Seed Sovereignty: Empowering Farmers

Going back to using indigenous seeds and growing indigenous paddy after realizing the short-term and long-term advantages of these over HYVs, farmers are beginning to reclaim their power to decide what they want to sow and grow because they can better appreciate their own local context and needs

"Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people," said US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.

S eeds are one of the most critical inputs in farming. Until recently, when they began moving away from the traditional ways of farming, farmers have always saved seeds from their own produce. There has really been no distinction between specialized seed production and regular crop production. With changing times, spurred by an active policy and legal, technological and market-based orchestrations, farmers have, gradually, become dependent on seeds initially supplied by government agencies, and later sold by private companies.

Farmers, who have been traditional seed breeders, selectors and seed keepers, are reaching a stage at which they have, to some extent, lost and are fast losing their skills, knowledge and the habit of saving seeds and making a selection. This is egged on by targets fixed by the state departments of Agriculture, which pursue a ‘Seeds Replacement Rate’ policy, with an aim to prevent farmers from re-using their own seeds.

This is eroding the rich genetic diversity that India’s farmers have evolved over centuries, adapting to the many growing conditions and use. Thousands of varieties of paddy and hundreds of varieties of pulses, which provided diverse nutrient requirements and met diverse growing conditions, have disappeared, and have paved the way for a handful of varieties bred extensively for a ‘higher yield’. This has landed the farmers and the consumers in a sad state of perpetual dependency on the seed industry not only for the purchase of seeds but also their food choices. This has had direct implications on the farmers’ income security (because the prices of seeds have grown exponentially), food and nutrition security, and their decision-making abilities.