{"id":371,"date":"2018-03-14T18:07:16","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T17:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/?page_id=371"},"modified":"2025-11-18T10:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T08:45:08","slug":"seed-freedom","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/es\/key-issues\/seed-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Seed Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campaign Website<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Seeds are the first link in the food chain and the repository of life\u2019s future evolution. As such, it is our inherent duty and responsibility to protect them and to pass them on to future generations. The growing of seed and the free exchange of seed among farmers has been the basis to maintaining biodiversity and our food security.<\/p>\n

Today, the threat is greater. We are witnessing a SEED EMERGENCY at a global level. The disappearance of our biodiversity and of our seed sovereignty is creating a major crisis for agriculture and food security around the world.<\/p>\n

\n
Highlight: New GMOs must not be deregulated<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n
\n

The current industrial food system based on monocultures, widespread use of agrochemicals,\u00a0 commercial\/patented seeds and genetically modified seeds is a major contributor of the disappearance of 75% of plant genetic diversity<\/a> in the last century. Of the orignal 10,000 species, barely more than 150<\/a> species are now under cultivation and the great majority of mankind is now living off no more than 12<\/a> plant species.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"The age old freedom of seed and freedom of farmers\u2028 to evolve, breed and save their seed is threatened by today\u2019s property rights and new technologies which have transformed seed from a commons shared by farmers to a commodity under the control and monopolies of giant agro-corporations.\u00a0 Seed laws, IPRs (intellectual property rights) and patents today criminalize age-old farmers\u2019 seed breeding, seed saving and seed sharing. \u00a0\u00a0Through false promises of higher yields, and less use of fertilizers and herbicides, industrial agriculture\u2019s mechanistic and reductionist approach is robbing peasants and farmers of their means of livelihood, making them dependent for their seed on predatory agri-business multinationals.\u00a0 These false promises have led to indebtedness, poverty and underdevelopment, displacing huge numbers of peasants to overcrowded urban cities and has led to the epidemic of farmers\u2019 suicides because of debt.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, we were told that genetically modified organisms, brought to us by the same poison cartel, were the panacea for hunger. There was an exaggerated claim that GMOs would remove all limits of the environment, grow food in deserts and toxic dumps. Today we have only two GMO applications: herbicide resistance and Bt toxins in crops. The first was claimed to control weeds but has created superweeds.\u00a0 Bt crops were supposed to control pests but they have created new pests and superpests and have pushed thousands of farmers to suicide.<\/p>\n

On their quest for maximum profits and control of the world\u2019s seed production, these giant corporations, who first introduced toxic chemicals into agriculture, today freely contaminate the health of the earth and people by spreading huge quantities of pesticides and herbicides around the world.\u00a0 Through genetic engineering and patents they now control over 60% of the world\u2019s seed production.<\/p>\n

Seed affects all life on earth and every human being. Farmers have bred open source seeds for health, nutrition, taste and diversity. Seeds of freedom for farmers are also seeds of freedom for everyone that eats food that farmers grow. Healthy seeds produce healthy food, whereas seeds bred to respond to chemicals or genetically modified seed contributes to disease and ill-health. Seed Freedom is Food freedom. Open-pollinated organic seeds create the foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship with pollinators like butterflies and bees, soil organisms, birds and insects. Chemically bred seed and monocultures destroy biodiversity both above and below the soil.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Diversity is a key feature of nature and is the very basis of ecological stability. Diverse ecosystems give rise to diverse life forms and diverse cultures which are the basis of sustainability. \u00a0\u00a0Diversity in nature and society is the source of beauty and creativity, strength and resilience, abundance and wellbeing. Crop Genetic Diversity is indispensable in providing resilience to face unpredictable environmental and climate changes and meet the needs of an ever-expanding human population.<\/p>\n

As the global offensive against people\u2019s right to seed and food sovereignty is efficiently coordinated, mainly by large multinational companies and major corporations, abetted by the governments and institutions, all over the world farmers are losing their freedom to have seed and grow organic food, free of the threat of contamination by GE crops, and citizens are losing their freedom to know what they are eating. Seed saving, seed exchange and ecological agriculture practices are therefore powerful political acts of civil disobedience, and the foundation of food sovereignty and democracy in our times.<\/p>\n

The freedoms we enjoy today are the fruits of the struggles which our ancestors and forebears stood up for by refusing to co-operate with unjust laws – whether it was slavery in the US, or racial segregation in South Africa and the US, or the colonisation of India. Our freedoms today are the gifts of their civil disobedience and the \u2018satyagrahas\u2019 pioneered by Ghandi.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For millennia farmers have been breeding plants, modifying and spreading crops across the planet. Traditionally the selection, preservation and maintenance, as well as the wise development and passing on of seed stock has been, and is still today, the domain of women in most rural communities.<\/p>\n

The free exchange of seed among farmers has been the basis to maintaining biodiversity as well as food security.\u2028 As farmers migrated across continents, they brought with them their seed and animals, both of which needed to adapt to new environments and soil types. This was possible because the diverse seed they brought with them was able to adapt to different climates and soil types. Farmers bred their seeds not just for their adaptation to environments but also for their different uses. Thus a farmer could select different varieties of the same crop to suit their specific needs.<\/p>\n

In India, Europe and Latin America unjust seed and food laws have been pushed back by citizens and movements in the continued struggle for Seed Freedom and Food freedom across the world.<\/p>\n

Preserving seed for the next season has been a fundamental rule of survival in human history. \u2028Systems of rights and responsibilities must be put in place which recognize both the collective rights of local communities as well as the right of seed sovereignty of farmers, including women, and the mutual interdependence between diverse cultures and countries.<\/p>\n

Navdanya was started 30 years ago to protect our seed diversity and farmer\u2019s rights to save, breed, and exchange seed freely, in the context of the emerging threats of the TRIPS Agreement (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which opened the door to the introduction of GMOS, patents on seed and the collection of royalties. Seed as a common good became a commodity of private seed companies, traded on the open market.<\/p>\n