The report points to extreme territorial inequality: 85 per cent of agricultural holdings are smaller than two hectares but control only 9 per cent of cultivable land, while the largest 0.1 per cent control more than half. Dispossession also affects fisheries, pastoral territories and areas targeted by climate, conservation and renewable-energy projects, as well as communities affected by conflict and displacement.

The report calls for stronger, binding measures to protect territorial rights, including legal recognition of collective and customary territories, restitution and compensation for dispossession, and stronger rights for rural women. It also recommends limits on land and water concentration, agrarian reform and redistribution, legally binding human-rights instruments to regulate business enterprises, and meaningful consultation and, free, prior and informed consent for development and climate-related projects.

Read the full report below:

La entrada New Report by the UN Working Group on UNDROP on territorialities of land and sea se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The seed is the first link in every food chain. However, what for millennia was a common good safeguarded by farming communities is today at the centre of a global dispute between human rights, food sovereignty and intellectual property.

A new report presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council argues that the international governance of seeds is increasingly shifting towards commodification, corporate concentration and the criminalisation of ancestral practices such as saving, exchanging or selling farmers’ seeds.

The document, entitled The Right to Seeds: Custodianship, Enclosure and Resistance, was prepared by the Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. It was presented by Shamlali Guttal, Chair of the Working Group, who also presented the report on the official visit to Ghana carried out from 5 to 14 May 2026.

The diagnosis is unequivocal: seeds are progressively being transformed from biocultural heritage into commodities subject to intellectual property regimes, commercial certification and corporate control.

From common good to private property

The report identifies two opposing models. The first views seeds as common goods that underpin food sovereignty, biodiversity and the collective rights of rural peoples. The second regards them as economic assets subject to patents, plant breeders’ rights and global trade rules.

According to the Working Group, the balance between the two visions has clearly shifted in favour of the latter.

During the presentation of the report, Shamlali Guttal recalled that seeds are not simply commodities for peasants and Indigenous peoples.

“Seeds are the beginning of every meal, the memory of every harvest and the hope of future life. They are a living heritage, developed over generations through selection, exchange and adaptation to different soils, ecosystems and climates”.

Guttal also stressed that Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants recognises the right of peasants to save, use, control, protect and develop their own seeds. Consequently, States have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil that right.

International rules on intellectual property, trade agreements and certification systems have imposed growing restrictions on those who save, exchange or sell seeds outside commercial circuits. What for centuries constituted an ordinary farming practice is beginning to be treated as a legal infringement in numerous countries.

The concentration of the global market

The privatisation of seeds is advancing alongside an unprecedented concentration of the industry. The report states that four companies — Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta and BASF — control more than half of the global commercial seed market.

This concentration does not only affect prices. It also directs genetic research, shapes agricultural policies and favours homogeneous varieties designed for intensive agricultural systems dependent on fertilisers and pesticides.

This erodes agricultural diversity and increases farmers’ dependence on large companies supplying seeds and inputs.

In response to this trend, the report highlights the importance of seed systems managed by farmers themselves. In some regions of Africa and Asia, these systems provide up to 90% of the seeds used for food crops.

During her intervention, Guttal explained that these traditional systems are the main reservoir of agricultural genetic diversity and constitute a fundamental basis for food sovereignty and resilience in the face of climate change.

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture recognises farmers’ rights and establishes a multilateral system for access and benefit-sharing. However, the Working Group warned that these commitments are implemented unevenly and that resources allocated to the benefit-sharing fund remain insufficient.

When saving seeds becomes a crime

One of the most alarming aspects of the report is its description of a growing process of criminalisation of traditional seed-related practices.

In different countries, farmers have faced legal proceedings for exchanging, reusing or selling planting material saved on their farms. The report documents cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, with sanctions including heavy fines and even prison sentences.

Plant variety protection regimes, particularly those inspired by the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention, expand breeders’ exclusive rights over reproductive material. In some countries, restrictions may extend to practices as commonplace as saving seeds from one harvest for use in the next.

The document also warns of the growing use of surveillance technologies, genetic markers, drones and satellite imagery to detect alleged infringements involving protected seeds.

For the Working Group, there is an obvious paradox: while peasant systems continue to provide between 70% and 90% of the seeds used in numerous countries, it is precisely these systems that face the greatest legal restrictions.

Guttal also warned about the expansion of patents on genetic sequences and the use of information obtained from digital databases.

“Genetic sequences can be registered or patented without the physical seed having been used. This practice may allow genetic resources to be used without respecting benefit-sharing obligations”.

The invisible custodians

The report pays particular attention to the role of rural women. It identifies them as the main custodians of genetic diversity and as responsible for the selection, conservation and transmission of knowledge about seeds in much of the world.

