Page 36 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 24

Food health
Food Health

STOP UPOV

Stop The Privatisation Of Peasant Seeds

by Several groups | 11 Dec 2023. grain.org

https://grain.org/en/article/7079-a-call-for-civil-disobedience-against-the-privatisation-of-peasant-seeds

or thousands of years, People’s freedom to work with seed certification schemes, variety
communities have nurtured seeds hinges on the responsibility registers and marketing laws.
Fand taken care of the crops of communities who defend and Whatever the form, it is about
and seeds that sustain us. Seeds maintain them, who care for them legalising abuse, dispossession
are part of human history, work and enjoy the goods they provide. and devastation.
and knowledge systems, and our And this freedom is under threat.
relationship with them is a never- Today’s attack on seeds aims
ending conversation of care. This Today there is a strong assault to put an end to peasant and
mutual nurturing has given rise on people’s seeds. It comes from Indigenous agriculture, an
to specific ways of cultivating, the drive to regulate, standardise end to independent food
sharing, feeding and healing that and privatise seeds to expand production. Where peasant
are linked to community norms, markets for corporations. This food sovereignty prevails, it is
responsibilities, obligations and is done through plant breeders’ difficult to turn us into cheap
rights. rights and patent laws, as well as and dependent labour, people

36 | we tell the true afrikan story