Well, as it turns out, the battle doesn’t always go to the strongest. David still has a few rocks in his arsenal after all. In an article at Shareable (“Setting the Record Straight on the Legality of Seed Libraries,” Aug. 11), Neal Gorenflo, the Sustainable Economies Law Center and Center for a New American Dream report on an impressive job of legal research he did into the language and judicial interpretation of similar statutes and regulations around the country, and finds there are significant potential loopholes to be exploited.

I generally argue, along with C4SS comrade Charles Johnson, that an ounce of circumvention or evasion is worth a pound of working within the system to change the law:

If you put all your hope for social change in legal reform … then … you will find yourself outmaneuvered at every turn by those who have the deepest pockets and the best media access and the tightest connections. There is no hope for turning this system against them; because, after all, the system was made for them and the system was made by them. Reformist political campaigns inevitably turn out to suck a lot of time and money into the politics—with just about none of the reform coming out on the other end.

Far more can be achieved, he says, at a tiny fraction of the cost, by “bypassing those laws and making them irrelevant to your life.”

Lobbying against draconian copyright laws like the IP chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and ACTA has done a lot of good, but encryption, proxies and improvements in file-sharing technology have done far more. Before ACTA had even come to a vote, several Firefox extensions became available that can simply bypass domain names seized by the federal government and go straight to their numeric IP address. That’s how people access Wikileaks’ various national sites and mirrors around the world.

In other words, to paraphrase a famous quote, treat the law as damage and route around it.

But sometimes the best way of doing that is by using the law itself as a weapon. The Wobblies and other radical unions have a name for this: “work-to-rule.” Considering the stupidity of the rule-making process in authoritarian hierarchies, there’s no finer way to sabotage an entire company than by obeying workplace rules literally. The same applies to government laws and regulations. A law may have been passed with the obvious intent of protecting proprietary capitalist seed companies from free and open source competition. But regardless of intent, once a policy is put into writing it is limited by its own language. Like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, the destructor is subject to the limitations of the form it’s embodied in.

And as the authors find, the actual language and subsequent judicial interpretation of seed regulations around the country comes in pretty handy as a monkey wrench. Taken literally, virtually all such rules apply at most to the distribution of seed through commercial sale, trade or barter — that is, when a reciprocal exchange of value for value has taken place that involves an explicit or implied contract. Although those who take seed from the Mechanicsburg library are encouraged to return it out of their crops, in order to perpetuate the library, there is no contractual obligation to do so. The only requirement for seed distributors as such in Pennsylvania is to pay a $25 licensing fee. The authors suggest the seed library might do just this, continue to operate as before, and wait for the state (no doubt spurred by the seed companies behind it) to make the next move. And if it does, see what happens when it’s tested in court.

(Shareable has created an open Hackpad for anyone who wants to share the results of their own research into particular state seed regulations).

Of course if this fails and the courts back up the seed companies’ interests, it will be time to take the circumvention a step further (I’m speaking only for myself here, not the authors — they suggest combining the experiment above with lobbying, about which I’m “meh” at best). The file-sharing movement’s response to the shutdown of Napster was to take on a more dispersed, genuinely P2P character, eventually abandoning hosting on fixed servers altogether. With brick-and-mortar seed libraries shut down, organic gardeners might use apps or sharing websites to match up people with matching seed supplies and needs and let them take care of the rest. If the corporate state pushes back hard enough, it might be necessary to relocate the sharing sites to servers in countries outside the DRM Curtain and for seed sharers to deal with one another under cover of encrypted email.

They point to another interesting bit of information. The IRS has acknowledged that time banks are distinct from taxable barter exchanges for much the same reason he argues the time bank is exempt from seed regulations. There is no contractual quid pro quo; although there is an informal “exchange” of favor for favor, there is no legal obligation to return a favor. Now, as the capital goods required to produce a growing share of our consumption needs become smaller and cheaper, and affordable and scalable to individual households or multi-family sharing networks, it follows that a large share of our total production to meet our own subsistence needs will drop out of the cash nexus and off the state’s radar screen, and into self-provisioning through the informal and gift economies. Even on a larger community scale, where some more definite coordination is required through something like Tom Greco’s mutual credit-clearing networks, the system can likely operate under cover of a darknet with transaction costs of enforcement exceeding the benefits.

