Without small family farmers who perform the labour-intensive task of preserving seeds, biodiversity and the future of food is threatened.
Multinational seed companies are gradually replacing the immense diversity of farmer seeds by industrial varieties, are obtaining an increasing number of patents on different seeds, and are threatening the ability of small family farmers to produce the food required to feed their families and their communities.
Because of the ratification by a number of countries of the latest version of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, known as UPOV’91, these ancestral rights, which consisted of preserving, using and exchanging farmer seeds, have become in some cases illegal acts, which are punishable by law.
Help protect small family farmers' worldwide right to use seeds
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