the first place and then if there is not big business, who has the money to buy off the political process and in that does gov't naturally devolve to a more natural small scale and more local controlled participatory democracy? Does gov't in effect not taking such grand central planning economic steps produce it's own natural self limiting capacity on both the state and vulgar capitalism or vulgar free markets if you like? The next question you might consider is if copyright and IP are naturally occurring property rights or are they a created fiction in the same manner a corporation is a person? But do patent protections exist when the patented product are just blown in with the wind? And is this just an isolated corporation gone crazy or have they had partners in this process? There are even rumblings about the backyard gardener who could be next and the scary part of that scenario is the source of the violation of Monsanto's patents is as uncontrollable as pollen in the wind. To the defenders of both big state and big business, who among you is really defending real property rights here?

Seems to me in the above situation, both the undying defenders of big gov't and big capitalism both have a serious dilemma in holding their ideals while still appearing the high ground moralist too!