Background

Seeds are foundational to food systems, biodiversity, culture and rural livelihoods. They constitute the starting point of food production and are central to the ways in which peasants and Indigenous Peoples have developed, preserved and transmitted agricultural knowledge adapted to diverse ecological conditions across generations.

Seeds play a critical role in maintaining agricultural biodiversity, as they embody the genetic diversity necessary to enhance resilience to pests, diseases, environmental degradation and climate variability. Beyond their biological function, seeds are also closely linked to cultural heritage, social relations and, in some contexts, spiritual and ceremonial practices.

For peasants and other people working in rural areas globally, including Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, fishers and forest peoples, seeds are inseparable from livelihoods and autonomy. The ability to cultivate, harvest, save, exchange and improve seeds underpins food security, income generation, self-determination and the sustainability of rural communities. Peasant seed systems have historically sustained a wide diversity of crops and plant varieties adapted to local ecosystems and climatic conditions, contributing to food sovereignty, nutrition and resilience.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) explicitly recognizes the right to seeds (article 19), including the right of peasants to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds and propagating material. The realization of this right is closely interconnected with other rights recognized in UNDROP, including the right to food and food sovereignty (article 15), the rights to land and other natural resources (article 17), rights related to biodiversity (article 20), the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment (article 24), and the right to participation in decision-making processes affecting peasants’ lives (article 10). In the same manner, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ rights to maintain, control, protect and develop their traditional knowledge, innovations and cultural heritage, including genetic resources and seeds (article 31), in connection with their rights to lands, territories and resources, self-determination and development.

International environmental and agricultural frameworks reinforce the protection of peasant seed systems. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) affirms the importance of conserving biological diversity, sustainable use of its components, and equitable benefit-sharing from genetic resources, while recognizing the traditional knowledge and practices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) recognizes farmers’ vital role in conserving and improving plant genetic resources and affirms Farmers’ Rights, including protection of traditional knowledge, equitable benefit-sharing, and participation in decision-making on plant genetic resources.

Despite these normative frameworks, seed systems worldwide are increasingly shaped by legal, economic and technological developments, which in some contexts, may undermine peasant seed systems. These may include restrictive seed laws and certification regimes, intellectual property protections, trade and investment agreements, corporate concentration in the seed sector, and the digitalization of genetic resources. Such developments have raised concerns regarding the marginalization of traditional practices, erosion of seed diversity, misappropriation of traditional knowledge and persistent inequalities, including gender-based and structural discrimination.

In line with its mandate to promote and monitor the implementation of UNDROP, the Working Group on peasants is preparing a thematic report to clarify the content and scope of the right to seeds, assess challenges and good practices in its implementation, and formulate recommendations to States and other actors to ensure that seed governance frameworks are consistent with human rights, biodiversity conservation and food sovereignty.

The Working Group encourages submissions from States, international and regional organizations, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations, peasant movements, Indigenous Peoples, academics, private sector actors, and other relevant stakeholders. Submissions from right-holders and their representative organizations are particularly encouraged.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought

Seeds in Context: Significance and Practice

1. What is the social, cultural, economic and environmental significance of seeds in your local, national or regional context, including their contribution to food security, livelihoods and environmental sustainability?

2. What practices exist in your country and/or community for cultivating, harvesting, saving, exchanging, sharing and improving seeds?

3. How are roles and responsibilities related to seeds distributed within communities or societies, including among women, men, youth, Indigenous Peoples and other groups?

National and International Frameworks

4. What national laws, regulations or policies govern the saving, use, exchange and sale of peasant seeds, including measures for their protection? How effective are these frameworks in recognizing and upholding the right to seeds and in supporting the conservation of native and traditional seeds?

5. How do national legal and policy frameworks address the interests of peasants and rural communities in relation to those of commercial seed actors?

6. How have international instruments related to peasants’ rights, seeds and biodiversity, including UNDROP, UNDRIP, the CBD and the ITPGRFA, been reflected in national laws and policies, and what concrete impacts or benefits have they had for peasant and rural communities?

Challenges, Responses and Good Practices

7. What are the main challenges or threats faced in exercising the right to seeds, and how have communities, organizations or authorities responded to them?

8. What national, regional or international mechanisms have been used to promote or defend the right to seeds, and what has been their effectiveness?

9. What gaps remain in the protection and support of the right to seeds? Please share examples of laws, policies, practices or community-led initiatives that could be strengthened, replicated or scaled up.

Next Steps

Input/comments may be sent by e-mail. They must be received by 19 February 2026 .

Inputs should include the contributor’s name, organization (if applicable) and contact details for follow-up.

Additional supporting materials, such as reports, academic studies or background documents, may be included as annexes or provided through web links.

Unless otherwise specified by those making a submission, submissions will be made public on the Working Group’s website.

