Inputs for the Working Group on Peasants’ Report to the Human Rights Council on the ‘Right to Seeds’

by Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)

Right to Seeds - Report Inputs by APWLD

These inputs will inform the Working Group’s thematic report on the right to seeds. The thematic report will then be presented to the Human Rights Council in October 2026.

Introduction

In Asia and the Pacific, the majority of farmers and food producers are small-scale or family farmers with an average landholding of only one hectare. Their agricultural systems rely on the careful stewardship of the natural and biological resources around them and generations of traditional knowledge. For these communities, seeds are not merely agricultural inputs but the foundation of food sovereignty, culture and collective identity. 

Drawing from APWLD’s work with peasant and Indigenous women throughout the region, this submission highlights the lived realities of community seed systems, the legal and trade frameworks shaping them, and the gendered impacts of seed privatisation. 

Seeds in Context: Significance and Practice

Seeds are foundational to rural livelihoods and ecological resilience. Local and traditional seed varieties equip farmers to adapt to volatile environmental conditions. For instance, diverse rice varieties are cultivated in the region to withstand flooding, salinity, pests and diseases. Farmers frequently grow multiple varieties simultaneously as a form of ecological insurance: if one fails, others may survive. This constitutes a living system of climate adaptation through centuries of farmer-led innovation.

Women play a central role in sustaining these systems. In Bangladesh, Thailand and the Philippines, rural and Indigenous women are seed keepers, seed savers and knowledge holders, yet their labour and expertise are often invisible in policy and decision-making processes. 

Traditionally, seed production, reproduction and distribution operated collectively within communities. Up to 80 per cent of seeds used in Asia still come from farmers who save seeds from previous harvests. Seed exchange among neighbours and communities is governed by customary norms and collective rights. 

The expansion of industrial agriculture profoundly disrupted these relationships. The Green Revolution introduced high-yielding varieties packaged with synthetic fertilisers, credit schemes and mechanisation. Seeds became commodified, increasingly controlled by corporations through intellectual property regimes and regulatory standards. Authority shifted from communities to corporations and state-aligned institutions, marginalising women and undermining collective seed governance.

National and International Frameworks

Although the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) provides a normative framework affirming farmers’ right to seeds, national implementation remains limited. Many seed laws in Asia were shaped by Green Revolution priorities and favour formal, commercial seed systems over informal peasant systems. 

This was apparent in national agricultural programmes such as Masagana 99 in the Philippines and subsequently, the national seed laws. India’s Seed Act (1966) and Thailand’s Seed Division similarly prioritised institutionalising certification and uniform standards for seeds. In Bangladesh, farmers critiqued the National Seed Policy for favouring private sector interests while imposing stricter restrictions on public sector varieties, and failing to protect farmers from losses caused by poor-quality hybrid seeds. 

Plant Variety Protection (PVP), on the other hand, presents a concerning development. Under the International Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties (UPOV) 1991, breeders are granted 15 to 30 year monopolies over plant varieties deemed new, distinct, uniform and stable. Farmers – who historically bred, developed and conserved seeds – are prohibited from saving, reusing, exchanging or selling PVP-protected varieties without authorisation, subject to narrow and often costly exceptions. Such regimes privatise the commons and criminalise customary practices, compelling farmers to purchase hybrid seeds each planting season, driving corporate dependency despite repeatedly demonstrating failure.

Malaysia’s Protection of New Plant Varieties Act 2004 attempts to balance farmers’ interests, aligning with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and UNDROP. However, potential accession to UPOV 1991 risks undermining their rights and rendering small farmers more vulnerable.

Trade agreements further constrain national autonomy. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP) and bilateral agreements exert pressure on governments to adopt UPOV-compliant regimes. Seed law reform is frequently driven by global trade and intellectual property agendas, shrinking policy space and subordinating farmers’ rights to commercial interests. While the ITPGRFA recognises farmers’ rights, its operationalisation is left to national governments, resulting in inadequate protection. 