However, agricultural policies and regulatory frameworks often render this contribution invisible. The privatisation of seeds and the imposition of certification systems disproportionately affect women, as they restrict practices that are fundamental to their economic and food autonomy.

The erosion of traditional systems does not only entail the loss of biodiversity. It also reduces the scope for action of those who have historically sustained food security at local level.

For this reason, the Working Group calls on States to guarantee equality for rural women in seed governance through secure land tenure, effective representation in decision-making bodies and recognition of their traditional knowledge and their role as the principal custodians of seeds.

Biodiversity under threat

For the UN, the dispute over seeds is inseparable from the global ecological crisis. The accelerating loss of plant genetic diversity is emerging as one of the most concerning signs of contemporary industrial agriculture.

The report states that approximately three quarters of crop genetic diversity was lost during the 20th century, as local varieties, adapted to their territories, were replaced by an increasingly limited number of commercial varieties.

The expansion of genetically modified organisms and new gene-editing technologies also increases the risks of genetic contamination and private appropriation of resources historically developed by farming and Indigenous communities.

The document records cases of contamination of native maize and cotton varieties with unauthorised genetically modified material in Latin America. It also reports lawsuits against farmers who had not knowingly planted patented seeds, but whose fields contained plants originating from such material.

The report also warns of new forms of biopiracy associated with the digitisation of genetic sequences. Thanks to these technologies, companies and institutions can register and patent biological characteristics derived from traditional varieties without physically accessing the original seeds.

This practice weakens benefit-sharing mechanisms and may facilitate the appropriation of knowledge developed by farming and Indigenous communities.

For this reason, Guttal called for new genomic techniques to be subjected to independent risk assessments and traceability and labelling requirements before any deregulation process.

Seeds, territory and conflicts

The defence of seeds cannot be separated from the defence of land. The report stresses that traditional systems depend on living territories where communities can cultivate, exchange and pass on knowledge between generations.

For this reason, forced displacement, land grabs, large-scale agribusiness projects, armed conflicts and environmental degradation constitute direct threats to the right to seeds.

The loss of territories also means the loss of knowledge, locally adapted varieties and community exchange networks that underpin the resilience of food systems.

In this regard, the Working Group recommended that, in situations of armed conflict, occupation or other crises, farmers’ seeds and related infrastructure be recognised as civilian assets essential to the survival of the population.

Peasant resistance and judicial victories

In response to these trends, the document records numerous experiences of resistance. Cooperatives, community seed banks, seed-exchange fairs and participatory plant-breeding programmes continue to sustain an essential part of global agricultural biodiversity.

Guttal stressed that these initiatives should not be treated as marginal activities, but as public goods deserving the same support as formal seed-breeding programmes.

The Working Group also highlights several legal and policy experiences. Among them is the African Model Legislation for the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, developed through the ARIPO Arusha Protocol, which offers a human-rights-compatible alternative to the 1991 UPOV model.

Indian legislation expressly protects farmers’ right to save, use, exchange and sell seeds saved on their farms, alongside breeders’ rights.

In Brazil, the Food Acquisition Programme directs public procurement towards traditional and agroecological seeds.

The report also records several judicial victories. In 2021, the Supreme Court of Honduras declared the national plant variety protection law unconstitutional, invoking Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants.

In Kenya, both the Supreme Court and the High Court have recognised the constitutional protection of customary farming practices involving the exchange of seeds. In November 2025, the High Court held that “sharing seeds is not a crime”, a decision whose significance, according to the Working Group, extends beyond the country’s borders.

These experiences show that another form of seed governance is possible, based on human rights, food sovereignty and the conservation of biodiversity.

A dispute over the future of food

Beyond the agricultural question, the report raises a fundamental political question: who controls the resources that make food production possible?

The Working Group’s conclusion is unequivocal. Seeds cannot be reduced to simple commodities. They constitute the material basis of fundamental rights such as food, health, culture and a healthy environment.

Treating them exclusively as objects of private property not only threatens biodiversity and food sovereignty, but also deepens the economic dependence of millions of farmers around the world.

For this reason, the Working Group urges States to recognise and protect peasant seed systems, strengthen agroecology and guarantee the right of rural communities to save, exchange, develop and sell their own seeds.

In the words of Shamlali Guttal, protecting seeds also means protecting the communities that have cared for them for generations: their rights, their territories, their knowledge and their ability to cope with climate change and other crises.

In other words, returning seeds to their original status: the living heritage of peoples rather than a commodity of the markets.

La entrada Seeds Under Lock and Key: UN Experts Denounce the Privatisation of Peasant Life se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

This article was originally published in the journal Lendemains Solidaires, available in French here.