So technology itself is taking a growing share of our productive lives outside the purview of the corporate-state nexus, and transferring them instead into the realm of voluntary association and mutual aid that Kropotkin, in his Britannica article on Anarchism, set forth as the defining characteristics of anarchy. By seizing on the advantages offered by such technologies, we can evade corporate domination and build the world of our own desires.

Bibliotecas para compartilhamento de sementes tradicionais são um fenômeno crescente em todo país, vistas como forma de preservar a biodiversidade e a herança de milhões de horas de cruzamento seletivo contra o controle de poucas grandes corporações do agronegócio sobre toda a nossa cadeia alimentar.

Uma biblioteca pública em Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, celebrou o Dia da Terra neste ano lançando seu próprio projeto para sementes. O Departamento de Agricultura estadual não engoliu bem a notícia e está investigando a biblioteca de semenes, citando possíveis violações da Lei de Sementes de 2004. Os deveres do departamento, de acordo com a lei, incluem “manter sementes incorretamente rotuladas, espécies de plantas invasivas, variedades cruzadas e plantas venenosas fora do estado”. Um comissário do condado de Cumberland explicou, presumivelmente com a cara mais limpa do mundo: “O agroterrorismo é um cenário muito, muito real. Manter e proteger as fontes de alimento dos Estados Unidos é um desafio enorme (…).”

De acordo com o bibliotecário responsável pelo programa de sementes, a biblioteca é capaz de demonstrar a pureza e as taxas de germinação de suas sementes requeridas pelo estado através de passos muito simples: “Nós só podemos ter sementes do ano corrente (…) e elas devem ser compradas em lojas porque assim elas passaram por testes de pureza e germinação. As pessoas não podem doar suas próprias sementes porque não seríamos capazes de testá-las como a Lei das Sementes exige. Além disso, quando as pessoas contribuem, elas normalmente trazem apenas algumas sementes. Os testes de pureza e germinação requer várias centenas de sementes, então não temos sementes suficientes para testar”.

Então bibliotecas de sementes nativas não têm problema nenhum, dado que as sementes sejam adquiridas através de distribuidores comerciais e não hajam sementes de anos anteriores. Hummm… Parece até que essas regras foram especialmente feitas para criminalizar o contorno do monopólio do agronegócio sobre a alimentação. Mas com certeza é só coincidência.

É estranho também aquilo que não é considerado “terrorismo agrícola” segundo a Lei das Sementes. Apesar de todas as suas preocupações com sementes rotuladas erroneamente e variedades cruzadas de plantas, o Departamento de Agricultura da Pennsylvania notoriamente não se preocupa com coisas como a contaminação das plantações nativas pelo pólen das sementes geneticamente modificadas pela Monsanto (inclusive das chamadas “sementes suicidas”, desenhadas para produzir plantas estéreis para que os fazendeiros não possam economizar no uso de sementes).

Pior ainda, o Departamento nem se preocupa com outras práticas terroristas da Monsanto, como o envio de agentes da Pinkerton (sim, aquela Pinkerton — dos mercenários armados que costumavam combater trabalhadores grevistas) para perseguir fazendeiros cujas lavouras forem contaminadas e assim estejam “roubando” o material genético patenteado da Monsanto. É como processar alguém em quem você atirou por roubar suas balas. A Monsanto também ameaça e chantageia supermercados que rotulem o leite que possua ou não o hormônio de crescimento bovino recombinante (rBGH), sob a alegação de que a liberdade de expressão comercial é “difamação de produtos”.

