GMW: Monsanto's men at the WTO and U.S. Trade

[Guest guest]

GMW: Monsanto's men at the WTO and U.S. Trade

" GM WATCH " <info

Thu, 9 Feb 2006 13:34:34 GMT

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

---

1.Monsanto's man at the WTO

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

---

1.Monsanto's man at the WTO - GM Watch

 

Before the US ever launched its WTO challenge to the EU over GMOs, the

Financial Times applauded the shrewdness of Rufus Yerxa being appointed

as the US's deputy to the WTO's Director General.

 

The FT commented, " Yerxa has been international counsel to Monsanto,

the biotechnology group. Just the man Supachai will need should the US

ever bleat to the WTO about EU restrictions on genetically modified

food. " (Trading places, Financial Times August 20, 2002) Previous to

being Monsanto's International Counsel, Yerxa was Monsanto's European

General Counsel.

 

There's also a Monsanto man at the US Trade Office - see below - ready

to help fulfil USDA (US Dept of Ag) chief Mike Johanns' mission, " We

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

 

---

 

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

Tom Philpott

Grist Magazine, 9 Jan 2006

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

 

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 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.

http://bittergreensgazette.blogspot.com/2005/02/monsanto-in-mesopotamia.html

 

 

 

 

-------------------