Keeping seeds in peoples’ hands
This report (PDF) by the Global Network For The Right To Food And Nutrition concludes that transnational corporations are monopolizing control over seeds with dire consequences for human rights and biodiversity. Increasingly, seed and agrochemical businesses seek to privatize, monopolize and control seeds by patenting and commodifying this very source of life. Meanwhile, peasant and indigenous communities, who have been the developers and guardians of seeds for millennia, are finding their rights to save, use, exchange and sell seeds overshadowed by a corporate agenda that prioritizes profit over human rights and the sustainable maintenance of nature. Seeds and agricultural biodiversity have been at the heart of social movements’ struggles for decades. The authors state that despite the manifold interlinkages, efforts towards the realization of the human right to adequate food and nutrition have thus far paid insufficient attention to these social movements. The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2016-“Keeping Seeds in Peoples’ Hands”-explores ways to close this gap and promote a stronger agenda to advance these interconnected struggles. It discusses how peasant movements, indigenous peoples, and other local communities around the world are resisting the privatization and commoditization of nature and presenting alternatives.