CAFOD and our partner BIBA-Kenya (Biodiversity and Biosafety Association Kenya) recently conducted research into how Kenya’s 2012 seed law has impacted women farmers and seed savers
A group of farmers supported by civil society organisations, including CAFOD's partner BIBA-Kenya, have successfully challenged Kenya’s seed laws that criminalised farmers for saving their own seeds.
The seed laws have been declared unconstitutional, setting a positive precedent to challenge similar laws in other countries as well as proposed new laws.
The ruling means that, without fear of prosecution, farmers in Kenya are now free to:
save their own seeds
share seeds within their communities
exchange and sell farmer varieties
strengthen farmer-managed seed systems.
This is a huge step towards restoring seed sovereignty, defending indigenous knowledge and protecting the heart of African agroecology, and affirms that seeds belong to farmers, communities and generations - not corporations.
Why has the ruling been made?
This ruling is the result of years of community mobilisation, seed fairs and seed-saving movements, court battles, policy advocacy, farmer education and collective resistance against criminalisation of indigenous seeds.
In CAFOD's own Fix the Food System campaign, we have been working to put an end to regressive seeds laws that restrict - or even criminalise - smallholder farmers' access to their own variety of seeds. When farmers cannot freely access their own seeds, food for their communities cannot be produced. Our report, Seed systems and gender equality, includes interviews with women farmers in Kenya in which they explain how the seeds laws affect them.
What is the role of the World Bank?
Although the Kenya law was not directly pushed by it, the World Bank plays a key role in promoting similar regressive seeds laws in several countries. Once these laws are put in place, small farmers are forced to buy expensive commercial seeds, which are good for agri-business profit but have devastating consequences for millions of small farmers, including many of the communities that CAFOD serves.
In 2023, a smallholder farmer from Bangladesh, Salina, who is fighting to keep control of her own seeds, sent a letter to the World Bank urging them to protect the fundamental rights of small farmers to use, save and exchange their own variety of seed. This campaign mobilised 70,000 Catholics (in over 760 parishes) to add their names in support of Salina‘s letter.
Fix the Food System
Our global food system is broken. Over 800 million people go hungry, and the way we produce much of our food harms our planet.
Seeds are at the very heart of the food system. They are part of nature and given by God for the benefit of all, but increasingly farmers’ rights to choose their own seeds are under threat.