...a handful of poultry breeders now control the chicken industry. They have been instrumental in the creation of a few types of chicken that have the characteristics that global supermarkets require: they grow quickly and have a lot of tender white meat. One German company, Erich Wesjohann Grupp, supplies the genetic stock for an estimated 68% of all the world's white-egg layer hens, and a Dutch company (Hendrix Genetics) provides a similar proportion of the stock for brown-egg layer hens. -- Guardian

Sue Brandford works for the NGO Grain which works to protect agricultural biodiversity. The January issue of their journal Seedling focuses on the livestock industry and uncovers some uncomfortable truths. As well as insisting on disgusting factory farming (PDF) conditions, global agri-industrial multinationals overproduce meat which is then dumped on local markets -- destroying local African producers in the process, who cannot compete with the cheap imports. Then, if that is not bad enough, the same multinationals then attempt to privatise the genes of farm animals so that the supply of the genetic stock is entirely controlled by the insidious cartel. It is not surprising who benefits from this arrangement -- and it isn't the supplier or the African farmer.

Coincidentally, Earthscan recently published a book called The Future Control of Food: An Essential Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property, Biodiversity and Food Security edited by Geoff Tansey and Tasmin Rajotte.

The book brings together experts involved in global trade negotiations to show how the system conspires against the 850 million undernourished people, particularly with respect to Intellectual Property. IP, which are effectively Patents, originally meant protection for innovations or works of fiction and music.

But as Geoff Tansey says in his chapter Farming Food and Global Rules:

The ordinary concept of property itself is not a natural phenomena but a socially constructed one. For some indigenous people or religious groups, for example, the idea of ownership of land or water, a fundamental in most current ideas of tangible property is literally 'non-sense' and does not figure in their way of seeing the world.

So seeking to apply western concepts of IP to genetic resources and then using it as a further trip-wire to weaken the position of the poorest people is also non-sense at best. Using this to prevent farmers from saving seed to feed themselves is nothing short of criminal, but this is exactly what happens at the highest level of world trade negotiations.

Indigenous peoples know that means that our traditional medicines and our foods are at risk of theft and exploitation. While States claim national sovereignty over natural resources, they have been unwilling to recognize our rights to the genetic resources that originate within our territories, lands and waters in their negotiations thus far. -- from the statement made at the sixth session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues held in New York, May 2007 and quoted in the chapter 'Safeguarding Biodiversity' by Susan Bragdon, Kathryn Garforth and John E. Haapala Jr

Time after time in these complex negotiations, poor countries and indigenous people lose out because they are forced into large coalitions which pit against the might of the developed nations and increasingly corporations. Negotiations which are unfairly balanced to protect the strong and sell the carpet from under the feet of the poor.

But there are signs of hope. The poor are fighting back.

We, more than 500 representatives from more than 80 countries, of organizations of peasants/family farmers, artisanal fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, landless peoples, rural workers, migrants, pastoralists, forest communities, women, youth, consumers and environmental and urban movements have gathered together in the village of Nyéléni in Sélingué, Mali to strengthen a global movement for food sovereignty. We are doing this, brick by brick, as we live here in huts constructed by hand in the local tradition, and eat food that is produced and prepared by the Sélingué community.

What are we fighting for?

A world where…

…all peoples, nations and states are able to determine their own food producing systems and policies that provide every one of us with good quality, adequate, affordable, healthy and culturally appropriate food;

...there is recognition and respect of women’s roles and rights in food production, and representation of women in all decision making bodies;

…all peoples in each of our countries are able to live with dignity, earn a living wage for their labour and have the opportunity to remain in their homes, if they so choose;

...food sovereignty is considered a basic human right, recognised and implemented by communities, peoples, states and international bodies;

…we are able to conserve and rehabilitate rural environments, fish populations, landscapes and food traditions based on ecologically sustainable management of land, soils, water, seas, seeds, livestock and all other biodiversity;

…we value, recognize and respect our diversity of traditional knowledge, food, language and culture, and the way we organise and express ourselves;

…. there is genuine and integral agrarian reform that guarantees peasants full rights to land, defends and recovers the territories of indigenous peoples, ensures fishing communities’ access and control over their fishing areas and eco-systems, honours access and control by pastoral communities over pastoral lands and migratory routes, assures decent jobs with fair remuneration and labour rights for all, and a future for young people in the countryside;...where agrarian reform revitalises inter-dependence between producers and consumers, ensures community survival, social and economic justice, ecological sustainability, and respect for local autonomy and governance with equal rights for women and men...where agrarian reform guarantees rights to territory and self-determination for our peoples;

...share our lands and territories peacefully and fairly among our peoples, be we peasants, indigenous peoples, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, or others;

…in the case of natural and human-created disasters and conflict-recovery situations, food sovereignty acts as a form of “insurance” that strengthens local recovery efforts and mitigates negative impacts... where we remember that communities affected by disasters are not helpless, and where strong local organization for self-help is the key to recovery;

...peoples’ power to make decisions about their material, natural and spiritual heritage are defended;

...all peoples have the right to defend their territories from the actions of transnational corporations" -- from the Declaration of the Forum for Food Sovereignty, Nyéléni, Mali 2007 (the rest of the declaration is well worth reading)

They will win and we will lose. It is only a matter of time.

Further Reading:

• Pay Monsanto, or Starve
• The Doomsday Vault and Seed Preservation
• Carbon Credits Used to Fund GMOs?
• 75 Per Cent of Food Diversity Lost in Last Century
• The Food Revolution - Genetic Engineering
• The Health Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods
• Who Benefits from GM Crops?
• The Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture: Myth five, Industrial food offers more choices
• Chemical Based Farming Systems Robbing Us of Nutrients
• Synthetic Biology - Opening Pandora's Box v.2.0
• The Rise and Predictable Fall of Globalized Industrial Agriculture
• A Growing Food Revolution
• The Future of Food
• An Apocalyptic Vision of a Post Fossil Fuel World