Email address: hrc-wg-peasants@un.org

Email subject line: Input for HRC Report on Seeds

Word/Page limit:
1000 words

Accepted file formats:
Word, PDF

Accepted Languages:
English, French, Spanish

La entrada Call for Inputs: Report of the UNDROP Working Group on the Right to Seeds se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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 a historic decision taken by the High Court of Kenya in favour of peasants’ right to save, use, share, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds. Three years after a group of Kenyan peasants filed the case, the High Court ruled Kenya’s Seeds and Plant Varieties Act unconstitutional, as the law not only criminalises the sale of uncertified seeds, but also curtails peasants’ control over harvests produced from protected varieties. Given its substantive legal and political outcome, this judgment “is a game changer for millions of Kenyan peasants and sets a powerful precedent for peasants’ rights and the right to seeds globally.”

In a powerful statement praising the Kenyan ruling, the experts of the United Nations Working Group on UNDROP highlighted that “this decision is a significant affirmation that the human rights of peasants and the imperatives of food security and biodiversity must prevail over overly restrictive intellectual property regimes.”

The European Union stands in favour of corporations monopolising seeds patents

In Europe, the European Coordination of La Via Campesina (ECVC) has recently denounced a harmful provisional agreement on GMO-NGT (Genetically Modified Organisms-New Genomic Techniques) made by the President of the European Council alongside negotiators from the EU Parliament and Commission. The agreement, which still needs approval by EU parliamentarians and member states, would deregulate most new GMO crops, treating them as if they were conventional plants, while removing traceability, labelling, and detection requirements.

The relevance of an international legally binding instrument for regulating transnational corporations and protecting rural women’s right to seeds

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, in October 2025, Defending Peasants Rights interviewed a delegation from the Southern African movement Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA). They highlighted the impacts directly suffered by rural women and their communities from the activities of transnational corporations operating in their territories and countries. From seed monopoly to environmental pollution and human rights violations, transnational corporations have operated with impunity across Zambia, South Africa and Swaziland.

In this regard, also read the press release published by the United Nations Working Group on UNDROP in support of the binding treaty process.

The 7th Anniversary of UNDROP

The hard-fought UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) celebrates its 7th anniversary this month. Adopted on 17 December 2018, this declaration is a landmark victory for diverse grassroots rural movements that strongly advocated for an instrument capable of defining, protecting and advancing the rights of rural peoples worldwide. As a key legal and political instrument for the much-needed systemic transformation of global food systems, UNDROP provides leading international guidance for rural laws, policies and programmes that protect the rights of those who feed us, safeguard the environment, and advance food sovereignty.

The UN Working Group on UNDROP recently issued a statement commemorating the 7th anniversary of UNDROP, underscoring its central relevance in addressing the cross-sectoral and structural issues confronting rural peoples in today’s neoliberal and capitalist world. Check it out here!

Send us your proposals for publications and future collaborations

Defending Peasants’ Rights wishes you a prosperous 2026 in advancing rural peoples’ rights!

La entrada Newsletter n°9 | Seed Sovereignty: Advancements and Setbacks in the Right to Seeds se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

1: What is the Rural Women’s Assembly and what are your key areas of work?

The Rural Women Assembly is a network of movements of peasants, fisher folks, farm workers, migrant and landless women, all living and working in the rural areas in the Southern Africa region. We are in 11 countries, with a membership of close to 200,000 members. So it’s a very unique movement of rural women in the region.

Essentially, the Rural Women Assembly builds the voice of rural women and builds agency in relation to questions of access to land and water; the right to food; the right to seeds; and of course, we deal with patriarchal issues that affect women particularly in rural areas. Also central to our work is the issue of climate justice, which has a substantial impact on the region, largely due to the many cyclones that strike it repeatedly, as well as other climate-related crises.

Furthermore, we deal with cases of gender-based violence. In this regard, we develop study cycles in different countries, which are spaces that allow us to discuss on issues related to violence against women.

We are also the guardians of our seeds, because we believe that seeds are our lives, our heritage, our identity, which we don’t want to lose. We have a situation where the transnational corporations, the seed companies, want us to do away with our seeds, which we have inherited for generations and generations – and we’re resisting against that.

2: Why are you here in Geneva this week? What are your expectations?

We are here in Geneva for the 11th session of negotiation on a legally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations (TNCs). We are here because our communities are experiencing violence from transnational corporations every day. The people in the communities are being grabbed off their land, where we do farming as women. We also have issues of climate crisis, as already said. These companies should pay for the pollution, the damages and the losses that we’re experiencing each and every year. It’s drought, it’s floods… So that is why we are here, so that we can contribute to the elaboration of a binding treaty to hold these companies accountable. Our goal is for the treaty to be out so that we are able to prevent these catastrophes.