Food Sovereignty is intended as the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food, produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems. La Via Campesina insists that diverse, peasant-driven agroecological modes of production, based on centuries of knowledge, experience and accumulated evidence, are central to guaranteeing healthy food to everyone, while ensuring harmony with nature. This paradigm puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and transnational corporations. It defends the interests of next generations. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, building food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers and users.

Background

The history and background of the concept of Food Sovereignty declared by LVC in 1996 is linked to the failure of the implementation of the concept of food security initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It was conceived to overcome the challenge of hunger and malnutritinon that was and is particularly – and paradoxically – affecting the rural areas.

During the World Food Summit in 1996, La Via Campesina coined the term, insisting upon the centrality of small-scale food producers, the accumulated wisdom of generations, the autonomy and diversity of rural and urban communities and the solidarity between peoples, as essential components for crafting policies around food and agriculture.

We must remind ourselves that the only way to make our voice heard is by uniting and building new alliances within and across every border. Rural and Urban Social Movements, Trade Unions and civil society actors, progressive governments, academics, scientists and technology enthusiasts must come together to defend this shared vision for the future. Peasant women and other oppressed gender minorities must find equal space in the leadership of our movement at all levels. We must sow the seeds of solidarity in our communities and address all forms of discrimination that keep rural societies divided.

In the commomeration of the 25 years of La Via Campesina, it was declared that Food Sovereignty offers a manifesto for the future of our planet. It is an idea that unites humanity and puts us at the service of Mother Earth that feeds and nourishes us.

"Food Sovereignty offers a manifesto for the future of our planet."

Linking Food Sovereignty to Right to Development

Linking food sovereignty to the framework and concept of the Right to Development (RtD) is very relevant, as the latter must be intended as the right of peasant and rural populations to design and build their own rural development models, autonomously and independently, thus aligning with the perspective and principles of food sovereignty.

The Right to Development is conceived as a process of empowerment that necessarily implies social mobilization and struggle. It becomes a programmatic right that requires structural and specific measures from public authorities in favor of rural workers and communities. Hence the RtD is also a political instrument, a strategic counter-hegemonic legal framework aimed at resisting the dangerous policies imposed by the architecture of globalization, which primarily benefits transnational agribusiness corporations and financial capital, which have always contributed to marginalizing peasantry.

The interrelation between the RtD, food sovereignty and peasants’ rights is further confirmed in the ongoing negotiation of the Draft International Covenant on the Right to Development within the United Nations¹. This process aims at legally strenghtening and further consolidating the legal framework of RtD, initially codified through the UN Declaration on the Right to Development (1986).

The Draft Covenant text includes a specific provision recognizing the right of peasants “to determine and develop priorities and strategies to exercise their right to development.” This explicit reference represents both a legal and political advancement. It strengthens the interpretation of the RtD as a right belonging not only to States, but also to organized peoples and communities—particularly rural populations historically excluded from decision-making.

By inserting peasants and rural people as a constitutive element of development, this new legal instrument reinforces the centrality of self-determination in defining agricultural, economic, and territorial priorities. It also consolidates the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) recognition that peasants must not merely be beneficiaries of policies, but rights-holders capable of designing, implementing, and monitoring their own development models (art. 3 and 10).

What Is Peasant-Led Rural Development?

Our vision of development is cantered on the development of peasant agriculture through agroecology, the only guarantee of dignified and just livelihoods and working conditions for people across the world, especially in rural areas as centre of food production. Therefore LVC proposed and finally success in getting the United Declaration on the rights of peasant and other people in rural areas ( UNDROP) as tool of struggle for Food Sovereignty.

To achieve this, we require public policies that regulate agricultural and food markets, as peasants always do not get the decent income from their food production’s activities for their livelihood and continuing food production ( article 16 of UNDROP). This is because of market mechanism-based food system with corporation control the market .

Among these regulatory mechanisms, we advocate for Minimum Support Prices (MSP), meaning that States must set support prices that cover peasants’ production costs and guarantee a fair income margin. This mechanism reverses the logic of dumping, which depresses prices, thereby protecting peasant dignity.

We also defend public procurement and public reserves. We demand the restoration of public food stock systems to regulate markets and stabilize prices. Public authorities should buy crops during harvest seasons to guarantee floor prices and release them during shortage periods to avoid speculation. Minimim Support Price, Public Procurement and public reserves are for instance implemented in Indonesia and India.

"Public authorities should buy crops during harvest seasons to guarantee floor prices and release them during shortage periods to avoid speculation."

These mechanisms are indispensable because the neoliberal model dismantled these regulatory tools, exposing small producers to competition with large subsidized agribusiness farms. LVC calls for strengthening local and regional supply chains, arguing that trade must prioritize short circuits over transcontinental flows.

