UN rights experts say global food supply under threat from criminalization of peasant seed systems

The global food supply is under threat from laws that criminalize the sale and exchange of peasant seed varieties, a group of UN experts said Wednesday. In their latest report to the Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas indicated that almost all of the world’s food comes from seeds and that traditional systems supply 70 to 90 percent of the seeds sown in many countries.

Traditional seed systems embrace peasant farmers’ rights to produce, disseminate, and access seeds through local markets. These markets are crucial for meeting the needs of rural farmers and communities and promote food security through the exchange of intentionally diverse and continually adapting seeds.

“Traditional seed systems should be celebrated, not prosecuted,” said Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group, Shalmali Guttal. “By exercising their right to seeds, peasants feed the world, protect nature and find sustainable ways forward through the climate crisis.”

Under the UN Declaration of the Rights of Peasants and Other Peoples Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), a peasant is any person who engages in small-scale agricultural production for subsistence or the market. According to the report, over time, peasants’ rights and the food supply as a whole have come under threat from the commercialization of seed systems and implementation of plant variety protection laws (PVPs), which punish farmers who trade seeds of a company’s protected variety. These laws additionally prevent the sale or exchange of any seed that is not catalogued, targeting the diverse peasant variety seed that does not meet industrial standards.

The UN experts indicated that enforcement of these laws has increased in recent years, stating that infringements are being pursued as crimes against industrial or intellectual property (IP). Their report specified that oftentimes, punishment for violating these laws includes fines and prison time. In Ghana, a new PVP act prescribes fines or 10 to 15 years imprisonment for unauthorized sale of a protected variety and in Japan, infringing upon breeders’ rights can result in up to 10 years imprisonment and fines.

Additionally, the Working Group expressed concerns over the intense monopoly that controls the industrialized seed system, imposing strict costs and reducing seed access for rural farmers. The commercial world heavily favors IP rights, PVPs, and enforcing legal and regulatory frameworks that favor commercial breeders.

According to the experts, this is only exacerbated by the role of the World Bank, which continuously invests in commercial agribusiness entities, strengthening the seed monopoly and promoting greater participation in the private sector.

Moving forward, the UN experts have urged states to write article 19 of UNDROP, the right to seeds, into their national laws, cease criminalizing peasant seed practices, and exempt traditional seed systems from industrial-market rules.

Guttal emphasized that, “Seeds are the material basis of the right to life, food, health, culture and a healthy environment before they are articles of commerce. Laws and policies must therefore unconditionally protect peasant right to seeds.”