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Five reasons why seed sovereignty matters

3 April 2023
Salina standing next to her seed store room

Salina standing next to her seed store room

Seed sovereignty is the right of farmers to save, use, exchange and sell their own seeds. It means farmers can choose the seeds they plant, what to grow and how to farm.

Here are 5 reasons why seed sovereignty is vital for our global food system. 

1. When we limit access to seeds, we limit the food we produce

For generations, small-scale farmers have freely shared a wide variety of seeds to produce the food that feeds a significant proportion of the world’s population.   

However, new laws are being introduced across the world which limit what they can do with their own seed varieties. In recent years, more and more countries including Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone have introduced laws that prevent farmers from choosing what seeds they can plant on their own land. These laws have been insisted on by the World Bank in exchange for financial support yet have the consequence of harming those most in need. 

The loss of seed variety

Out of 6,000 edible plant species that we have cultivated over centuries, just nine crops now account for more than 65% of all crop production. 

As a result, small-scale farmers are facing increasing pressure to buy seeds from the limited selection produced by big corporations. This locks them into a model that serves the global market, but not their own communities and it means a drastic reduction in the variety of crops produced. 

2. Big corporations controlling seeds is bad for food security 

Behind our loss of crop diversity is the industrial model of agriculture that has witnessed increasing concentration of control in the hands of a few giant agribusiness corporations.

Corporate control

In the 1980s, the ten biggest companies controlled less than 15% of the global seed market. Today that control is concentrated in the hands of just four companies - Bayer, Corteva, BASF and Syngenta – who control 50% of the market. This means that just a handful of private companies own half of one of the most precious resources needed to feed the world.

As corporations focus on crops that are most likely to return larger profits, this has exacerbated the loss of crop diversity. 

This lack of crop diversity makes the global food system very fragile to shocks including climate change, conflict, and disease. We just need to look at Russia’s war in Ukraine to see the impact  this has had on the price of key staples such as wheat and overall food prices. 

By way of an alternative, small scale farmers’ seeds are ‘genetically diverse’. This means that crops can adapt to their environment, develop resistance to pests and diseases, and evolve in response to changing conditions created by climate change.

Jony, Director of Ubinig, inside UBINIG's Community Seed Wealth Centre

Jahangir Alam Jony (known as 'Jony'), Director of Ubinig, inside UBINIG's Community Seed Wealth Centre in Tangail.