By Jasmin Ramsey
WASHINGTON, Jun 3 2013 (IPS)

For two years, reports have surfaced describing medical supply shortages in Iran, some with devastating consequences, as debate continues to rage about who’s responsible – the Iranian government or the sanctions regime.

Courtesy of Siamak Namazi

Siamak Namazi, a Dubai-based business consultant and former Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, admits the Iranian government shares responsibility, but says sanctions are the main culprit.

Humanitarian trade may be exempted from sanctions, says Namazi, but that isn’t enough when the banking valve required to carry out the transactions is being strangled.

“[I]f [sanctions advocates] maintain the sanctions regime is fine as it is, then how come they try to promote substitution from China and India?” asks Namazi.

IPS sat down with Namazi in Washington, DC to discuss this issue further. Excerpts from the longer interview, which can be found on Lobe Log, follow.

Q: You recently authored a policy paper published by the Woodrow Wilson Center where you essentially blame medical shortages in Iran on Western sanctions. How did you reach this conclusion?

A: We concluded that the Iranian government deserves firm criticism for mismanagement of the crisis, poor allocation of scarce foreign currency resources and failing to crack down on corrupt practices, but the main culprit are the sanctions that regulate financial transactions with Iran. So, while Tehran can and should take further steps to improve the situation, it cannot solve this problem on its own. As sanctions are tightened more and more, things are likely to get worse unless barriers to humanitarian trade are removed through narrow adjustments to the sanctions regime.

My team and I reached these conclusions after interviewing senior officers among pharmaceutical suppliers, namely European and American companies in Dubai, as well as private importers and distributors of medicine in Tehran. We also spoke to a number of international banks. None of us had any financial stake in the pharmaceutical business whatsoever, and we all worked pro bono.

Q: What is your basis for this claim given the humanitarian exemptions to the sanctions regime that allow for the trade of food and medicine?

A: The U.S. Congress deserves kudos for passing a law making it abundantly clear that humanitarian trade in food, agricultural products, medicine and medical devices are exempted from the long list of sanctions against Iran. This law is the reason why the Western pharmaceuticals can do business in Iran. I sincerely applaud that gesture.

Unfortunately, what we see is a case of what lawyers refer to as “frustration of purpose.” Iran can in theory purchase Western medicine, but in practice it is extremely difficult to pay for the lifesaving drugs it needs. Despite the Congressional directive, a number of Executive Orders that restrict financial transactions with Iran remain in place, making it all but impossible to implement that exception.

Sanctions also limit Iran’s access to hard currency. The country’s oil sales are seriously curtailed and have effectively been turned into a virtual barter with the purchasing country, mainly China and India.

Q: Not all Iranian banks are blacklisted by the U.S. and there is a long list of small and large international banks that could carry out humanitarian transactions. Why can’t Iran use these channels for importing the medicine it needs?

A: The non-designated Iranian banks are small and lack the international infrastructure required to wire money from Tehran to most foreign bank accounts. They rely on intermediary banks to process such transactions. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, for these Iranian banks to find such counterparts, even when they are trying to facilitate fully legal humanitarian trade.

In the end, Iran needs to go through many loops and plays a constant cat and mouse game, creatively trying to find a channel to pay its Western suppliers of medicine.  Not only does this increase the costs of medicine for the Iranians, it also causes major delays. In the meanwhile, pharmacy shelves run empty of vital drugs and the patient suffers.

Q: Why can’t Iran procure its medicine from China, India or Japan — the countries it’s selling oil to?

A: Iran has already increased its purchase of medicine and medical equipment from all the countries you listed. However, as I stated earlier, due to the highly regulated and patented nature of the pharmaceutical business, vital drugs are often un-substitutable.

Even when there is an alternative drug made by the Chinese, Indians or Japanese, there is an additional barrier. Medicine has to be registered before its importation is permitted. Just like the U.S. has the Food and Drugs Administration, Iran, like most countries, has an equivalent body that must approve the medicine. The specific molecule must be registered after thorough testing.

In Iran this process takes an exceedingly long time and should no doubt be improved, though recently they have taken steps to expedite it by making exceptions. The Ministry of Health sometimes allows a drug that was approved for sale in another country to also be imported and sold in Iran. But this rushed process has had major consequences in terms of side-effects. There are even press reports of deaths when substandard drugs were imported.

To be honest, I don’t understand the logic of the advocates of this solution. They argue that the existing humanitarian waivers are sufficient and claim any shortage of medicine in Iran is the consequence of Tehran’s own mismanagement. I have even heard accusations that Iran is intentionally creating such shortages to create public outrage against the U.S.

But if they maintain the sanctions regime is fine as it is, then how come they try to promote substitution from China and India? Besides denying Iranian patients their right to receive the best treatment there is, aren’t they also rejecting the American pharmaceutical companies’ right to conduct perfectly legitimate business?

Q: So is there a solution to all this?

A: Absolutely, and I have spelled it out in my op-ed in the International Herald Tribune and also in the Wilson Center report. It simply makes no sense to say humanitarian trade is legal, but the banking channel needed to facilitate the trade is restricted. In the case of medicine, the solution is arguably simpler than other humanitarian goods.