O governo do estado da Pennsylvania age de formas que alguns considerariam terrorista, como ao enviar (a pedido das grandes cadeias de supermercado) agentes para montar armadilhas para fechar os clubes de compras de alimentos para membros dos fazendeiros Amish, ou ao mandar times da SWAT para aterrorizar os vendedores de leite cru (não-pasteurizado).

Desde que foram estabelecidos, os departamentos de agricultura do governo federal e dos estados americanos subsidiam fortemente e agem como braço legal da quadrilha corporativa do agronegócio, utilizando táticas terroristas contra pessoas que tentam se alimentar sem pagar impostos a seus senhores da classe empresarial. Se, como afirmou o major-general Smedley Butler, os fuzileiros navais dos Estados Unidos são apenas o braço armado no exterior dos grandes bancos americanos, então o Departamento de Agricultura dos Estados Unidos e da Pennsylvania são o braço operacional da Monsanto, da Cargill e da ADM.

Traduzido para o português por Erick Vasconcelos.

Libraries for sharing traditional and heirloom seed varieties are a growing phenomenon nationwide, intended as a way to preserve biodiversity and the collective heritage of many millions of hours of selective breeding against the lockdown a handful of giant agribusiness corporations has imposed on our entire food chain.

A public library in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania celebrated Earth Day this year by launching its own seed library project. This didn’t sit well with the state Ag Department, which is investigating the seed library, citing possible violations of the Seed Act of 2004. The department’s duties, under the terms of the Act, include “keeping mislabeled seeds, invasive plant species, cross-pollinated varietals, and poisonous plants out of the state.” Pursuant to that authority, the department told the library, “all seeds had to be tested for purity and germination rates.” A Cumberland County commissioner explained, presumably with a straight face: “Agri-terrorism is a very, very real scenario. Protecting and maintaining the food sources of America is an overwhelming challenge …”

According to the librarian in charge of the seed program,  the library can meet the state’s demands for demonstrating the purity and germination rates of its seeds with a few simple steps: “We can only have current-year seeds … and they have to be store-purchased because those seeds have gone through purity and germination rate testing. People can’t donate their own seeds because we can’t test them as required by the Seed Act. Also, when people contribute, they usually just bring a handful of seeds. The purity and germination rate tests take several hundred seeds, so we don’t even have enough to test.”

So heirloom seed libraries are just fine as long as the seeds are obtained through commercial distributors and no seeds from previous years are involved. Hmmm … If I didn’t know better, I’d think the state regulations were custom tailored to criminalize circumventing corporate agribusiness’s monopoly on the entire food chain. Purely coincidental, I’m sure.

It’s also odd what doesn’t count as one of the forms of “agricultural terrorism” the Seed Act is supposed to protect us against. For all its concerns about mislabeled seeds and cross-pollinated varietals, the Pennsylvania State Agriculture Department is remarkably unconcerned with things like, say, farmers having their heirloom crops contaminated by pollen from Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds (including the so-called “terminator gene,” designed to produce sterile offspring so farmers can’t save seed).

Worse yet, it’s unconcerned with Monstanto’s further terroristic practices, like sending out Pinkerton goons (yeah, those Pinkertons — the armed mercenaries who used to fight pitched battles against striking workers) to harass farmers whose crops are contaminated for “stealing” Monsanto’s patented genetic material. That’s like suing someone you shot for stealing your bullets. Monsanto also threatens and strongarms grocers who label milk with and without recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), on the grounds that free commercial speech is “product disparagement.”

Pennsylvania’s state government carries out actions of its own that some would regard as terroristic, like sending out (at the behalf of chain grocers) agents to set up sting and entrapment operations to shut down Amish farmers’ membership-based food buying clubs, and sending SWAT teams to terrorize sellers of raw milk.

Since their beginnings, the USDA and state departments of agriculture have heavily subsidized, and acted as the enforcement arm of, the corporate agribusiness crime syndicate, terrorizing people who presume to feed themselves without paying tribute to their corporate crime lords. If, as the late Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler said, the US Marines were the overseas strongarm operation for the big US banks, then the USDA and Pennsylvania DA are strongarm operations for Monsanto, Cargill and ADM.