Agrarian Reform, the right to land and the RtD

Agrarian reform is linked to access to and control of land and territory, which is now considered a fundamental right, enshrined in international human rights law, particularly through Article 17 of UNDROP. Many phenomenas and corporate initiatives violate and/or threaten the right to land: agrarian conflicts, criminalization, evictions, land grabbing, green grabbing and land concentration driven by agribusiness for large scale of agriculture (monocultures); carbon markets, biofuel and biodiversity offset; mining activities; and “development projects”, as the construction of highways, dams and others. These are the reasons why LVC fights at all levels for comprehensive and people-centered agrarian reform.

This approach goes beyond mere land titling, calling for effective and equitable redistribution of land. It includes setting to clearly limit property size, banning the sale of land to others and foreign entities, and expropriating holdings that rely on illegal or slave labour, especially in large scale agriculture and big plantations.

"This approach goes beyond mere land titling, calling for effective and equitable redistribution of land."

This vision directly opposes market-based “counter-reforms” promoted by the World Bank in the 1990s, which led to land privatization and a new wave of land concentration, imposing a single rural development model, rooted in neoliberalism and favourable to agribusiness interests.

The struggle for rights to land through implementing agrarian reform is therefore part of the RtD, it is a struggle for self-determination and for the right to define one’s own land systems. We advocate for a political understanding of land — as a social and productive ecosystem essential to life — and not as a mere financial asset.

Agroecology, the right to seeds and the RtD

In 2015, during the Second Nyeleni Forum², delegations representing diverse organizations and international movements of small-scale food producers and consumers gathered to get to a common understanding of agroecology, as a key component of Food Sovereignty.

Agroecology is intended to transform and repair our material reality in food systems, facing a rural world devastated by industrial food production and today by the so-called Green and Blue Revolutions. Agroecology is, thus, also political: it aims at challenging and transforming structures of power in society. It puts the control of seeds, biodiversity, land and territories, waters, knowledge, culture, and all the commons, in the hands of the peoples who feed the world.

The control of local/native seeds is a key mean of production amid the corporate offensive of seed industries to keep consolidating chemical agriculture. These industries develop genetically modified organismes (GMOs) seeds, while promoting patents (intellectual property rights) at the expenses of local/native seeds. Therefore, LVC strongly rejects the commodification of living organisms, notably through GMOs, patents, and the privatization and commercialization of biodiversity.

In this sense, the movement defends the collective and inalienable right of peasants to save, use, exchange, and sell their seeds, in accordance with Article 9.3 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources and Article 19 of UNDROP.

Faced with industrial attempts to use synthetic biology and genomics, LVC organizes seed exchanges and campaigns to safeguard traditional community-based systems of biodiversity management. Here again, the struggle for seed rights is rooted in the RtD, in the right of peasants to design and implement their own seed development models based on their traditional and Indigenous practices.

The neoliberal globalization against the rights of peasants

International financial and trade institutions are the main forces behind violations against peasantry and the dismantling of peasant based food systems. The triptych composed of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) prevents governments—especially those of the Global South—from implementing essential public policies in favor of rural populations through coercive mechanisms and conditions. These neoliberal actors forced a reduction in the role of the state in the provision of public services, while increasing the role of the private sector (through privatization).

"These neoliberal actors forced a reduction in the role of the state in the provision of public services, while increasing the role of the private sector."

In this regard, it is important to recall that the integration of agriculture into the global free-trade regime through the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (1994) was a devastating turning point. This policy transformed food into a mere commodity and systematically deregulated the agricultural sector, dismantling market regulation tools such as minimum intervention prices and public reserves. The consequences have been systemic: falling agricultural prices, destruction of local peasant markets, loss of autonomy over seeds, and the expulsion of millions of peasants from their territories in favor of large landholders.

The tragic act of South Korean peasant Lee Kyung Hae, who took his life in Cancún in 2003 while wearing a banner that stated “WTO Kills Farmers,” remains emblematic of the violence of this neoliberal and neocolonial-imperialist system.

However, the neoliberal trade regime is not only the WTO, but it is also characterized by the spread of free trade and investment agreements at both regional, mulitilateral and bilateral level. In addition, today we are also facing Trump’s trade policies, which force countries to open market fully, but not vice-versa.

The Struggle for an Alternative Trade Framework

In response to the damage caused by the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, LVC launched a process to urgently claim for the creation of a new international trade framework grounded in food sovereignty. This new framework must be based on solidarity, international cooperation, and social justice. Its main purpose is to redefine the function of trade—from a tool that maximizes the profits of large transnational corporations to one that guarantees human rights and food sovereignty.

