Corporations Are The New Conquistadors : Ukraine by Andrey Panevin

Links between funds from the US Department of Agriculture and favored corporations like Monsanto and Chemonics show a clear conflict of interest in foreign “aid” to Ukraine through the intervention of the state-sponsored ISAAA.

Corporations Are The New Conquistadors : Ukraine

How international corporations are taking over Ukraine’s agriculture

by Andrey Panevin

Mint Press Neews,   15 February 2015

Introduction

Ukraine has become a nation synonymous with the daily headlines, from the trail of western intervention and subversion that lead to a violent coup in 2013 to the devastating civil war that has torn the nation apart. These stories, as crucial as they are to investigate, have provided the perfect cover for international corporations to exploit Ukraine’s resources.

This exploitation accelerated when Ukraine declared its independence in 1992. From this period onward, Ukraine has experienced the colonization of its vastly important agricultural sector. International agribusiness and biotechnology firms have steadily been reforming Ukraine’s agricultural laws in order to eventually allow for an explosion in the production of genetically modified organisms.

Loopholes

Recent efforts to speed up this annexation of Ukrainian agriculture have been documented by theOakland Institute. Their fact-sheet on the “Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture” shows how the law firm Frishberg and Partners found loopholes in a moratorium on Ukrainian agricultural land sales. The law firm suggested a two-pronged approach to circumventing this moratorium, which remains in force until January 1, 2016.

The first step is to lease Ukrainian land instead of purchasing it, a practice that basically provides ownership when combined with legal purchases of industrial spaces alongside the same land.

The second step to bypassing the moratorium is to buy large amounts of shares in leading Ukrainian agribusinesses and then change these companies from the inside out. This is a strategy that international agribusiness giants such as Cargill, Monsanto and DuPont have employed. In 2014 Cargill bought a five percent share in UkrLandFarming, the largest land bank in Ukraine.

These loopholes are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the multinational effort to subdue and mold a potentially lucrative agriculture market for maximum profit. While Ukraine currently enforces a ban on GMO products, it has become apparent that this is a temporary state of affairs. The stage was set for the impending removal of this ban when Ukraine and the EU signed an association agreement in 2014.

Clause 404

Of particular interest in this association agreement is “clause 404″ which promotes “the use of biotechnologies” in Ukrainian agriculture. Furthermore the clause states that Ukraine needs to facilitate “conditions for investment” as well as opening Ukraine’s agriculture to a “framework of international organisations.”

It becomes clear from requirements such as those listed in the association agreement that Ukraine is not being set up for economic prosperity and independence, but rather for multinational exploitation.

Clause 404 of the association agreement, mentioning the use of biotechnologies, which multinational corporations seek to exploit.

It could be argued that these developments are open to interpretation, as indeed multinational corporations would prefer Ukrainian farmers and the civilian population to believe. But the links between government organisations and agribusiness corporations are even clearer in their implications.

US-Ukraine Business Council

The entry point into these connections can be found on the board of the US-Ukraine Business Council(USUBC). On the board of directors are a plethora of multinational US business giants. Of particular interest to this report are the agribusiness board members. These include Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont and a less prominent organisation known as the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA). These organisations are at the forefront of introducing GMO products into a agricultural sector that they increasingly control. Also on the board of directors and working alongside with these corporations is the ubiquitous USAID, under the banner of the agroinvest program.

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