In nessun altro campo questo è vero quanto in questioni che riguardano l’agricoltura intensiva e le colture geneticamente modificate. Ron Bailey, ad esempio, scrivendo su Reason difende regolarmente quest’ottica lanciandosi contro i sostenitori dell’agricoltura biologica e sostenibile, e altri presunti nemici “statalisti” di sinistra.

In realtà è difficile essere più statalisti della stessa agroindustria. La legge cosiddetta “Monsanto Protection Act” (in realtà un emendamento aggiunto ad una legge sull’agricoltura l’anno scorso) stabilisce che, finché il segretario all’agricoltura non produrrà un decreto normativo contro le colture geneticamente modificate, ai tribunali sarà vietato emettere ingiunzioni contro la semina e la distribuzione di queste colture sulla base di una citazione per danni. Le società come la Monsanto fanno regolarmente pressione affinché si vieti alle industrie alimentari e ai supermercati di pubblicizzare un prodotto come privo di ogm, sostenendo che questa pubblicità denigra implicitamente le colture geneticamente modificate, mentre (secondo l’industria) la “scienza seria” ha dimostrato che gli ogm sono tanto sicuri quanto i non-ogm (affermazione che Bailey ripete come un pappagallo praticamente in tutti gli articoli sugli ogm che scrive).

Ora sentite questa. Dopo che è passata la Monsanto Protection Act, un nuovo studio della ProfitPro (“2012 Corn Comparison Report”) ha scoperto che nel mais ogm sono presenti cloruri, formaldeide e glifosato, sostanze non presenti nel mais naturale. Il glifosato in particolare si trova negli ogm in misura di 13 parti per milione (ppm). Il livello massimo ammesso dalla Epa (l’agenzia per l’ambiente, ndt) nell’acqua potabile è di 0,7 ppm. L’esposizione a 0,1 ppm in alcuni animali da laboratorio ha prodotto danni agli organi. Il glifosato, un forte chelatore fosfatico, immobilizza le sostanze minerali con carica positiva come il manganese, il cobalto, il ferro, lo zinco e il rame, che sono d’importanza vitale per lo sviluppo della coltura, privandoli del valore nutritivo. Questo spiega perché il mais non-ogm, rispetto a quello ogm, ha 437 volte più calcio, 56 volte più magnesio e 7 volte più manganese. La Monsanto Protection Act non potrebbe essere più utile.

Come se non bastasse, il modello industriale della Monsanto dipende da un forte monopolio nei brevetti, che la società impone nel modo più prepotente che si possa immaginare: accusando i coltivatori dei campi adiacenti quelli ogm di “pirateria” ogni volta che le loro colture vengono contaminate dal polline proprietario della Monsanto. Se c’è qualcuno che ha diritto ad un risarcimento dei danni questo è il proprietario delle colture contaminate dal veleno della Monsanto. Ovviamente il dipartimento per l’agricoltura, che non è altro che il comitato esecutivo dell’agroindustria pieno di nomine politiche che vengono da Monsanto, Cargill e Adm passando dalla finestra, non la vede allo stesso modo.

Intanto l’agroindustria in una dozzina di stati stanno facendo pressione su una proposta di legge chiamata “Ag Gag” (agricoltura con il bavaglio, ndt), che considera criminali gli informatori e gli investigatori sotto copertura che rivelano episodi di crudeltà sugli animali negli allevamenti intensivi.

In cima a tutto c’è il fatto che le più grosse aziende agricole operano o su terra rubata (come le grosse fattorie californiane, molte delle quali erano haciendas poi occupate da coloni anglosassoni con appoggi politici dopo la guerra messicana), oppure sono imprese gigantesche che ricevono soldi per tenere la maggior parte dei campi incolti (come le grandi coltivazioni di cereali del Midwest e delle Grandi Pianure). Aggiungiamo, poi, il fatto che le grandi agroindustrie californiane dipendono per l’irrigazione dall’acqua incentivata con soldi pubblici, che viene da tutte quelle dighe che il genio militare ama tanto costruire.