By asserting that agricultural and food trade must comply with human rights—and that the right to food is a fundamental human right, not a commodity—LVC advocates for a new trade framework that protects peasants’ rights and legitimizes States’ measures such as market protections against dumping and guaranteed support prices for producers.

"La Via Campesina advocates for a new trade framework that protects peasants’ rights and legitimizes States’ measures such as market protections against dumping and guaranteed support prices for producers."

To this end, LVC identifies the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as the legitimate forum to build this renewed multilateral consensus, considering it a counterweight capable of realigning global trade norms with human rights.

Conclusion

Development, as conceptualized by La Vía Campesina, is an integrated and radical response to the systemic failures of the neoliberal model. It is defined by the achievement of dignity, social justice, and ecological sustainability for rural populations.

We will continue to fight for our rights by all means at our disposal, but above all through the popular mobilization of our masses. We will continue to consolidate advocacy through international legal instruments, such as UNDROP, to demand the implementation of redistributive and regulatory public policies that can realize our right to development, namely our right to define our own rural and agricultural development systems and models, in light of the food sovereignty paradigm.

By emphasizing autonomy and peasant knowledge, and by placing rural women and youth at the center of struggle, LVC proposes a pathway that prioritizes the protection of ecosystems and communities over capital accumulation, reaffirming its commitment to systemic transformation of the global economic, trade, financial, and social order.

1 https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/54/50

2. https://nyeleni.org/en/homepage/

La entrada The Right to Development: A Leverage for Food Sovereignty and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Held in the context of the UN Working Group’s latest report, which focuses specifically on rural peoples’ right to participation, the discussion explored how this right—far from being a procedural formality—constitutes a cornerstone of democratic governance and a central pillar of rural peoples’ civil and political rights. The webinar created a space for exchange between grassroots actors and international human rights mechanisms, strengthening bridges between local struggles and global advocacy.

The webinar placed the findings of the UN Working Group’s report at the centre of the discussion, examining:

• The democratic and political significance of participation under UNDROP
• Barriers that prevent rural communities from influencing public decision-making
• The Working Group’s recommendations to States
• Practical strategies and good practices that enhance meaningful participation
• The role of collective advocacy and solidarity in advancing implementation

Panellists:

• Carlos Duarte, Current Chair of the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas
• Loupa Pius, World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous People (WAMIP)
• Modesta Arevalos Ortiz, International Federation of Rural Adult Catholic Movements (FIMARC)
• Jones Spartegus, World Forum of Fisher People (WFFP)
• Norah Mlondobozi, Rural Women Assembly (RWA)
• Saúl Vicente, Unidad de la Fuerza Indígena y Campesina (UFIC – Mexico)
• Paula Gioia, La Via Campesina (LVC)

Through their interventions, the panellists shared regional experiences, community perspectives, and movement strategies for strengthening participation at local, national and international levels.

We invite you to watch the recording and engage with this important dialogue as part of the broader collective effort to ensure that those who feed the world and protect its ecosystems are fully included in shaping the policies and decisions that determine their future.

Webinar held on 10 December 2025.

La entrada Video of our Webinar | Nothing About Us Without Us – Realising the Right to Participation of Rural Peoples and Workers through UNDROP se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Paris, Geneva, January 15, 2026 – The Confédération paysanne and CETIM filed today an official complaint with several Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council, following the arrest and detention of 52 peasants, members of the Confédération paysanne, during a protest in Paris yesterday, January 14, 2026.

During this mobilization, approximately 150 peasants went to the Ministry of Agriculture in Paris. The action was peaceful: the demonstrators entered on foot the hall of the Directorate General for Economic and Environmental Performance of Enterprises (DGPE), displayed banners, and occupied the premises to make their demands heard.

The demonstration was organized to urge the authorities to address the management of the contagious nodular dermatitis (CND) crisis, the threats linked to the EU-Mercosur agreement, and, more broadly, to denounce agricultural policies that are structurally unfavorable to peasants and family farmers. Despite the absence of violence, law enforcement carried out a large-scale encirclement and arrests, targeting in particular national and international union leaders.

The report submitted to the United Nations documents serious violations of fundamental freedoms, in particular the freedoms of association and peaceful assembly, freedom of opinion and expression, trade union rights, as well as the specific rights of peasants as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).

Through this appeal, the Confédération paysanne and CETIM are calling on UN mechanisms to urgently intervene with the competent authorities to ensure that France respects its international obligations, ends the criminalization of peasants’ mobilizations, and guarantees the effective exercise of peasants’ rights.

Read also the press release from the Confédération paysanne:
https://www.confederationpaysanne.fr/actu.php?id=16339

Contacts :
Confédération paysanne – Emilie Deligny, Secretary general,+33 6 36 58 17 26, edeligny@confederationpaysanne.fr

CETIM – Raffaele Morgantini, Representative of CETIM to the UN in Geneva+41 79 660 65 14, raffaele@cetim.ch

La entrada 52 peasants arrested in France: Confédération paysanne and CETIM appeal to UN Mechanisms se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

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.

