Corporate Control Over Seeds

Bharat Dogra

The most important input in the entire farming and food system is that of seeds. Whether farming and food will be the base for supporting sustainable livelihoods linked to the production of safe and healthy food, or whether farming and food systems will be dominated by a few giant multinational companies that harm farmers as well as consumers, will be decided to a large extent by the kind of seed system that is created. If the vast diversity of seeds protected by generations of farmers is well-protected on the farms of tens of millions of small farmers, then this greatly increases the chances of sustainable livelihoods linked to production of safe and healthy food. If seeds are increasingly controlled by a few big multinational companies and their collaborators, then one can say goodbye to protecting the sustainable livelihoods of small farmers or ensuring the safety of food systems.

Understanding the key role of seeds, the big agribusiness corporations have been targeting increasing control over the seeds sector for decades. While they have succeeded to a large extent in increasing control over seeds in the course of the journey from the spread of the green revolution to the spread of GM crops and the setting up of gene banks to which big corporates have gained easy access in various ways, there has also been some resistance to their relentless manipulations for higher and higher control, and as a result of this resistance their control is not yet to the extent desired by them. The issue of protecting farmers’ seed rights has become important in a significant part of the global south. On the one hand, there is a struggle of farmers to protect seed rights, and on the other hand, this is supported by several creative and beautiful efforts to conserve and protect the diversity of seeds.

Looking at this situation, the powerful corporate interests and their collaborators and agents are trying to use several manipulative methods and are using technological advances not to help farmers but to increase their control further.

It is against this background that some of the issues being discussed at the ongoing plant treaty talks (July 7-11) being held at Lima, Peru, must be seen. Behind the cleverly woven facade of benefit-sharing and other such terminology, there is a continuation of the efforts on the part of the corporate interests to further enhance their control over the crucial seeds sector.

The UN’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT-PGRFA) is often briefly referred to as the Plant Treaty. The 11th Session of the Governing Body of this treaty will be held in November this year (2025). Partly as a preparation for this, the 14th meeting of the Ad-hoc Working Group of this treaty took place at Lima from July 7 to 11. In these talks and in the discussion before this, the issue of Digital Sequence Information (DSI) or genetic data extracted from seeds has been a very controversial one. This has been pointed out as a means that is increasingly likely to be used by several big corporate interests to increase their control over seeds, perhaps even bypassing benefit sharing, providing an example of how new technology can be used in highly unethical ways.

In addition, the issue of the dual-access system has been much discussed. This is based on two systems. Firstly, there is a subscription model based on a fixed fee for broad access. Secondly, there is a single access model, based on payments made only when a product is commercialised. While more concern has been expressed regarding the single access model, there has also been concern regarding the possibilities of opportunistic use of the two systems by corporate interests to maximise their gains in shrewd ways.

However, what may be more important overall is the overall power-politics context in which decisions are taken. Some countries that host the most powerful multinational companies have been behaving in increasingly arrogant and arbitrary ways while asserting their power, and it is possible that they try to bully several of the smaller and more vulnerable countries in ways that confer highly unfair advantages to their corporate interests at the cost of the farmers of the global south in particular.

Hence, clearly it is time for broad-based unity of farmers all over the world to protect their seed rights in particular, but in addition to also resist the other adverse impacts and aspects of the increasing dominance of food and farming systems by multinational companies, helped by powerful countries. As everyone needs safe and healthy food, this resistance by farmers should get the support of all. In addition, very creative efforts with high participation of women farmers must be increased to promote village-based conservation of wide diversity of seeds.

[The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Seeds Now. His recent books include India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food, Man over Machine, A Day in 2071, and Earth without Borders.]

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Frontier
Vol 58, No. 8, Aug 17 - 23, 2025