With fewer than 100 American and European companies holding patents to the most advanced drugs needed, we can craft narrow, but unambiguous exemptions to the banking restrictions, essentially allowing these companies to sell medicine to Iran without undermining the sanctions regime overall.

To address the shortage of hard currency, Iran should be allowed to convert some of its current holdings in Chinese, Indian and other banks around the world into hard currencies for the exclusive purpose of buying medical supplies. Alternatively, the US could revisit its earlier decision on the matter and allow European companies that owe billions of dollars to Iran to settle this debt by paying a pharmaceutical company on Iran’s behalf.

U.S policymakers are reminded that medicine is highly subsidised in Iran. Imported drugs receive hard currency allocations at a greatly subsidised rate and are again supported through government-owned insurance companies. That means that the Iranian government ultimately gains far fewer rials for every dollar it allocates to an importer of medicine than it does selling its hard currency to importers of most other goods.

*A longer version of this article was published at www.lobelog.com.

Siamak Namazi, a Middle East specialist whose career spans the consulting, think tank and non-profit worlds, is currently a consultant based out of Dubai. His former positions include the managing director of Atieh Bahar Consulting, an advisory and strategic consulting firm in Tehran. He has also carried out stints as a fellow in the Wilson Center for International Scholars, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the National Endowment for Democracy.

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Maize on a small farm in Yaluma, Chiapas. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Oct 24 2012 (IPS)

It has been many years since Mexico, the birthplace of maize, has been self-sufficient in this staple food that plays a central role in its cuisine and culture. But new studies indicate that it could produce enough maize to meet its needs within 10 to 15 years.

For farmer Carmelo Pacheco, in the southern state of Guerrero, what he and other Mexican maize producers need is more irrigation to increase crop yields.

“For this year the prospects are average,” said Pacheco, leader of the Pach-Vill growers organisation in the municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, where the harvest is about to begin. “Production has fallen because of changes in the climate, and prices are not solid,” he told Tierramérica*.

Investing in irrigation and infrastructure projects in the southeast and providing financing for small- and medium-scale farmers would allow this Latin American country to regain its self-sufficiency in maize production, according to the study “Achieving Mexico’s Maize Potential”, released this month.

“The predominance of the extractive use of resources has resulted in erosion and inefficient irrigation. The country could take better advantage of its land and freshwater reserves, available technology, peasant agriculture and genetic diversity,” said Antonio Turrent, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research and one of the study’s authors, along with Timothy Wise and Elise Garvey, director of policy research and researcher, respectively, at the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University, in the United States.

Within 10 to 15 years, Mexico could increase its annual maize production to 33 million tons, meeting the current deficit of 10 million tons, and could even add another 24 million tons to meet its growing demand, expected to reach 39 million tons a year by 2025, states the study, published in English by the GDAE and in Spanish by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, based in Washington.

Mexico currently needs to import between eight and 10 tons of maize a year, mostly from the United States.

The country has some three million maize producers who raise the crop on an area of eight million hectares. But more than two million grow maize for their own family consumption. Domestic production focuses primarily on white maize, while yellow maize, used for animal feed, is imported.

Maize (Zea mays) is a symbolic crop in Mesoamerica, the region covering southern Mexico and Central America, because of its vital importance in pre-Hispanic culture.

Mexico is the birthplace of maize, and has 59 landraces (native strains) and 209 varieties of the grain. Only 10 landraces have been used in genetic improvement.

If the efficiency of irrigation were improved by 60 to 70 percent, it would be possible to extend cultivation to another 4.1 to 4.9 million hectares, using runoff water, which is abundant in south and southeast Mexico.

Small farmers “manage the biodiversity of maize,” Turrent told Tierramérica. “The lands they work are the first contact in the water cycle. Their knowledge is compatible with agroecology and, unlike the agribusiness sector, they have significant potential for increasing their production.”

The researchers rule out the need for biotechnology, the government’s strategy for raising productivity and resistance to the effects of climate change.

Transgenic maize is a “false and dangerous promise” that has not led to higher yields than native or traditionally improved seeds, represents a threat to native varieties and biodiversity, and has not proven to be more resistant to drought than other varieties, they maintain.

Since 2009, the Mexican government has authorised 177 permits for experimental and pilot planting of genetically modified maize on an area of 2,664 hectares.

In September, the U.S.-based transnationals Monsanto, Pioneer and Dow Agrosciences submitted six requests for authorisation of commercial planting of transgenic maize on some 1.7 hectares of land in Sinaloa (northwest Mexico) and Tamaulipas (northeast).

Mexico has some eight million hectares of arable farm land that are not being used and which “offer an opportunity to start from zero to confront the food crisis and high food prices,” researcher Antonio Yunes from the College of Mexico, a public institution, told Tierramérica.

“This potential could be harnessed without the need for subsidies, by using sustainable practices,” he said.

In 2011, 549 million dollars in subsidies were granted to producers, including 15 million dollars to the organic agriculture sector.

The report concludes that the most effective strategy is “the provision of basic farmer-led extension services on rain-fed lands using existing technologies.”

In the southern state of Guerrero, maize producers also plant hibiscus, sesame and squash. But “there are no guarantees of production, we need to be better organised,” said Pacheco.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

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