African country to escape poverty and hunger

[hobbyfrmr]

More food supply will be very helpful for this area.

http://www.mo.be/en/analysis/tanzanian-farmers-are-facing-heavy-prison-sentences-if-they-continue-their-traditional-seed

[tweety]

Click the little blue/green earth icon and paste your link there.

[URL="http://www.mo.be/en/analysis/tanzanian-farmers-are-facing-heavy-prison-sentences-if-they-continue-their-traditional-seed"]http://www.mo.be/en/analysis/tanzanian-farmers-are-facing-heavy-prison-sentences-if-they-continue-their-traditional-seed[/URL]

[grassfarmer]

More food supply will be very helpful for this area.

Not as helpful as it'll be to the bottom line of Syngenta.
From poverty and hunger to poverty, hunger and slavery.

[LEP]

That's right grassy. Better to starve than eat and have some one make a profit.

You remind me of a lady I was having a discussion with in Seattle this summer.

I stated that we couldn't produce enough food for the world if we all went organic.

She stated there are too many people in the world anyway. Sheesh.

[jensend]

You should have told her the USA will be the first country to be depopulated.

[grassfarmer]

LEP, this is not about stopping people starving - if it were they could give them the seeds and the "technology" for free funded by the profits they make from their first world customers.

[tweety]

Its a very misleading article. Given the statement...

‘I have seeds of my family, because my great-grandmother used them. She gave them to my grandmother, who gave them to my mother and my mother then gave them to me. I’ve planted them here in the demonstration garden in Morogoro and that’s why very rare plants now grow here’, says Janet Maro. ‘Local farmers find it hard to understand the idea that you can patent and own a seed.

Those seeds are not the concern. Its the ones that have intellectual property rights attached to them. Just like in Canada, if you don't want to respect intellectual property rights of the holder don't grow the seed, or face the legal consequences.

If you don't want to follow the rules, grow "grandmothers" seed, or breed your own variety.

Twisted and misrepresented article.

[hobbyfrmr]

Its a very misleading article. Given the statement...

‘I have seeds of my family, because my great-grandmother used them. She gave them to my grandmother, who gave them to my mother and my mother then gave them to me. I’ve planted them here in the demonstration garden in Morogoro and that’s why very rare plants now grow here’, says Janet Maro. ‘Local farmers find it hard to understand the idea that you can patent and own a seed.

Those seeds are not the concern. Its the ones that have intellectual property rights attached to them. Just like in Canada, if you don't want to respect intellectual property rights of the holder don't grow the seed, or face the legal consequences.

If you don't want to follow the rules, grow "grandmothers" seed, or breed your own variety.

Twisted and misrepresented article.

Good insight.
I looked at it as by introducing new patented genetics yields will increase, more food less famine. Eventually more supply on the world market. There seems to be reluctance to buy fertilizer and new seeds. Ignorance for the time being.
It reads like there are progressive farmers in Africa.

" Syngenta itself has admitted that it is logical that they, as a company, have little concern for the less successful farmers. ‘We are a commercial company and therefore we invest in Africa. We believe that Africa is done with development aid and that it is now all about trade,” concludes Kinyua M’Mbijjewe. ‘The small-scale farmers are not our target. We focus on small-scale farmers trying to grow businesses and we are happy to work with NGOs that have a commercial approach. Farmers who merely try to survive or operate in an unfavorable climate are left out."

[grassfarmer]

I'm assuming your contribution to this thread is heavily masked sarcasm hobbyfarmer?

It certainly is a very twisted article as it's clear it's really about freeing up agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa for outside investors. Introducing agri-business as it's done in the first world to a third world country so that the country's resources can be exploited by foreign entities. A new era of colonialism - let's call it corporate colonialism this time. According to the man from Syngenta "The reason we have hunger in Africa is that there are insufficient agricultural inputs."

The sad part is the "Agro-ecological alternative" outlined later in the article is the sustainable solution, the one that really would allow the country to alleviate poverty and hunger. Empower the people to grow more and better food through knowledge and working with the resources to hand. As the article concludes though "The methods are not immediately patentable and therefore the industry treats them shabbily. An unfortunate consequence of this is that insufficient research is being done into such methods."
Just sad, very sad.

[sawfly1]

it is just a sign of the times.
global corporations make the laws or impose them in this case.

yes intellectual property needs to be protected.
but , why do the corporations themselves get to decide how long
their protected status remains.

they way it works now , use agreements etc. the public never gets access.

they may sucker them in with good cheap hybrids.
all the old seeds fall out of favor. and are lost to history.

once that happens , they truly are slaves to the seed co.s
and the price goes nowhere but up.
kinda like canola

[sawfly1]

the other revelation in the article.

that aid would be withheld , if they did not change the the laws to protect the
seed co.s property.

so now we have a situation where taxpayers and donors from other nations, are the
ones paying to bribe to the country to change their laws in favor of the seed co.s

how wild is that.

what happened to the good old days when corporations paid bribes to local officials
with their own money.

How has it come to the point , that , syngenta / Bayer can not only dictate to 3 rd world
countries
,but dictate , the world aid policies of the G8 .

and use our tax dollars to do it.

[hobbyfrmr]

I was being somewhat sarcastic. Agreed, the article is twisted. I have similar thoughts as Sawdly It sure looks like agribusiness is going to impose their patented seeds on African farmers under the guise of eliminating hunger. If you follow the money, it will play out as Sawfly describes, I think it would be a perfect environment for Input Capital Corp to thrive.
Tweety has a point, if the farmers don't want to play by the rules, they can continue using older, non patented seeds.

[jensend]

If you do a little looking around you will find that after the Americans imposed a government on Iraq a plant breeders' rights law was among the very early legislation passed. That's the lobby farmers around the world have to contend with.

[sawfly1]

yes jensend
the blood has not even coagulated yet in iraq
and the seed co.s are telling a puppet govt.
to write laws for them. sick isn't it .

countries and governments , are becoming kinda meaningless.
think about who would , have the will or the power to stop the
bayer monsanto merger.

and when you think about it, what is to stop another merger or 2 ,of seed co.s
potentially you end up with one world seed corporation.

( we talk about too big to fail.
maybe we should be more worried about too big to stop.)

not that they are not already colluding on prices and products
you certainly do not see canola seed at 1/2 the price. do you

with all their laws, in place to prevent anyone ever actually owning a seed variety
that is not 50 years old. if you can find some.

at that point there is no need to research anymore .
you could sell the same seed forever and still extract all the market will bear .



the simple truth is that, for there to be incentive for innovation.
patents have to expire, and use agreements have to be outlawed.

in theory , the seed co.s will have to leave some money on the table for farmers.
or they will not use the product at all

consumers on the other hand are the ones that will ultimately foot the bill for

the seed co.s extortion ,

[seabass]

Scary. Control the seed. Control production(too some degree). Control the population.