GMW: Monsanto's man at the U.S. Trade Office

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GMW: Monsanto's man at the U.S. Trade Office

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 9 Jan 2006 22:38:05 GMT

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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EXCERPT: As USDA chief Mike Johanns recently put it, " We must use the

WTO to force open markets for U.S. products. "

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Monsanto's man at the U.S. Trade Office

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/1/9/13258/06199

Grist Magazine, 9January 2006

 

When Bush wants to kill a program or a department, he picks a clown to

run it. Think of FEMA's disgraced " Brownie, " who did such a " heck of a

job " when disaster struck the Gulf Coast.

When the president sees something real at stake for his corporate

clients, though, he tends to anoint an ultra-qualified pro: someone,

typically, with direct ties to the industry in question. In surely the

most spectacular example, Bush placed responsibility for creating

energy policy in the crude-stained hands of Dick Cheney.

 

The world of agriculture presents its own examples. Over on Bitter

Greens Journal last year, I documented how the president planted an

industrial-corn man, with ties to corn-processing behemoth

Archer-Daniels Midland, as deputy head of the U.S. Department of

Agriculture.

http://bittergreensgazette.blogspot.com/2005/04/archer-daniels-midlands-man-at-u\

sda_29.html

 

Now I present you with Richard Crowder: erstwhile president of the

American Seed Trade Association, a 15-year veteran of Dekalb Genetics

Corporation (now part of Monsanto), former exec at Conagra and

Pillsbury -- and newly minted chief agricultural negotiator for U.S.

Trade Representative Rob Portman.

 

It's hard to exaggerate the importance of Crowder's new position. The

WTO's latest phase of free-trade talks, known as the Doha round, have

bogged down in a dispute between the U.S., Europe, and much of the

global south over agriculture subsidies.

As I reported here, Bush seems ready to trash the U.S. subsidy system,

which props up industrial agriculture to the tune of about $15 billion

per year, so long as the WTO rams open developing-world markets to

U.S. goods. As USDA chief Mike Johanns recently put it, " We must use

the WTO to force open markets for U.S. products. "

 

That, evidently, is Crowder's job: muscling poor countries into

exposing their farmers to competition from their highly capitalized

U.S. counterparts.

 

He'll have another big job, too -- this one directly pertaining to his

background as a global champion of genetically modified crops. (Note:

at Dekalb Genetics, Crowder " managed all of [the company's] business

outside of the United States involving more than 30 countries, "

according to a U.S. Trade Rep press release.)

 

The United States is locked in a dispute with the European Union over

the acceptance of GM crops. To maintain their outlandish growth rates,

Monsanto and its ilk need access to the giant European market for corn

and soybean seeds. The U.S. government has predictably taken up the GM

seed industry's cause, petitioning the WTO to strike down the EU's

anti-GM stance. Crowder will be there to push that agenda.

 

Finally, the GM seed giants cannot thrive without a draconian

intellectual-property framework, one that lets them enforce long-term

claims to royalties on their genetic traits -- even when those traits

spread through cross-pollination. In the U.S., the industry wields the

Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970, which gives it the power to

patent seed traits, and exact royalties from farmers, for 20 years

after introducing a variety.

 

Crowder's challenge will be to create similar frameworks in

high-producing countries like Brazil and Argentina, where farmers have

embraced GM corn and soy seeds while flouting Monsanto's demands for

royalty payments.

 

As a model, he may look to Iraq. Well over a year ago, the

U.S.-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority enshrined a seed

framework that reads like something dreamed up by a Monsanto attorney.

 

 

 

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