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TWN Info Service on Sustainable Agriculture
15 June 2023
Third World Network

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Using UNDROP to Better Protect African Peasants’ Right to Seeds

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) was adopted in 2018. UNDROP is of utmost relevance for Africa, where over half of the population is employed in agriculture, forestry and fishing. Peasant seed systems occupy a prominent place in African agriculture and are essential to ensure food security.

A recently published briefing focuses on the steps that the African Union (AU) and African states should take to better protect the right to seeds. Among its many recommendations, the key ones are for the AU and African states to recognize the intrinsic value of peasants’ seed systems and their right to use local seeds of their choice, to respect, protect and fulfil peasants’ right to seeds and to support peasant seed systems.

The recommendations also cover women and the right to seeds, the right to participation, phytosanitary and biosafety laws and policies, and international and regional cooperation. In particular, the briefing calls on the AU and African states to ensure that the bilateral, regional and multilateral trade and investment agreements to which they are party do not lead to violations of African peasants’ right to seeds, making special reference to UPOV 1991.

We reproduce below the Key Messages and Recommendations of the briefing.

With best wishes,
Third World Network

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THE RIGHT TO SEEDS IN AFRICA

THE UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF PEASANTS AND OTHER PEOPLE WORKING IN RURAL AREAS AND THE RIGHT TO SEEDS IN AFRICA

By Karine Peschard, Christophe Golay and Lulbahri Araya
Geneva Academy Briefing No. 22
https://www.geneva-academy.ch/joomlatools-files/docman-files/Briefing%2022_web.pdf?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=252814143&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_UPt5FvcwzyvYpsngGKaItriovgal25BYalfP1ZxbAL9bJyPegMvZYoKnLGgasvjeqSfse-kmQrmoGQyovsjsazP5_7w&utm_content=252814143&utm_source=hs_email
February 2023

KEY MESSAGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

KEY MESSAGES

For over 10,000 years, peasants have freely saved, selected, exchanged and sold seeds, as well as used and reused them to produce food. Today, these customary practices remain essential to peasants’ right to food, as well as to global food security and biodiversity. However, since the mid-1990s, the promotion of commercial seed systems and the strengthening of intellectual property (IP) over plant varieties and plant biotechnology at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) have seriously undermined these customary practices and, consequently, peasant seed systems and agrobiodiversity.

To respond to these challenges, among others, the United Nations (UN) adopted in 2018 the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). The UN Declaration enshrines peasants’ right to seeds in international human rights law. According to UNDROP, states shall, inter alia, “elaborate, interpret and apply relevant international agreements and standards to which they are party, in a manner consistent with their human rights obligations as they apply to peasants” (Article 2.4). States shall also “support peasant seed systems, and promote the use of peasant seeds and agrobiodiversity” (Article 19.6). And they shall “ensure that seed policies, plant variety protection and other IP laws, certification schemes and seed marketing laws respect and take into account the rights, needs and realities of peasants” (Article 19.8).

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 industrial 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 fight climate change.

In 2018, the great majority of African countries voted in favour of adopting UNDROP. Following these votes, and 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.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In accordance with UNDROP, and with the binding international treaties on which it is based, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Protocols, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (hereafter, the Plant Treaty):

  • The AU and African states shall recognize the intrinsic value of peasant seed systems and the central role they play in preserving agrobiodiversity, realizing food sovereignty and responding to the challenges of climate change.
  • The AU and African states shall recognize the rights of peasants to rely either on their own seeds or on other locally available seeds of their choice, and to decide on the crops and species that they wish to grow. They shall ensure that seeds of sufficient quality and quantity are available to peasants, at the most suitable time for planting, and at an affordable price.
  • The AU and African states shall respect, protect and fulfil peasants’ right to seeds, including their rights to the protection of traditional knowledge, and to equitably participate in the sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of seeds. They shall recognize peasants’ ancestral and innovative practices as traditional knowledge, and acknowledge their role in the conservation, sustainable use and dynamic management of crop diversity.
  • The AU and African states shall support peasant seed systems, promote the use of peasant seeds and agrobiodiversity, and guarantee the right of peasants to maintain, control, protect and develop their own seeds and traditional knowledge.
  • The AU and African states shall comprehensively review their normative frameworks so that peasants’ seed systems are allowed to fully operate and thrive as sustainably-managed production and conservation systems in their own rights. Meaningful consultations should be held with peasant communities with regard to the crafting of appropriate policy and regulatory systems that protect, recognise and support peasants’ seed systems and peasants’ right to seeds, and ensure that these play a central role in ensuring food sovereignty at the local and national levels.
  • The AU and African states shall establish mechanisms to ensure the coherence of their agricultural, biodiversity, economic, social, cultural and development policies with the realization of the right to seeds.

Women and the right to seeds

  • The AU and African states shall take appropriate measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against peasant women, to promote their empowerment and full participation, and to ensure that they enjoy the right to seeds without discrimination.

