Opinion: seed sovereignty for food security could transform globalisation after the coronavirus
Communities who regularly face calamitous food shocks have much to teach us about maintaining sovereignty over seeds and food supply. They know well not to rely solely upon formal, monoculture-based globalised supply and value chains which can be adversely affected while informal diverse seed systems can survive and thrive. My recent study of seed laws and practices in Ethiopia and Kenya, places and people in the frontline of hunger and climate shocks, addresses the issue of seed sovereignty in the context of the kind of globalisation that a trans-boundary global shock like coronavirus suddenly throws up for us all.
Seed sovereignty is the right to sow, grow, save, use, share and breed seeds and determine own seed futures. Seed laws and policies determine seed practices and food security. For example, Ethiopia’s 2013 seed law exempts their farmers’ seed varieties from the broader commercial seed law. The latter demands uniform seeds for global value chains and commercial interests as globalising seed rules swept across Africa in recent years. Moreover, Ethiopia established 30 substantial community seed banks, expanding a dynamic germplasm exchange between state and farmers first initiated by the world-renowned Ethiopian plant scientist Dr Melaku Worede in the 1980s. Why? Because of their experience with horrific famines.
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