We are here to have our voices heard, because when we’re in our countries we can issue statements, but they don’t reach the United Nations. So we are here in multiple movements and communities, and a collective voice from different countries can carry weight.

We are here as part of the Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples’ Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity – a powerful coalition of social movements, progressive organisations and communities affected by transnational corporations – to raise the issues of the rural women in the Global South. Being here is critical for us and it’s part of our advocacy strategy as Rural Women’s Assembly. We want to invest and participate in different platforms to advocate locally, nationally, and internationally, and use these global policy-making spaces or even UN instruments to really amplify our voice.

3: How does the struggle for a strong binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations relate to the protection and implementation of peasants’ rights as outlined in the UNDROP declaration?

There is a strong connection. I was very pleased to hear about the inclusion, in Article 15.7 of the draft text of the binding treaty, of a provision on the rights of peasants and rural peoples, which received strong support from almost all countries, particularly from Colombia and Palestine. It speaks to the UNDROP that the rights of the peasants are included in this treaty. This instrument will help us to push forward the agenda of ours, which is pushing for the implementation of UNDROP in our countries. Whilst our countries, for example, South Africa, signed the declaration in 2018, we still don’t have a policy that implements UNDROP. Having this binding treaty in place will strengthen our advocacy and work back home to ensure that we hold our governments to account to implement both instruments. So, these two legal frameworks are going to be key vehicles for us to utilize in our advocacy strategies.

It is necessary to note that the violations committed by transnational corporations directly affect the very rights granted to us by UNDROP. In particular, the right to seeds, the right to land, and the right to water. Once this treaty is adopted, we will have a binding instrument to which we can refer in order to defend ourselves.

4: How do TNCs activities impact your communities?

Firstly, TNCs want to take away our seeds and impose their own industrial seeds.. These enterprises pollute our water, causing a lot of diseases. The pollution affects not only people, but also animals and crops. As a result, we suffer from illnesses we don’t even recognise – sometimes even our own countries tell us they don’t know how to treat them. These are the impacts we are facing as a result of what TNCs are doing in our communities.

Seed sovereignty is no longer a right. Seeds have been commodified by transnational corporations. They have become a source of capital accumulation at the detriment of the rural poor. Our governments ignore that our seeds are resistant when it comes to the effects of climate change. Our seeds can be planted several times. When you buy hybrid seeds, they only last for a year. If you try to plant those seeds afterwards, they won’t germinate. Our seeds, on the other hand, are resistant – we can plant them for many years. Hence, we have food security at home and in the community. Our seeds are perfect. They are not harmful. They have healing properties and a lot of nutrients. You can cook the food coming from them in different ways. Sometimes they say there’s hunger in Zambia. It’s because they are following the corporate world’s thinking. If we could think like the rural women are thinking, there would be a lot of food in Zambia. There shouldn’t be even hunger in there. So, this treaty will also help us protect our seeds and our lives.

Hybrid seeds are expensive compared to our own kept seeds because they require fertilizers and chemicals. If you plant hybrids without any fertilizer, you get nothing. So, we are also trying to promote our own indigenous seeds, despite the threats we face from our governments. With the support of our governments, TNCs steal our seeds, make them hybrid, and make us pay the price for them. We have the right to say no to what they want to offer us.

Furthermore, they’re polluting the environment and they’re telling us we shouldn’t cut our trees so that the trees can clean up the carbon. They are interested in developing the carbon credit markets. They come into our areas, they grab big portions of land. They say, we shouldn’t even go and pick the mushrooms in there; we shouldn’t go pick the caterpillars in there. They put guards, so that we can’t go get the firewood. So, we have our own land, but we don’t have control of our own land. It’s very intimidating. They sell carbon with a lot of money, but we don’t get to get anything from there.

They grab land also because they want to do their mining, meanwhile we are displaced from a land where we’ve lived for so many years. They even damage the graves that are on the land. That is very de-humansing. There’s a lot of impunity in what they’re doing.

These TNCs have destroyed our land with pollution. You have a field that you cannot use for the next 10 years because it has been damaged with unknown toxic minerals that have passed through the area. In the Zambian Copperbelt province, which is near where we stay, TNCs polluted the Kafue River, which runs across the whole country. We can’t access the water in three quarters of the land through which the Kafue River passes. We can’t eat any fish from there.

In South Africa, fisher folks have taken up our government – particularly our Department of Mineral Resource and Energy – for blasting on the oceans, for working and collaborating with the Shell company, which was looking for oil in the ocean in the eastern part of South Africa. We have a similar case in terms of Titanium that has been going on for a long time also in the eastern part of South Africa, in Mbizana, where the communities are standing up and saying, ‘we have the right to say no’.The principle of free, prior and informed consent of the concerned communities should be respected. This has been a long process of litigation and these transnational corporations must be held accountable. They need to pay. We need reparations. Through the process of resisting, lives were lost, defenders have been killed and many are being threatened as we speak.