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.

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Geneva, 10 November 2025

Peasants and Rural Workers Rights at the Heart of Climate Justice
As world leaders and civil society gather for the 30th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30), the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas¹ calls for a clear change in global climate policy. Peasants, Indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, pastoralists and rural workers must no longer be seen only as victims of the climate crisis but as essential leaders in restoring ecosystems, feeding communities, and building social and economic justice.

Around 2 billion peasants, Indigenous peoples and producers grow more than 70 percent of the food eaten in low- and middle-income countries. They also protect much of the world’s biodiversity, keep traditional seeds and breeds alive, and maintain ecosystems and landscapes that sustain rural life and economies. Yet they receive less than one percent of global climate finance and are often excluded from key decisions about the future of food and climate. This imbalance must end.

1. Align Climate Action with Human Rights
The Paris Agreement and human rights aim to achieve the same goals. Governments cannot achieve real climate progress while ignoring their duty to protect the rights of those who feed the world.

States should include principles contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP)—especially the rights to land, seeds, water, biodiversity, and participation—in their national climate plans and adaptation strategies. Climate policies that overlook these rights risk increasing poverty, displacement, and hunger.

2. Direct Climate Finance to Peasant-Led Solutions
Most climate finance still supports large agribusinesses, export-oriented projects and market mechanisms that enable the causes and drivers of climate change, instead of supporting the capacities of those at the frontlines of impacts and innovative actions to tackle climate change. The Working Group calls for special funding channels within climate funds to directly support UNDROP’s rightsholders, including peasants, small-scale farmers, pastoralists, fishers, rural workers, Indigenous Peoples and rural women. These funds should provide grants, not loans, with simple rules and community-based oversight so that money reaches those who need it directly and in a timely fashion.

Special care must be taken not to doubly penalize the Global South by forcing States to take loans to cope with harms resulting from climate change that was predominantly driven by emissions from wealthy States. Financing for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage should be seen as a form of reparations by those who have benefited from the extractive operations that drive the climate crisis.

Investments should focus on agroecology, diverse farming, fishing and herding systems, soil, water and biodiversity regeneration, and other local methods that cut emissions and protect nature. Rural women peasants—who carry much of the work and responsibility for food security—need targeted support and recognition.

3. Share Technology Fairly and Respect Knowledge
For adaptation to be effective, technology must serve communities, not control them. Governments must uphold their UNDROP commitments by facilitating international cooperation leading to the sharing of science and technology, along with building local capacity.

States and organizations should promote open-source and community-owned tools. The right to save, share, and develop traditional seeds and breeds is central to food sovereignty and climate resilience. States should ensure that patent and trade laws do not criminalize traditional seed exchange nor encourage biopiracy. Indigenous and peasant knowledge, developed through generations, should be treated as a core part of climate innovation.

4. Protect Land, Water, and Biodiversity
Climate goals cannot be met while land grabbing, deforestation, destruction of riverine and marine ecosystems, and monoculture expansion continue. The Working Group urges secure land, resource and territory rights, comprehensive land and agrarian reform, and collective ownership and governance models that sustain both people and nature.

The market capture of life-sustaining natural landscapes and components through green and blue economies must be avoided and publicly called out when seen.

Governments must ensure that carbon-credit and conservation projects do not negatively affect rightsholders’ rights to land, seeds, or productive autonomy, nor affect their livelihoods. All projects must involve the participation of local rightsholders, and benefits must be shared with them.

5. Ensure a Just Transition for Rural People
The shift to sustainable food systems must protect the livelihoods of peasants and rural workers. All climate investments—public or private—must respect human rights obligations to prevent land, territory and biodiversity loss, labour abuse, and environmental harm.

Agribusinesses benefiting from climate funds must show compliance with international human rights obligations, particularly those in UNDROP. Peasants and other rightsholders, and their organisations, should have a real voice in national delegations and UNFCCC bodies that shape agricultural and adaptation policies.

6. The Way Forward
COP30 offers a rare chance to connect human-rights law and climate policy. The Working Group calls on States to:

1. Ensure that all funds, mechanisms, proposals and solutions respect the individual and collective human rights of rightsholders as defined in UNDROP and other international human rights instruments.
2. Reform all international and national climate and adaptation funds and facilities² to allow direct access for UNDROP rightsholders, including peasants, farmers, fisherfolk, herders, Indigenous peoples, workers and rural women.
3. Support rights-based technology cooperation, ensuring solutions emerge from prior consultations, informed consent and meaningful participation by rightsholders.
4. Increase engagement among governments, peasant, fisherfolk and pastoralist movements, women’s groups, rural workers’ organisations, and Indigenous peoples to plan just transitions, informed by the rights in UNDROP.

