Legal recognition of creole seeds

[Jose, 22 Spain 7 September 2017 at 11:10 Post count: 0]

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National Policy for Agroecology and Organic Production was adopted in Brazil in 2012, explicitly recognising the role of peasants’ own creole seeds, after decades of farmers’ struggle for access to land and food sovereignty. Although it is not legal to sell uncertified seeds, through the national Programme for Food Acquisition government buys creole seeds directly from farmers and then provides them to other farmers at no cost, thereby foregoing the market. This Programme has given Brazilian farmers, as well as some of the country’s largest peasant organisations, an important avenue for developing their own seed systems. These organisations have developed large-scale programmes that provide seeds to hundreds of thousands of families, promoting families’ selection and use of peasant seeds and developing community seed houses. In 2013, 800 tonnes of black bean seeds were produced and sent to farmers in Venezuela which has been a major advance for securing the creole seeds needed by small-scale farmers. However, defending these pro-peasant regulations is a constant struggle. The US government has complained that the food acquisition programme went against WTO rules because it provides a subsidy to Brazilian farmers.
With Brazil being the second largest producer of GMOs in the world, farmers are also fighting against GMOs and and the toxic chemicals associated with them. In October 2013, they occupied a seed production facility belonging to Monsanto in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco and replaced the varieties of GM-maize with creole seeds. As a result, some of the farmers have been persecuted and are now banned from Monsanto’s premises throughout Brazil. Farmers are also fighting against a current law under consideration among Brazilian lawmakers that would lift the country’s moratorium on a particular type of GMO known as “Terminator”.

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