5: How have you been mobilising the UNDROP declaration in Southern Africa in favour of rural women’s rights?

Firstly, we made sure that our members understand what this declaration stands for and therefore what are the rights that are contained in it. We went through a strong move of capacitating, educating and building awareness amongst our members on their rights and how to engage to defend them. It is a declaration adopted by the United Nations that every country must implement, so it was critical for us to make sure our communities understood their rights. Each country has an advocacy strategy, they amplify the UNDROP in their communities. We have a booklet which is featured on our website, and we carry it everywhere. In every opportunity we have in engaging the duty bearers or government officials, we use this as a tool to engage and empower communities.

For example, in South Africa, we have been running a campaign called “One Woman, One Hectare of Land”, to provide more land for women. We combine that campaign with the UNDROP, especially the right to land, the right to food sovereignty, the right to use our seeds.

As rural women across different countries, we hold food and seed festivals every year. We do that to identify what seeds were lost, what we still have, how we can make better use of each seed. We now want to make seed banks and demo fields where we can be planting these seeds, so that we can multiply them. We also develop seed sharing initiatives. We work to increase our seed stocks so that, as we resist transnational corporations, we also show the strength of what we have.

In Swaziland, for instance, we are engaging government officials in the implementation of UNDROP. We have engaged with several ministries, including the Ministry of Agriculture, but concrete results are yet to come as they have not yet prioritised the issue. We also started with translating the UNDROP to the local languages so that it is accessible to our people, to the women.

6: What is your message for Southern African states regarding their engagement in the Binding Treaty process?

What is critical in this podium is to hear the voices of the Global South, especially our African governments. We want them to stop corporate impunity. The should take action for our people, for our communities, for the poor, for our nations. In South Africa, for example, we have a great human rights constitution. South Africa has signed declarations, and has been historically committed to the UNDROP. Therefore, we demand that our voices are heard and that these instruments are implemented.

We wish more African countries were actively engaging in this Binding Treaty negotiation process. The governments should step in, find markets for our indigenous foods and promote them, and help the peasants. If we don’t have maize, there’s sorghum, there’s different types of beans, there’s cassava. We can make a meal from that. So they should put the lives of their people first rather than protecting these so-called investors that are coming into our countries just to plunder. They extract the minerals, take them away, and when they return, we are forced to buy our own resources back at a very high price.

If corporations are coming as investors in our countries, let them build schools, roads, hospitals. The government should stand up and fight for us. Stop looking at the profits, and look at the lives of our people!

La entrada Corporate impunity and seed sovereignty: Interview with the Rural Womens’ Assembly (RWA) se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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 (ITPGRFA), held from 24 to 29 November 2025 in Lima, Peru.

It provides an overview of key issues on the agenda, including Farmers’ Rights under Article 9 of the Treaty, the functioning of the Multilateral System, digital sequence information, and benefit-sharing arrangements. ​

The paper shows how peasants’ and Indigenous Peoples’ seed systems relate to binding human rights obligations recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), with particular attention to the right to seeds in Article 19.

It summarizes the Working Group’s main recommendations to GB‑11, such as recognizing the collective nature of peasants’ rights, reviewing national seed and intellectual property laws, addressing digital biopiracy, establishing a standing committee on Farmers’ Rights, and reframing benefit-sharing so that it strengthens community-led seed systems and agrobiodiversity conservation.

La entrada Peasants’ right to seed – Briefing paper by the Working Group on peasants and other people working in rural areas se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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 Act that criminalised the saving, use, exchange and sale of Indigenous and farm-saved seeds.

“This judgment rightly recognises that seed sharing is not a crime, but a fundamental element of peasants’ identity, resilience and contribution to national food systems,” said the Working Group on Peasants and other people working in rural areas.

The High Court of Kenya found that the law, which granted exclusive marketing and property rights over seeds to breeders and seed companies and exposed farmers to potential imprisonment of up to two years for seed-saving and seed-sharing, violated farmers’ rights to life, livelihood and food. The Court stressed that centuries-old practices of seed-sharing form the backbone of Kenya’s food security and cultural heritage.

“This decision is a significant affirmation that the human rights of peasants and the imperatives of food security and biodiversity must prevail over overly restrictive intellectual property regimes,” the Working Group said.

The experts noted that similar restrictive provisions, often modelled on the 1991 Act of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), have been incorporated into national laws in many countries – criminalising age-old practices in Indigenous and peasant agriculture.

“The Kenyan ruling sends a clear and timely message that human rights obligations cannot be subordinated to commercial seed monopolies or narrow interpretations of plant breeders’ rights,” the Working Group said.