“The climate crisis is inseparable from the crisis of rural injustice,” said the Working Group’s Chair. “Peasants and rural workers feed the world and cool the planet. Recognising and protecting their rights is not charity—it is the foundation of an effective, responsible and just response to climate change.”

ENDS

The experts:
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), and the Vice-Chairs are Davit Hakobyan (Armenia) and Uche Ofodile (Nigeria); other
members are Shalmali Guttal (India), Geneviève Savigny (France).

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/

For inquiries and media requests:
hrc-wg-peasants@un.org
Media: Maya Derouaz (maya.derouaz@un.org), Dharisha Indraguptha (dharisha.indraguptha@un.org)

Follow: @UN_SPExperts

1. La UNDROP y el Grupo de Trabajo se aplican a una gama muy amplia de personas, incluidas las
   personas dedicadas a la agricultura artesanal o en pequeña escala, la plantación de cultivos, la ganadería, el pastoreo, la pesca, la silvicultura, la caza o la recolección, y la artesanía relacionada con la agricultura o una ocupación relacionada en una zona rural, junto con los pueblos indígenas, los pueblos nómadas y los migrantes, como se explica con más detalle en su artículo 1. ︎
2. Incluyendo el Fondo Verde para el Clima de la CMNUCC, el Fondo de Adaptación del Protocolo de Kioto, los Servicios para el Medio Ambiente Mundial, los Fondos de Inversión Climática administrados por el Banco Mundial y los fondos nacionales de adaptación, entre otros. ︎

La entrada Statement of the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas on the Occasion of COP30, Belem, Brazil se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Editor’s note:

The experts’ visit, initially planned for November 4–14, 2025, was postponed despite its critical timing, following recent protests in Ecuador that were met with a state of emergency and a crackdown in which Indigenous, rural and environmental organisations—amongst key representatives of UNDROP rights-holders— were accused of “terrorism” and had their bank accounts frozen. These demonstrations raised urgent alarms about pressing issues directly linked to the UNDROP, such as rights to land, water, and a healthy environment, which were threatened by the termination of fuel subsidies and the advancement of mining projects on Indigenous lands.

In this context, the experts explained that a visit would have provided a vital opportunity to work with the Government to find human rights–based responses to these concerns.

They emphasised that Ecuador has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). The experts further highlighted that this declaration offers a clear framework for tackling deep-rooted inequalities faced by rural communities and can help shape public policies that promote food sovereignty, environmental preservation, and social justice.

Read full statement:

05 November 2025

GENEVA – A group of human rights experts* today announced that their visit to Ecuador, due to take place from 4 to 14 November 2025, has been cancelled after the Government requested to reschedule it for the second half of 2026.

“The recent protests across the country reflect deep-rooted concerns about land and water rights, environmental degradation, and relate to increased cost of living and growing insecurity and violence,” said the UN Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas.

“A country visit at this moment would have allowed us to work collaboratively with the Government to identify human rights solutions to these pressing issues.”

The experts noted that the visit would have been a timely and valuable opportunity for constructive engagement with the Government and communities on advancing the rights of peasants and rural workers in Ecuador.

“The country visit would have provided an important platform to identify human rights-based approaches to the pressing challenges currently faced by peasant and Indigenous communities in Ecuador,” the Working Group said. “In light of the recent protests and the government’s response to them, this dialogue would have been particularly relevant to discuss ways to address underlying grievances and strengthen trust between communities and institutions.”

The experts reiterated that Ecuador’s progressive recognition of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) offers a concrete and principled roadmap for addressing the structural inequalities and injustices affecting peasant communities, Indigenous Peoples, small scale fishers and rural workers.

“We remain convinced that implementing UNDROP can help guide policies to ensure food sovereignty, environmental protection, and social justice,” the Working Group said, expressing readiness to support and cooperate with Ecuadorian authorities in the promotion of the rights of peasants and rural workers in the country.

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).

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 – https://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/ecuador

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 Ecuador postpones visit by UN Working Group on peasants’ rights se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Calling for concrete actions for an effective realisation of rural peoples’ right to participation, the report examines the central role of peasants and rural workers in global food systems and stresses the importance of their meaningful participation in decision-making processes. It further outlines how securing peasants’ legal rights – including participation – is essential to advancing social justice, promoting environmental stewardship, and achieving sustainable development.

