Human Rights Council
Sixty-third session
7 September–9 October 2026
Right to seeds: custodianship, enclosure and resistance
Report of the Working Group on the rights of peasants and other
people working in rural areas
A. Human rights framework
- International human rights law recognizes seeds as integral to the rights to food, health, culture, a healthy environment and self‑determination. Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the right to food requires States to ensure access to productive resources, including land, water and seeds, and refrain from regressive measures that undermine access, including privatization or restrictions on essential food resources. 17 Farmers’ traditional seed knowledge is protected as cultural expression, safeguarding against biopiracy.
States must ensure that rural women have access to agricultural inputs and resources, including seeds, on equal terms with men, including through land reform and appropriate technology.
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The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas consolidates these provisions in article 19, which recognizes peasants’ individual and collective right to develop, control, protect, save, exchange, use and sell their own and farm-saved seeds and to participate in decision-making on plant genetic resources. Article 19 (4) and (5) requires States to ensure that intellectual property rules do not prevent the exercise of peasants’ right to seeds, while article 19 (8) holds that seed policies, plant variety protection and other intellectual property laws and seed marketing rules “respect and take into account” peasants’ rights, needs and realities.
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The principles of equality and non-discrimination apply to the design and implementation of seed-related legislation and policy, ensuring that women peasants and economically marginalized smallholder farmers and pastoralists do not suffer disproportionate adverse impacts. Women farmers’ right to seeds is fundamental, and States have an obligation to respect and protect their right to “preserve, use and exchange traditional and native seeds” and “prevent patenting by national and transnational companies to the extent that it threatens the rights of rural women”.
V. Compounding threats to traditional seed systems
- Peasants face overlapping impacts and challenges that obstruct the enjoyment of their
human rights and threaten the future of traditional seed systems
A. Criminalization
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Intellectual property rights, plant variety protection certification regimes, and legal and regulatory frameworks that favour commercial breeders, combined with aggressive industry-led enforcement and technological surveillance, are increasingly criminalizing traditional seed practices with penalties including heavy fines and imprisonment.
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The plant breeding industry is pushing for stronger laws and aggressive criminal enforcement to protect commercial breeders’ economic interests. Even in countries that are not Parties to the 1991 Act of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, patent and intellectual property rights infringements formerly treated as civil disputes are being reclassified as crimes against industrial property. Specialized bodies such as the Anti-Infringement Bureau for Intellectual Property Rights on Plant Material, Gestión de Licencias Vegetales (GESLIVE) and the Farmers Yield Initiative have emerged to support the monitoring and enforcement of seed-related intellectual property rights, often in close cooperation with industry networks and public enforcement authorities
- Advanced technological tools, molecular markers, drones and satellite imagery are used to monitor crops and detect “unauthorized” use of protected seed. Companies are increasingly using digital sequence information to patent traits derived from traditional seeds, heightening peasants’ exposure to risks of biopiracy and infringement charges.52 However, protections for peasant communities and their traditional seed systems remain weak and inconsistent.
- In Tunisia, farmers can face prosecution for traditional seed exchange.54 The 2020 Plant Variety Protection Act of Ghana prescribes fines or 10 to 15 years’ imprisonment for unauthorized sale of a protected variety.55 In Japan, up to 10 years’ imprisonment and hefty fines are imposed for breeders’ rights infringement, while the Philippines provides for heavy fines and three to six years’ imprisonment.56 In Indonesia, seed-related laws have in some cases led to prosecution of small-scale farmers for breeding and exchanging seeds outside formal certification systems. In a high-profile Italian case, a tomato producer received a suspended one-year prison sentence and was ordered to pay approximately 100,000 euros in fines and in compensation to be split between the Anti-Infringement Bureau for Intellectual Property Rights on Plant Material and Syngenta.
E. Climate change, genetic erosion and biotechnology risks
- Traditional seed systems are essential for biodiversity and climate resilience. Territorial degradation and conversion erode the ecological conditions required for local seed reproduction and for the continuing health of biodiversity. The biological viability of traditional seeds is affected by extreme heat and unpredictable rainfall, sometimes causing seed non-viability or affecting pollination.
- The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost since 1900, as farmers worldwide have shifted from diverse landraces to genetically uniform modern varieties. Privileging uniform commercial varieties and restricting traditional seed systems has contributed to genetic erosion. Of the 6,000 plant species cultivated for agriculture, just nine crops – sugarcane, maize, rice, wheat, potatoes, soybeans, oil palm fruit, sugar beet and cassava – have accounted for over 60% of global crop production in recent years. Given that over 80% of the world’s food comes from plants, protecting and sustainably using plant genetic resources for food and agriculture is a cornerstone of agrifood system transformation.
- Genetic erosion has serious implications, including reduced resilience to climate change, pests and diseases; loss of valuable genetic traits needed for future breeding; erosion of associated traditional knowledge; increased vulnerability of food systems to systemic shocks; and cultural erasure for communities whose identities are tied to specific crop varieties. Community seed storage and in situ participatory plant breeding are often considered practical responses that can strengthen resilience against climatic and ecological instability.
F. Biopiracy in the age of digital sequence information
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Equally concerning are the control and ownership of gene-editing tools and gene-edited varieties, as well as their implications for public breeding. For peasants, gene editing exacerbates threats of increased corporate control over plant genetic resources for food and agriculture through patents on editing technologies and edited varieties, potentially further restricting access to seeds.
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Genetic data derived from peasant seeds can be uploaded to online databases and used commercially without effective detection, consent or benefit-sharing. As sequencing becomes cheaper and databases more comprehensive, traditional varieties become more vulnerable to misappropriation. Patent claims on gene sequences and traits risk extending exclusive rights over all biological material expressing those sequences, affecting traditional seeds that contain patented material. In 2005, Syngenta filed 15 global patent applications on rice genome sequences and claimed monopoly control over sequences reportedly present in many peasant and Indigenous varieties of rice, wheat, tomatoes, tobacco and peanuts.
https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/63/26
g2610362.pdf (383.8 KB)
