🚨 Global Farmers Unite Against UN’s Proposed Seed Treaty Reforms
A powerful global coalition of farmer groups and civil society organizations has raised serious concerns about proposed reforms to the United Nations’ International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture — widely known as the UN Seed Treaty or Plant Treaty.
The coalition warns that these reforms could erode farmers’ rights, compromise national sovereignty over seeds, and benefit multinational seed corporations at the expense of small farmers and biodiversity.
📜 The Controversy: Reforms That Favor Corporations Over Farmers
On September 12, 2025, Bharat Beej Swaraj Manch, a national farmers’ alliance in India, joined forces with over 280 global organizations and hundreds of individuals to send an open letter to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu and Treaty Secretary Kent Nnadozie.
The letter criticizes the Draft Package of Measures currently under negotiation, warning that it would make the treaty’s Multilateral System (MLS) more attractive to seed multinationals while sidelining the very farmers who sustain agricultural diversity.
“The reforms threaten farmers’ rights and national sovereignty while prioritizing corporate access to traditional seed resources,” the coalition stated.
🌍 Farmers Say Reforms Threaten Seed Sovereignty
This is not the first time such concerns have been raised.
Earlier in May 2025, civil society organizations flagged that expanding the MLS could give global corporations unrestricted access to traditional seed varieties and their genetic data — with little to no safeguards.
By July 2025, over 100 groups of farmers, seed savers, scientists, and environmental advocates echoed these warnings. A separate group of scientists even wrote to India’s Agriculture Minister, cautioning that expanding the treaty’s Annex I could endanger the nation’s seed sovereignty.
These warnings come ahead of the 11th Governing Body Session of the Treaty, scheduled in Lima, Peru (November 24–29, 2025), where the proposed reforms will be formally debated.
🤝 A Global Call for Transparency and Equity
The appeal has received global support from farmer organizations across Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Oceania — including the African Centre for Biodiversity (South Africa), Asociación Nacional de Productores Ecológicos del Perú (Peru), Annadana Soil & Seed Savers Network (India), and Third World Network (Malaysia).
The coalition highlighted a lack of transparency in the current Multilateral System (MLS), noting that while over 7 million seed samples have been accessed by more than 28,000 users worldwide, very few benefits have returned to the provider countries or farmers.
Meanwhile, seed companies have claimed intellectual property rights (IPR) on new plant varieties derived from shared genetic resources — often escaping detection.
🌾 Farmers Demand Stronger Protections and Accountability
The proposed reforms would expand the MLS from 64 crops to include all plant genetic resources, effectively giving corporations greater access to national seed banks. However, benefit-sharing mechanisms remain weak, leaving farmers exposed to exploitation.
Farmers insist that the new reforms must:
- Protect farmers’ rights to save, use, exchange, and sell seeds.
- Include strong safeguards against biopiracy and fraudulent patenting.
- Ensure corporate transparency — with public records of who accesses seeds and for what purpose.
- Strengthen digital safeguards to prevent misuse of genetic sequence data.
“Proposals focus on making the MLS more attractive to corporations while ignoring farmers’ demands,” the letter warns.
🌱 What Farmers Want: A Fair, Transparent, and Sovereign Seed System
The coalition urges the FAO and Treaty Secretariat to pause the reforms and initiate new consultations that truly represent the interests of farmers and indigenous communities.
Their demands include:
- Transparency in seed access and usage
- Global consultations with farmers before adopting reforms
- Alignment with the Convention on Biological Diversity to ensure fair benefit-sharing
- Protection from digital biopiracy and misuse of genetic data
Farmers argue that true agricultural innovation can only thrive when seed sovereignty and biodiversity are respected — not when global corporations dominate access to genetic resources.
🌾 Final Thoughts: Protecting the Future of Seeds and Farmers’ Rights
As the world prepares for the upcoming UN Seed Treaty session in Lima, global farmer alliances are making one message clear:
Without strong protections for farmers, the proposed reforms could widen inequality, undermine biodiversity, and turn public resources into private profit.
The outcome of these negotiations could determine the future of global agriculture, where the balance between innovation, equity, and sovereignty must be carefully preserved.
Source: downtoearth.org.in
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