Warning!

[grassfarmer]

It seems the US operation "Iraqi Freedom" is less about freeing the world of global terrorism than enslaving the world to a handful of US corporations. Vis:

"The (now former) American Administrator of the Iraqi CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) government, Paul Bremer,updated Iraq's intellectual property law to 'meet current internationally-recognized standards of protection.'
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/ regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf
The updated law makes saving seeds for next year's harvest, practiced by 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002, the standard farming practice for thousands of years across human civilizations, now illegal.
Instead, farmers will have to obtain a yearly license for genetically-modified seeds from American corporations. These GM seeds have typically been modified from IP developed over thousands of generations by indigenous farmers like the Iraqis, shared freely like agricultural 'open source.' Other IP provisions for technology in the law further integrate Iraq into the American IP economy."
As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations -- including seeds the Iraqis themselves developed over hundreds of years. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve"

[cakadu]

You bring up a good point about tighter and tighter control and moving towards an oligopoly in terms of our food production.

What is even more frightening than the production side of things, at least in my opinion, is the fact that the global distribution of goods is being controlled by fewer and fewer companies. The top 5 food distribution companies in the world are all from the EU or from Japan.

Wal-Mart is fast closing in on being the biggest global retailer, which is another story entirely. We watched a program last week on Wal-Mart and where it intends to go and they will be everywhere before long, if all goes according to their plan.

Bigger is not necessarily better and the bigger some of these corporations get, the tighter their grip on what we can choose to do or not do will become.

[Horse]

Thats a very good warning but I wonder how many out there have bought out your neibor or squesed them into moving on. If we heep listin to the machine manufactures and the economists we will be gone and just working in the ag buisness within the next decade.
Think about it before you take advantage of the little guy.

[tower]

I saw recently that the Canadian Seed Trade Association, in the interest of and for the betterment of farmers and society at large, is proposing some improvements to our Plant Breeders Rights. Improvement such as the removal of farmers rights to keep seed, lengthening the time frame for plant breeders rights to 25 years, giving plant breeders the right to production, and processed production from crops grown.

If anyone is interested they might look into the National Farmers Union Website and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency with respect to the proposed changes.