The decision is consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), in particular article 19, which recognises the right to seeds, including the right to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed or propagating material. The experts recalled their Briefing Paper on the Right to Seeds**, which clarifies that States must ensure that seed policies, certification schemes and intellectual property frameworks, are designed and applied in a manner that respects, protects and fulfils these rights, and that peasants-managed seed systems are legally recognised and actively supported.

“Courts play a critical role in ensuring that national laws comply with international human rights standards,” the Working Group said. “Where legislative frameworks have criminalised traditional seed systems or restricted peasants’ customary practices, judicial review offers an essential safeguard to restore the primacy of human rights and the right to food.”

The experts commended the courage and perseverance of Kenyan peasants, Indigenous Peoples and civil society actors who mobilised to secure seeds rights before the Court. “Their determination offers inspiration to peasant movements worldwide and shows that when courts uphold human rights, they defend not only the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and Indigenous Peoples but also the future of diverse, resilient and sovereign food systems,” they said.

“Kenya’s ruling should inspire similar human-rights-based interpretations of seed laws and plant variety protection regimes in other jurisdictions,” the Working Group said.

*The Working Group on Peasants and other people working in rural areas is comprised of five independent experts from all regions of the world. The Chair-Rapporteur is Carlos Duarte (Colombia), other members are Geneviève Savigny (France); Shalmali Guttal (India), Uche Ewelukwa Ofodile (Nigeria) and Davit Hakobyan (Armenia).

**Briefing paper on the right to seeds, issued by the Working Group in connection with the Eleventh Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), held from 24 to 29 November 2025 , details how States can integrate UNDROP obligations under the right to seeds to safeguarding peasants’ and Indigenous Peoples’ traditional practices and biodiversity.

Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR.

Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/.

UN Human Rights, country page – Kenya

For inquiries and media requests, please contact: Jamshid GAZIYEV, Secretary of the Working Group on peasants and rural workers (jamshid.gaziyev@un.org).

For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts, please contact Maya Derouaz (maya.derouaz@un.org) or Dharisha Indraguptha (dharisha.indraguptha@un.org)

Follow news related to the UN’s independent human rights experts on X: @UN_SPExperts.

La entrada Kenya’s seed sharing ruling a milestone for peasants’ rights and food security: UN experts se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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 the voice of small-scale farmers in Europe, denounces a deal which completely ignores the concerns of farmers, especially on patents. The European Parliament had initially recognized in its position of February 2024 that patents were problematic, even calling for a limitation of the scope of patents to prevent its extension to traditional and peasant seeds. Yet, the Parliament’s negotiator, Mrs Polfjärd, has not taken it into account.

These important demands were completely suppressed during the trilogue, leaving in the final deal only optional measures, such as a non-binding code of conduct for licensing and voluntary transparency, leaving farmers, small seed companies, manufacturers and retailers without any means of protection against accidental contaminations. The trilogue agreement claims that patentable plants obtained by NGTs are equivalent to plants produced by traditional, non-patentable breeding methods. Removing the current requirement to publish the detection and identification methods of GMOs traits will allow the extension of the scope of NGT patents to seeds and agricultural products that naturally contain these same traits. These measures are useless to protect farmers and other agri-food operators from the risks related to patents, notably abusive pursuits for patent infringement. Such pursuits will inevitably happen if all traceability requirements are removed, and will lead to the privatisation of all cultivated plants by the patent model, including traditional and peasant seeds.

The agreement foresees to deregulate patented GMOs-NGTs without traceability, including without the mandatory of detection and identification methods[1], without mandatory coexistence measures, without labelling for final products and without the possibility for Member States to opt-out. This proposal does nothing to prevent contamination for the organic sector, although it is strictly prohibited by the organic regulation and rejected by consumers. Some requirements of the current GMO legislation will continue to apply to GMOs-NGTs “category 2”, but we already know that the vast majority of NGTs will fall in “category 1”, which will be completely deregulated. In short, this deal would completely remove the right of farmers and consumers to continue to grow and eat GMO-free, and will endanger the economic survival of the well-established GMO-free and organic agri-food sectors in Europe.

“This deal will only benefit to large patent-holding multinationals, such as Corteva, BASF or Bayer, which will be able to control all seeds and the whole food chain with their patents. For all the others, farmers, small and medium breeders and consumers, it will be a loss. The main motivation behind this deregulation is to impose the patent model in Europe, and to impose GMOs to those who do not want them,” said Alessandra Turco from ECVC’s Coordinating Committee. “Patents are a tool to lock in access to genetic resources with the aim restructure the seed market at the advantage of large firms. If this deal comes through, it will lead to a monopolistic concentration of the market, the disappearance of smaller seed companies, a widespread privatisation of genetic resources and irreversible reduction in agrobiodiversity, as well as an increase in the price of seeds.”