Read the full report:

Read also the statement delivered by the current Chair of the Working Group, Carlos Duarte, to the UN General Assembly when presenting this report:
 

La entrada The right to participation – The 3rd Report of the UN Working Group on UNDROP se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Among other things, the event aimed to highlight the multiple challenges currently facing rural communities around the world. It also sought to explore how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) could influence legal and policy frameworks to better protect these communities, strengthen their rights and promote social justice. Finally, the event highlighted the mobilisation of peasant movements and rural organisations across Latin America, which are working at all levels to promote and implement the UNDROP.

As moderator, Sibylle Dirren, FIAN International’s representative to the UN, emphasised the crucial role of UNDROP as a powerful tool for defending and promoting the rights of rural communities.

Carlos Duarte, Chair of the UN Working Group of Experts on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, recalled the critical situation of rural communities, which face dispossession, lack of access to land and water, and the grabbing of natural resources. He lamented the difficulties faced by rural organisations in making their voices heard in international forums, such as the COP or the Global Biodiversity Convention, even though peasant and other rural communities are directly concerned by biodiversity protection and climate issues. Mr. Duarte also pointed to the persecution and repression suffered by peasant leaders in many parts of the world. Finally, he stressed the need to strengthen the participation of rural women, who are often invisible despite being “the backbone of the peasant-rural world”.

Alfonzo Simon Raylan, representative of the Sea Workers’ Union (SITRAMAR), a member organisation of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, sounded the alarm on the situation of fishers in the indigenous region of Ngöbe-Buglé (Panama). Since 2010, under the pretext of environmental conservation, a fishing ban has deprived these communities of their main source of livelihood, exacerbating poverty and hunger. The populations live in difficult conditions, with limited access to education, healthcare and basic services. Mr. Raylan denounced the lack of state support and the violent repression suffered by indigenous peoples when they defend their rights.

Three representatives of La Via Campesina from Latin America shared their experiences via video message. Martha Huertas Moya, a member of FENACOA/La Via Campesina Colombia, gave an encouraging assessment of the situation of Colombia’s long-marginalised peasantry. The recognition of peasants’ rights in the country’s constitution and public policies has led to better land distribution and the guarantee of rights that were previously inaccessible. However, she stressed the need to create an agrarian and rural jurisdiction and to increase the budgets allocated to rural areas in order to consolidate these advances. Arturo Aliaga, member of ANAP/La Via Campesina Cuba, highlighted concrete advances in peasants’ rights, food sovereignty and agroecology in the country. The peasant representative stated that, thanks to the strong political will of the competent authorities and ANAP’s ability to participate directly in the development of public policies and the establishment of relevant legislative frameworks, the promotion and implementation of UNDROP is now a reality. Anderson Amaro, representative of MPA/La Via Campesina Brazil, presented how Brazilian rural social movements are mobilising the UNDROP in their struggle for decent living and working conditions. More specifically, the peasant leader discussed the ongoing advocacy strategy, which aims to integrate the Declaration into the work of actors in the national judicial system, relevant ministries, and the national and departmental parliamentary agenda.

Adriana Fillol Mazo, Professor at the University of Seville and the Geneva Academy, presented UNDROP as a concrete legal tool for protecting rural communities. However, she noted the existence of several threats, such as digitalisation and agricultural technologies that can increase dependence and exclusion. The lack of generational renewal also jeopardises the future of small-scale farming. Rural women also face significant obstacles in accessing land and a dignified life. Added to this are economic pressure, violence and climate uncertainty, which are causing a silent mental health crisis in rural areas. She concluded by calling for peasants, fishers and indigenous peoples to be seen not as problems to be managed, but as essential strategic partners in building fair, resilient and sustainable food systems.

Raffaele Morgantini, CETIM representative to the UN, closed the event on a hopeful note for rural communities, thanks to the emergence of progressive case law. Indeed, decisions favourable to rural peoples’ rights are appearing in several judicial systems. In Honduras, the Supreme Court invoked UNDROP to protect peasant seeds from the “Monsanto law”, a law passed by Parliament that favoured industrial seeds and was subsequently repealed. In Colombia, the Constitutional Court granted protection to a peasant couple forced to abandon their land after repeated flooding. In February 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a ruling ordering the reinstatement of an indigenous population on their ancestral land, using both UNDROP and UNDRIP (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). Other examples exist in Kenya and Canada, covering rights related to seeds and health. Mr. Morgantini stressed that these advances would not have been possible without strong alliances between peasant and rural movements, human rights defenders, lawyers, academics and the commitment of public authorities. These collaborations make it possible to transform principles into concrete actions in rural communities, courts and national policies.

Read our exclusive interview with Working Group Chair Carlos Duarte and our article on the Working Group’s report presented at the 60^th session of the Human Rights Council.

La entrada Side event at the UN: Challenges and best practices in promoting the rights of peasants and rural workers in Latin America se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.