Challenges and Responses 

The right to seeds in Asia and the Pacific faces multiple and intersecting threats, including:

  • Expansion of intellectual property regimes restricting seed saving and exchange
  • Corporate concentration in seed markets
  • Trade agreements reducing national policy space
  • Shrinking landholdings limiting space for seed reproduction
  • Gender discrimination limiting women’s agency, access to land and decision-making 

The shift from subsistence-oriented, biodiverse farming systems toward profit-driven agribusiness gravely undermined women’s capacity to ensure household food security. The rise of cash crop farming – often reliant on hybrid seeds – reduces land available for food crops and diverts harvests to export markets, affecting access to nutrition and local food access. 

In contract farming arrangements, crops grown for multinational corporations become exclusive commercial property. Women agricultural workers are often trapped within systems that prioritise corporate profit over basic needs of farming families.

The loss of seeds sovereignty is particularly catastrophic to rural women. Industrial agriculture erases women’s agency while intensifying their labour and vulnerability to hunger and malnutrition – even within food-producing areas.

Land is inseparable from the rights to seeds. Yet most farmers in the region do not own the land they till. For women, lack of formal land rights is a persistent structural barrier. However, where women secure even small parcels of land, they maximise productivity through diversified, sustainable farming systems including in–situ conservation. Regular cultivation of diverse crops enables seeds to adapt to changing climate conditions. However, shrinking landholdings and industrial monoculture limits farmers’ capacity to allocate land for seed reproduction, making them increasingly dependent on commercial markets.

Women’s Struggles and Resistance

Despite these constraints, women across the region are resisting corporate capture of seeds and defending their collective rights. 

With at least 29 signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), South Korea’s agricultural liberalisation has intensified barriers for peasant women. Access to technological programmes favours large-scale producers, marginalising women farmers. As imported and hybrid seeds flood the market, native varieties relied upon by peasant women disappear, eroding biodiversity and seed sovereignty. Through the Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) supported by APWLD, grassroots initiatives are strengthening alternatives. Sister’s Garden in South Korea conserves and shares native bean varieties, sustaining collective seed systems.

In India, pressure to align national law with UPOV 1991 threatens farmers’ rights to save, exchange and replant seeds. Dalit women – already marginalised by caste discrimination – risk further exclusion and criminalisation of repressive seed laws. The Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED), an APWLD member, supports Dalit women in maintaining organic seedbanks, cultivating Indigenous crops and asserting their rights to land and productive resources. 

Peasant and Indigenous women are not passive victims but active defenders and innovators of alternative seed systems.

Recommendations

To uphold the right to seeds, APWLD urges the Working Group to recommend that States:

  1. Recognise and respect Indigenous peoples and local communities’ traditional knowledge systems, particularly those of Indigenous and peasant women. 
  2. Operationalise Article 19 of UNDROP in national legislation, guaranteeing peasants’ rights to save, use, exchange and sell their own seeds.
  3. Reject or reform existing policies that criminalise customary seed practices and prioritise corporations. 
  4. Conduct human rights impacts assessment of UPOV 1991 and related regimes that restrict farmers’ right to seeds.
  5. Enact just and equitable land distribution and secure women’s rights to own and control their own productive agricultural land. 
  6. Protect and support community-based seed banks and agroecological systems through public funding and policy support.
  7. Ensure support for sustainable livelihoods, local economies and community-based biodiversity, including seeds conservation in local and national legislations.
  8. Respect grassroots women’s human rights and capacity and ensure their meaningful participation in relevant consultations and decision-making spaces. 
  9. Reform trade policies that privilege multinational agribusinesses over small-scale, women-led farming systems. 

About APWLD

APWLD is a leading network of feminist organisations and individual activists in Asia and the Pacific with members representing groups of diverse women from 32 countries in the region. Over the past 40 years, APWLD has actively worked to advance women’s human rights and development justice. We are an independent, non-governmental, non-profit organisation and hold consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.