Fortunately, this is not over yet: this harmful trilogue deal is only the result of the negotiations between the Presidency of the Council and the negotiators from the Parliament and Commission. Now, it still needs to be approved by all Members of European Parliament (MEPs) and all Member States. ECVC calls on all MEPs and Member States to hear farmers’, agri-food chain operators’ and consumers’ legitimate concerns and to not approve this dangerous text.

ECVC speaks on behalf of the many European farmers who do not want and do not need to use patented GMOs-NGTs, and which are already adapting their crops to climatic changes and reducing chemical input with peasant breeding and the use of locally-adapted crops, without depending on expensive patented GMOs. ECVC therefore demands to all MEPs to upheld its strong commitment against patents and to not endorse a proposal that will seriously undermine Europe’s food sovereignty and farmers’ rights.

[1] Which would be absolutely necessary for post-marketing monitoring, to allow the removal of a GMO-NGT from the market in case of damages to health and to the environment.

La entrada Trilogue agreement on GMOs-NGTs: A betrayal of farmers’ legitimate concerns on patents, health, the environment, and consumers’ rights to information se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

On November 27, 2025, the High Court of Kenya in Machakos delivered a much-awaited decision in a constitutional challenge to the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act mounted by smallholder farmers. The Court decided in favour of the petitioners on all counts, striking down various sections of the Act and Regulations.

As reported earlier on Defending Peasants’ Rights, the constitutional challenge to the Seeds and Plant VarietiesAct was filed in 2022 by a group of peasants of Seeds Savers Network against the government agency responsible for implementing the Act.

Revised in 2012, Kenya’s Seeds and Plant Varieties Act is a draconian law that prohibits peasants from saving, sharing, exchanging and selling seeds under penalty of criminal sanctions. In her decision, the judge declared that various provisions of the Act were contrary to the Constitution of Kenya, the FAO Plant Treaty and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). The judge ruled that the Constitution had to be read along with Article 9 of the Plant Treaty and article 19 of UNDROP, and that Kenya was bound by its obligations under international law in general and international human rights in particular.

More specifically, the judge struck down the section of the Act that gives inspectors who reasonably believe that a breach has been committed the power to seize and dispose of seeds. The judge ruled that this violates a peasant’s right to the privacy of their person, home and property, as enshrined in the Constitution. The Judge also noted that failure to define “reasonable belief” and to provide for an independent oversight mechanism could lead to arbitrariness and abuse.

Importantly, the judge declared that several provisions of the Act are unconstitutional because they infringe on peasants’ right to save, use, share, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds. These provisions criminalize the sale of seeds unless they are certified seeds sold by registered merchants, and limit peasants’ rights over their harvest grown from protected varieties.

The judge ruled that by restricting the right to save, share and exchange seeds, these provisions are contrary to the Constitution, which affirms that the State must recognize the role of science and Indigenous technologies, and recognize and protect the ownership of indigenous seeds and plant varieties, their diverse characteristics and their use by the communities of Kenya. Given the important contribution of smallholder farmers to food production, the Judge determined that these provisions also violate the right to food guaranteed by the Constitution, and Kenya’s obligation to take legislative, policy and other measures to achieve its progressive realization. Finally, the Judge also ruled that exorbitant registration fees, coupled with strict registration requirements, amount to indirect discrimination against smallholder farmers and peasants.

Regarding the right to participation, the Judge observed that many of the issues raised in the petition could have been avoided had the government ensured the right to adequate and meaningful participation by peasants, interested parties and the public in the process of developing the legislation. The Judge directed the government to ensure the right to participation in the process of amending the law to comply with the judgment.

It is not yet known if the Kenyan government will appeal the decision. In any case, this judgment is a game changer for millions of Kenyan peasants and sets a powerful precedent for peasants’ rights and the right to seeds globally.

***

Judgment of the High Court of Kenya, available here:
https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/judgment/kehc/2025/18166/eng@2025-11-27

Constitution of Kenya (in particular, arts. 11, 21(2) and 43(1):
https://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/TheConstitutionOfKenya.pdf

Kenya’s Seeds and Plant Varieties Act:
https://upovlex.upov.int/en/legislation/text/506145

La entrada Landmark victory for Kenyan peasants and seed sovereignty se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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 recognized right. We are grateful to re-publish here this important publication on the state of seeds in the world.

