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Headlines : CorporationsPlowing Iraq for Profits
Critics of American agribusiness warn that this confluence of privatization policies, GMO-friendly patent protections and U.S. exports is a volatile mix that could further destabilize war-ravaged Iraqi farmers while producing few benefits for their American counterparts.
[Posted By ShiftShapers]Republished from Alternet News
Iraq’s Fertile Crescent, the fabled birthplace of ancient grains and agricultural civilization, is emerging as a new market opportunity for American agribusiness. Even as U.S. officials tout gracious shipments of food aid and technical assistance to thankful Iraqi farmers, the agenda articulated by government agencies and industry groups is clear – Iraq’s fragile food sector, battered by decades of war and sanctions, is open for business.
U.S. exports of wheat, rice, soybean products and poultry to Iraq all ballooned in 2003 after sanctions were lifted. Freshly minted contracts show American wheat exporters are expanding sales (albeit still small) to Iraq, and congressional testimony by industry groups shows their keen interest in recapturing what was once, through the late ’80s, a profitable destination for U.S. crops.
And the American project extends beyond prying this revived market away from Australia and other nations that did agricultural business with Saddam Hussein during the sanction decade. The broader agricultural plan includes privatizing state-run food companies, phasing out farm subsidies, boosting food prices and, possibly, introducing genetically altered seeds that are patented and not reusable – all moves that dovetail with an overall neoliberal strategy to open up and deregulate Iraq’s markets.
This broader push for privatization is…
Posted by ShiftShapers
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Good post. Thank you. I wish more about the financial rape of Iraq was being reported mainstream, it certainly is the main reason for the continued “insurgency”. I wonder how Iffy weighs in on this one. P.S. Paul Wolfowitz as head of World Bank – our doom is sealed.
introducing genetically altered seeds that are patented and not reusable >>>>
Yea, Bremmer actually wrote that one into law. See “Harvest of rage” for more details on how that little scam worked in the US.
Agribusiness is trying to do what they did to the small farmer here in the US; dependence on their product lines followed by ever spiralling cycle of debt ending in foreclosure and absorbtion by conglomerate.
JB
also see ‘The Stolen Harvest’ by Vandana Shiva
“I wish more about the financial rape of Iraq was being reported mainstream”
Uh, perhaps that is because it is, how shall I put it, anti-American proaganda, all made up stuff. Why don’t you read what the government of Iraq says about its agriculture policy. The left always sees investment and cooperation as exploitation. But that is just a ruse to rally the leftists.
The left took a terrible hit on Jan 30 when freedom was proven to the world, so the left is now in a desperate situation, trying to find anything so that they can cling to the lie they so smuggly spread before Jan 30, and that is that the US is deliberately exploiting Iraq.
“freedom was proven for the world” ?!?!?
man you really aren’t paying attention, are you? sheesh
those were hardly elections and certainly not democratic. are you an American IF2? if so, how would you like to have hundreds of candidates to choose from, which in and of itself sounds great, only you DON’T EVEN KNOW THEIR NAMES! ?!? boy if we tried to pull something like that in America… (not that we have legitimate, popular, consensus, participatory democracy here either. representative democracy is a sham.)
Whatever deviants thought up changing a plant’s genetics to render it sterile should have the technique applied to themselves.
I think it’s a rotten shame, that people are forced to elect someone they don’t even know. To me, that’s like a bad nightmare. An Orwellian type of sci-fi thriller, and we sit and watch it happen. Waiting.
Doesn’t it make you think? If it’s happening there, it’s going to wind up where you and I are. I can hear bush say to the world, if Iraq, accepted this voting strategy—why can’t you agree with it. He’ll show a picture of a Muslim with purple ink on the tip of their fingers, with an empty smile and souless eyes.
You really wonder what they have in their minds, the Iraqis, or were they programmed that way like the Stepford Wives.
The government will do all the thinking for you. No need for your conscience thought. Leave all your worries in the hands of bush, and he will do all the thinking for you, ie: the Iraqi War. Can you imagine…
Scary stuff kiddies, get ready for a bumpy ride.