1. Peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to seeds, in accordance with article 28 of the present Declaration, including:
(a) The right to the protection of traditional knowledge relevant to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture;
(b) The right to equitably participate in sharing the benefits arising from the utilization of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture;
(c) The right to participate in the making of decisions on matters relating to the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture;
(d) The right to save, use, exchange and sell their farm-saved seed or propagating material.
2. Peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their own seeds and traditional knowledge.
3. States shall take measures to respect, protect and fulfil the right to seeds of peasants and other people working in rural areas.
4. States shall ensure that seeds of sufficient quality and quantity are available to peasants at the most suitable time for planting and at an affordable price.
5. States shall recognize the rights of peasants to rely either on their own seeds or on other locally available seeds of their choice and to decide on the crops and species that they wish to grow.
6. States shall take appropriate measures to support peasant seed systems and promote the use of peasant seeds and agrobiodiversity.
7. States shall take appropriate measures to ensure that agricultural research and development integrates the needs of peasants and other people working in rural areas and to ensure their active participation in the definition of priorities and the undertaking of research and development, taking into account their experience, and increase investment in research and the development of orphan crops and seeds that respond to the needs of peasants and other people working in rural areas.
8. States shall ensure that seed policies, plant variety protection and other intellectual property laws, certification schemes and seed marketing laws respect and take into account the rights, needs and realities of peasants and other people working in rural areas.
As 2025 draws to a close, Defending Peasants’ Rights has published key updates on recent global developments impacting the right to seeds A milestone victory for Kenyan peasants! In November, a milestone judicial victory for peasants took place in Kenya. As Karine Peschard explains in her article, the UNDROP provided an important legal leverage in…
Interview conducted by Defending Peasants’ Rights in October 2025, on the occasion of the 11th session of negotiations for a UN legally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations, held at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Interviewees: Lungisa Huna – RWA South Africa; Grace Tepula and Precious Shonga – RWA Zambia; Zakithi Sibandze – RWA…
Article originally posted on: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/tools-and-resources/peasants-right-seed-briefing-paper-working-group-peasants-and-other (26 November 2025) The Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas has issued a briefing paper on peasants’ right to seed, in connection with the Eleventh Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture…
Image: https://static2.pelahatchienews.com/data/articles/xl-why-seed-sovereignty-is-vital-for-indigenous-peoples-1694443833.jpg Defending Peasants’ Rights hereby republishes the press release issued by the UN Working Group on Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas on 11 December 2025 (available here) GENEVA – UN experts* today welcomed a landmark ruling of the High Court of Kenya declaring unconstitutional provisions of the Seed and Plant Varieties…
Defending Peasants’ Rights hereby republishes the press release issued by the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) on 04 December 2025. Yesterday evening, representatives from the three European institutions came to an agreement on the trilogue on the proposal to deregulate plant GMOs obtained by new genomic techniques (GMOs-NGTs). The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC), representing…
Editor’s note: A new court ruling marks a historic milestone for peasants’ rights and the right to seeds in Kenya and internationally. In an unprecedented decision, the High Court has reaffirmed that rights protected by the Constitution must be interpreted in light of international frameworks such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of…
Global Struggles for Control over Food This publication is a joint work of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, Association for Plant Breeding for the Benefit of Society, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment, SWISSAID. Seeds are at the hearts of peasants’ identity and struggles. With UNDROP article 19, it is now a…
La Via Campesina and CETIM have organized a training course for La Via Campesina members in August 2023, and are now making training materials available to all. This material is also available in PDF version here. Session 2 of the UNDROP training seminar aims to provide a general overview and analysis of the key rights…
This research brief is a publication by the Geneva Academy, you can find it on its website here. This Researche Brief is the summary of a longer publication on The Right to Seeds in Africa, you can find it on our website here. The implementation of UNDROP represents a unique opportunity to redress the imbalance…
In November 2021, the Supreme Court of Honduras unanimously declared the Plant Variety Protection Law (Decree Nº 21-2012) unconstitutional, on the grounds that it violated the Constitution, various international treaties ratified by Honduras, as well as international standards related to the protection of the right to adequate nutrition. This judgment is one of the first to…
CETIM has published a series of training sheets to serve as support for activities and trainings in view of the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (Declaration). After adopting the Declaration, we are now in a new phase: implementation. It is absolutely vital…
FIAN International releases a series of briefings exploring how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) is to impact the rural world These briefings take a close look at the rights, principles and states obligations adopted in UNDROP by the United Nations General Assembly on…