Mettete tutto assieme e scoprirete che l’agroindustria è una creatura virtuale dello stato, e che dipende dallo stato giorno dopo giorno non solo per il profitto, ma anche per continuare a vivere. Così risulta che i veri nemici del libero mercato non sono tutti quegli attivisti anti-ogm, ma gli interessi dell’agroindustria. Forse è per questo che Dwayne Andreas, amministratore delegato di Archer Daniels Midland, una volta disse: “Il concorrente è nostro amico. Il cliente è il nostro nemico.”

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

This is perhaps nowhere as true as with factory farming and genetically modified crops. For example, Ron Bailey at Reason regularly defends these things against organic farming and sustainable agriculture advocates, and other supposedly “statist” enemies on the Left.

But in fact it’s hard to be more statist than the agribusiness interests themselves. The so-called “Monsanto Protection Act” — actually a rider attached to a farm bill last year — provides that unless and until the Secretary of Agriculture makes a regulatory decree against Monsanto’s genetically modified crops, courts will be prohibited from issuing injunctions against the planting and distribution of such crops based on tort litigation against them. Companies like Monsanto  regularly, repeatedly and consistently push to prohibit food producers or grocers from advertising products as GMO-free, on the grounds that such advertising amounts to disparagement of genetically modified crops by implication, when — according to the industry — “sound science” shows that GMO crops are just as safe as non-GMO ones (a claim, by the way, that Bailey parrots in virtually every article he writes on GMOs).

But guess what? Since the passage of the Monsanto Protection Act, a new study by ProfitPro (“2012 Corn Comparison Report”) has found that chlorides, formaldehyde and glyphosate — substances not found in natural corn — are present in genetically modified corn. Glyphosate, in particular, is found in GMO corn at 13 parts per million. The EPA limits glyphosate in drinking water to 0.7 ppm, and exposure at 0.1 ppm has caused organ damage in some lab animals. Glyphosate, a strong organic phosphate chelator, immobilizes positively charged minerals like manganese, cobalt, iron, zinc and copper, which are vital for normal growth and development of crops, and strips them of nutrients — which perhaps explains why non-GMO corn has 437 times the calcium, 56 times the magnesium and seven times the manganese of GMO corn. That Monsanto Protection Act just might come in handy.

As if this weren’t enough, Monsanto’s business model depends on strong patent monopolies, which it enforces in the most thuggish ways imaginable — namely, accusing farmers adjoining GMO crops of “piracy” if their crops are contaminated by Monsanto’s proprietary pollen. If anyone is entitled to legal damages, it would be the farmers whose crops are contaminated by Monsanto’s poison. But of course the USDA — which amounts to an executive committee of corporate agribusiness, staffed by political appointees who came through a revolving door from Monsanto, Cargill and ADM — doesn’t see things that way.

Meanwhile, agribusiness interests in a dozen states are pushing so-called “Ag Gag” bills that would criminalize whistleblowing and undercover investigation of animal cruelty in factory farming operations.

On top of everything else, consider that the biggest agribusiness operations are either situated on stolen land (like the big farms in California, many of which were haciendas occupied by politically favored Anglo settlers after the Mexican war), or are enormous concerns actually paid for holding most of their land out of use (like the biggest cereal farms in the Midwest and Plains). And the big California agribusiness interests depend on subsidized irrigation water from all those dams the Army Corps of Engineers likes to build.

Throw all this together, and we see that corporate agribusiness is a virtual creature of the state, and depends on the state on a daily basis not only for its profits, but its continued existence. So it turns out that the real enemies of the free market are not all those anti-GMO activists, but the agribusiness interests themselves. Perhaps that’s why former Archer Daniels Midland CEO Dwayne Andreas said “The competitor is our friend. The customer is our enemy.”

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Agricoltura Intensiva: Chi È il Vero Statalista?