Right to participation

  • The AU and African states shall consult and cooperate in good faith with peasants, through their own representative institutions or bodies, before adopting and implementing international agreements that may affect their right to seeds.
  • The AU and African states shall ensure the full and meaningful participation of peasants in decision-making on matters relating to seeds. They shall also respect the establishment of independent and autonomous peasant organizations, addressing the existing imbalance of representation compared with more traditional civil society or industry actors. The AU and African states shall reject interest-driven and breeder-centric support in the form of capacity building and technical advice.
  • The AU and African states shall ensure that agricultural research and development integrates the needs of peasants, with their active participation. They shall invest more in research and development of neglected and underutilized crops, local varieties and seeds that respond to the needs of peasants, and they shall ensure peasants’ active participation in the definition of priorities and the undertaking of research and development. These varieties shall remain in the public domain and be made freely available to peasants. Seeds laws and policies, and intellectual property
  • The AU and African states shall ensure that peasants’ right to seeds, as a human right enshrined in UNDROP, prevails over private and commercial rights.
  • The AU and African states shall ensure that seed policies, plant variety protection and other intellectual property (IP) laws, seed marketing laws, and variety registration and certification schemes do not infringe on peasants’ right to seeds as enshrined in UNDROP.
  • The AU and African states shall conduct independent and participatory human rights impact assessments of public policies and laws related to seeds, including IP laws.
  • The AU and African states shall elaborate, interpret and apply international agreements and standards in a manner consistent with the right to seeds. This implies that they shall, inter alia, ensure that the negotiation, interpretation and implementation of WIPO, WTO and UPOV instruments, as well as any other international agreement governing IP, do not violate, but on the contrary facilitate the realization of the right to seeds, including peasants’ unrestricted and customary right to freely save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds.
  • African states that are among the least developed countries (LDCs) are exempted from implementing the TRIPS Agreement until 1 July 2034, and should therefore not be pressured into implementing Article 27.3b on plant-related patents and plant variety protection (PVP).
  • The AU and African states shall ensure that the bilateral, regional and multilateral trade and investment agreements to which they are party do not lead to violations of African peasants’ right to seeds.
  • The AU and African states shall not apply to become a party to the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention, nor shall they implement UPOV 1991 standards of plant variety protection. Instead, they shall defend their right to use the policy space available under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) to design sui generis systems of plant variety protection better suited to the agricultural and socioeconomic conditions prevailing in the region. To do so, they shall use the African Model Law and sui generis legislation developed by other countries as a baseline. In developing legislation, they shall keep in mind that IP is a policy tool and not an end in itself, and that a sui generis PVP regime must be supportive of human rights and relevant national policies on agricultural development, poverty eradication, rural development, food security, biodiversity and climate change.
  • African countries that have contracted onerous UPOV 1991 obligations shall consider revoking their ratification to the extent that they depart from UNDROP and other international human rights instruments.
  • The AU and African states shall address the impacts of plant-related patents on peasants’ capacity to access seeds and breeding material freely to develop varieties and populations adapted to their local conditions and social needs. Regional organizations and African states shall consider incorporating an exception in their domestic patent laws allowing peasants to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds and propagating material obtained from cultivating plants covered by patents. AU and African states shall take legislative measures to ensure that private contracts cannot override farmers’ right to seeds.
  • The AU and African states shall protect peasants against biopiracy. This requires obtaining prior and informed consent for the use of their genetic resources and traditional knowledge, and effective modalities for the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of such use, established on mutually agreed terms between peasants and those exploiting the natural resources.
  • The AU and African states shall ensure that infringement of IP is not liable to criminal sanctions, but only to civil remedies, and burden of proof must lie with the injured party. IP is private in nature, and losses incurred by eventual infringement can be compensated through monetary payments. PVP laws shall include provisions protecting peasants in cases of innocent infringement.

Phytosanitary and biosafety laws and policies

  • The AU and African states shall take all necessary measures to ensure that nonstate actors – such as private individuals and organizations, transnational corporations and other business enterprises – respect and strengthen the right to seeds. They shall prevent risks arising from the development, handling, transport, use, transfer or release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – both transgenic and genome edited – including by protecting peasants’ seed systems against the risks of GMO contamination.
  • The AU and African states shall consider the impact of unnecessary, onerous and costly plant health regulations on peasants’ right to seeds, while still ensuring human health and safety imperatives.

International and regional cooperation

  • The AU and African states shall promote the right to seeds at the UN and in the implementation of the CBD and its Protocols, the Plant Treaty, the Paris Agreement, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and UNDROP.

The AU and African states shall channel international development cooperation to support their efforts aimed at implementing the right to seeds. By doing so, they shall promote agrobiodiversity, support the strengthening of peasants’ seed systems and ensure peasants’ full participation in the transition toward sustainable, resilient and just agricultural and food systems.

 

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