“This dossier grapples with the potential and significance of seeds and their foundational role in our food systems. If we want to transform food systems, we must first change how we perceive and interact with seeds. Farmers and activists who defend farmers’ rights are exposed to a variety of threats and their work is often criminalized. This dossier is dedicated to them – and to all who work tirelessly to protect farmers’ seeds and defend seed sovereignty.“

La entrada Seeds at risk se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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 of the UNDROP, those that form the backbone of the instrument. This does not mean that other rights are less important, but we have identified these “key rights” as being the most buoyant and, in a way, the most claimed: right to land and natural resources; right to food and food sovereignty; right of rural women; right to social security; right to seeds; right to the environment, water and biodiversity; right to participation; right to an adequate standard of living and means of production; economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights in the context of peasant activities.

Objective of Session 2 “Key rights”: To gain a practical understanding of the core content of the UNDROP and what these articles mean in practice for peasants in the field.

Methodology: Participants will follow a series of video training sessions on key UNDROP rights. They will also be asked to read some key documents relating to each right.

RIGHT TO FOOD SOVEREIGNTY (art.15)

• Read the definition established at the Nyeléni Forum in 2007
• Read article 15 of the UNDROP
• See video training on food sovereignty, by Elizabeth Mpofu (ZIMSOFF, Zimbabwe)

• See the video of La Via Campesina “What is food sovereignty”?

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklet “Peasants’ rights and food production”
• CETIM’s training sheet “The right to food and food sovereignty”

Complementary materials for further reading:

• FIAN International’s briefing “Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition, and to Food Sovereignty”
• Research brief from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights “The rights to food and to food sovereignty
• Report from Friends of the Earth International “The UN Declaration on the rights of peasants as a tool for promoting collective rights“

RIGHT TO LAND (art.17)

• Read article 17 of the UNDROP
• See video training on right to land, by Paola Gioia (ABL, Germany)

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklet “Access to resources and means of production” (see in particular pages 4-5-6)
• CETIM’s training sheet “The right to land and natural resources”

Complementary materials for further reading:

• FIAN International briefing “The right to land and other natural resources”
• Research brief on the right to land by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights “The right to land and other natural resources”
• CETIM’s book “Right to land”
• International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPCFS) “People’s Manual on the Guidelines on Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests“

RIGHT TO AN ADEQUATE STANDARD OF LIVING, A DECENT LIVELIHOOD AND THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION (art.16)

• Read article 16 of the UNDROP
• See video training on this right, by Diego Monton (MNCI Somos Tierra – UTRST, Argentina)

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklets “Access to resources and means of production” (see in particular pages 9-10) and “Peasants’ Dignified Lives and Livelihoods“
• CETIM’s training sheet “The right to an adequate standard of living, a decent livelihood and the means of production”

Complementary materials for further reading:

RIGHT TO SEEDS (art.19)

• Read article 19 of the UNDROP
• See video training on right to seeds, by Christophe Golay from the Geneva Academy (Switzerland)

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklet “Access to resources and means of production” (see in particular page 8)
• CETIM’s training sheet “The right to seeds”

Complementary materials for further reading:

• FIAN International briefing “The rights to seeds and biodiversity”
• Research brief on the right to land by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights “Right to seeds and intellectual property rights”
• Research brief on the right to land by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights “The right to seeds in Africa”
• Research brief on the right to land by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights “The right to seeds in Europe”

RIGHT TO PARTICIPATION (art.10)

• Read article 10 of the UNDROP
• See video training on right to participation, by Michelle Zufferey (UNITERRE, Switzerland)

Compulsory training sheets to read:Training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklet “Access to resources and means of production” (see in particular page 10)
• CETIM’s training sheet “The right to participation”

RIGHTS TO THE ENVIRONEMENT, BIODIVERSITY AND WATER (art. 18, 20 and 21)

• Read articles 18, 20 and 21 of the UNDROP
• See video training on right to participation, by Morgan Ody (Confédération paysanne, France)

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklet “Access to resources and means of production” (see in particular page 8)
• CETIM’s training sheet “The right to the environement”

Complementary materials for further reading:

• FIAN International briefing “Environmental and Climat Justice”
• FIAN International briefing “Rights to water and sanitation”

RIGHTS OF RURAL WOMEN (art. 4)

• Read article 4 of the UNDROP
• See video training on right to participation, by Chengeto Zumira (ZIMSOFF, Zimbabwe)

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklets “Peasants as political subjects” and “Peasants’ Dignified Lives and Livelihoods” (see in particular pages 6-7)
• CETIM’s training sheet “Non-discrimination against rural women“

Complementary materials for further reading:

• FIAN International’s briefing “Rural Women’s Rights“

RIGHT TO SOCIAL SECURITY (art. 22)

• Read article 22 of the UNDROP
• See video training on right to participation, by Pramesh Pokharel (All Nepal Peasants Federation, Nepal)

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklet “Peasants’ Dignified Lives and Livelihoods” (see in particular pages 2-3-4)
• CETIM’s training sheet “Right to social security“

ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS (art. 5, 13, 14, 21, 23, 24, 25 and 26)

• Read articles 5, 13, 14, 21, 23, 24, 25 and 26 of the UNDROP
• See video training on economic, social and cultural rights, by Melik Özden (CETIM)

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• CETIM’s training sheet “Economic, social and cultural rights“

CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS (art. 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12)

• Read articles 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 of the UNDROP
• See video training on civil and political rights, by Melik Özden (CETIM) see above

Compulsory training sheets to read:

• La Via Campesina’s Thematic Booklet “Peasants as political subjects“
• CETIM’s training sheet “Civil and political rights“

La entrada TRAINING ON THE UNDROP – SESSION 2 “KEY RIGHTS OF THE UNDROP” se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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 between, on the one hand, the lack of support for peasant seed systems worldwide, including in Africa; and, on the other, the massive support for commercial seed systems. This is essential for the protection of the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of peasants. It is also in the interest of all, to ensure the rights to food and food sovereignty, preserve crop biodiversity, and tackle climate change.
In 2018, the great majority of African countries voted in favour of adopting UNDROP, which is based on binding international human rights treaties. In accordance with the need to apply international instruments adopted by the UN General Assembly in good faith, and to give priority to human rights norms in international and national laws, reflected in UNDROP Articles 2.4, 15.5 and 19.8, the African Union (AU) and African states shall ensure that their regional and national laws and policies, as well as the international agreements to which they are party, do not lead to the violation but, on the contrary, to a better protection of the rights of peasants, including their right to seeds.

La entrada Reasearch Brief: The Right to Seeds in Africa se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Known as the Monsanto Law, Decree Nº 21-2012 was passed by Congress in 2012. Modeled on the 1991 Act of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), it made it illegal to save, give away or exchange seeds from plant varieties protected by plant breeders’ rights. Honduras is not a member of UPOV and is under no obligation to adhere to the 1991 Act.

In 2016, the National Association for the Promotion of Organic Farming (ANAFAE) filed a first unsuccessful legal action against the decree. Undeterred, ANAFAE filed another legal action in 2018 with peasant organizations and independent farmers that resulted in the Supreme Court striking down the law in its entirety (Action of Unconstitutionality EXP SCO-0877/2018).

The Court accepted the five arguments put forward by the plaintiffs in their petition, namely that Decree Nº 21-2012 (1) represented an attack on the country’s sovereignty and right to self-determination, by granting plant breeders’ rights over native seeds and plant varieties for commercial use, to the detriment of the free use of wealth and natural resources; (2) violated constitutional principles for life, human dignity and the right to an adequate standard of living; (3) represented an attack on the human rights to nutrition and health; (4) contradicted the obligation of the state to preserve the environment so as to protect the health of its population; and (5) contravened the constitutional and international duty of the state to protect Indigenous cultures and farmers’ rights.

The judgment recognizes that peasants’ traditional knowledge is essential for the preservation of biological diversity and for global food security, and that the Decree violated the provisions of Articles 19 and 20 of UNDROP on the right to seeds and biological diversity.

This is a momentous judgment for Honduran peasants. It also sets a precedent for other countries that have passed laws modelled on UPOV 91 in contradiction to their international commitments in the area of human rights, peasant rights and the right to food.

Link to the Official Court ruling in Spanish

Link to an English translation of the Court ruling (unofficial, by APBREBES ans HEKS/EPER)

La entrada Honduras: Supreme Court uses UNDROP article 19 on the right to seeds to declare unconstitutional the Monsanto Law se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

After adopting the Declaration, we are now in a new phase: implementation. It is absolutely vital to bring the Declaration to life so that peasants and other people working in rural areas can make the content their own, to use it in their daily advocacy work. For this reason, CETIM, alongside La Via Campesina, organizes seminars aimed at peasant leaders. These courses allow them to consolidate their practices, advocacy strategies and other projects linked to the Declaration. Through this type of training, we are striving for a multiplier effect. Once the leaders have been trained, they disseminate their knowledge to their members, to other peasants and allies. The aim in the long term is for everyone to have access to this crucial knowledge.

Training sheets

The twelve fact sheets have been produced in a spirit of popularisation of the content and scope of the rights contained in the Declaration. Produced in several languages in an A5 format, the sheets explain in an accessible way one or a series of rights of the Declaration grouped by theme:

1. Introduction of the UNDROP
2. Right to land
3. Right to seeds
4. Right to food and food sovereignty
5. Right to an adequate standard of living, a decent livelihood and to means of production
6. Non-discrimination against rural women
7. Right to participation
8. Right to the environment
9. Right to social security
10. Economic, social and cultural rights
11. Civil and political rights
12. Strategies for implementation

La entrada Training sheets on peasants’ rights se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.