Seed Treaty: Biopiracy of India's Indigenous seeds by United Nations(UN)

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), commonly known as the Plant Treaty or the Seed Treaty, is an international, legally binding instrument with 154 States as member countries (referred to as Contracting Parties). It was adopted under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2001 and entered into force in 2004. The primary goals of the Seed Treaty (Treaty), are said to be in harmony with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as follows,

• Conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA)

• Sustainable use of PGRFA

• Fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of PGRFA.

PGRFA can be commonly understood as "seeds".

According to the UN's Convention on Biodiversity, States have sovereign rights over genetic resources, including seeds, and can determine the terms and conditions for their international exchange. Similarly, indigenous peoples and local communities, including farmers, have rights over the genetic resources they maintain, and States cannot share these resources with third parties without the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of such communities.

The Seed Treaty establishes the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit Sharing (MLS) to facilitate access to seeds by researchers and breeders, by standardizing terms and conditions of access at the international level. This is to facilitate access to seed diversity, for crop improvement, adapting to environmental changes, food security and future human needs Since places of origin, centres of diversity, and cultivation sites often differ, most countries are dependent on each other to ensure access to seed diversity. It is in recognition of their mutual dependence that countries adopted the Treaty and established the MLS to maintain access to seed diversity.

The Treaty also recognizes farmers’ rights, particularly those relating to seeds, and states that it shall not be interpreted to limit any such rights, “subject to national law” and “as appropriate”.

Promise Vs Reality of Seed Treaty:

Once a crop is listed in Annex I of the Treaty (currently 64 crops), holders of seeds from such crops, in particular government entities of member countries, have to share such seeds (PGRFA) under a common set of terms and conditions. This standard agreement is called the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA).

The Treaty obligates member countries to provide seeds of plants listed in Annex I to any person, any institution or any multinational corporations requesting them and willing to sign the SMTA, provided the seeds are under their management and control. This means that if any government or publicly funded institution holds such seeds, it must share them under SMTA terms.

The SMTA is a standard contract that sets out the terms and conditions regarding the sharing of seeds, their use, and sharing of benefits arising from such use. It explains who are the parties to the agreement and what their rights and obligations are.

Although both monetary and non-monetary benefits are mentioned in the Treaty, they are not guaranteed to flow back to the countries or to the indigenous peoples and local communities participating in and contributing the seeds.

Non-monetary benefits are proposed in various form of sharing the information resulting from research on the seeds through a portal called the Global Information System. Even here, recipients need not share “confidential information”. The Treaty does not define the term “confidential information”. So, these are Benefit sharing are just on papers and has no implications. It raises some basic questions. If there is confidential information about seed research from Seed Treaty how can it ensure food security. This contradictory to basic vision of the Seed treaty.

Monetary benefits, on the other hand, are collected only from the sales of seeds developed using shared seeds.

Historically more than 7 million accessions of PGRFA have been shared via the MLS to more than 28,000 identified users. However, only "six" of them have shared any monetary benefits with the MLS so far. This is 0.0001% .FAO under United Nation has important part in this structure.

The Seed Treaty and the SMTA lack strong mechanisms to track the shared seeds. This gap and confidentiality excuses are often used to avoid accountability and transparency. This means that if a farmer’s seed of a crop enters a collection at a national gene bank or at a government agriculture university, it can be shared widely without informing the farmer community which has developed it for hundreds of years.

Once such seeds reach a foreign entity, they can be further shared and exchanged with several other entities, without the knowledge of national authorities as well. Genetic information from these seeds is mostly shared anonymously through online databases. As a result, both farmers and countries lose control over their seeds and lose the opportunity to share in benefits arising from the use of such seeds.

India has so far announced 26,363 accessions from nine crops. The notification to FAO does not disclose whether these accessions are farmers’ varieties or not, except for cultivated rice accessions. On the Indian National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) website, even this information about paddy is not available. Although some of these accessions are registered with the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPVFRA) of India, there is no reference in the notification to the persons who registered such varieties. Do the Indian authorities know who accessed these seeds and who is working on them? The answer is No. Then, Who talks about the benefits of contributing farmers?

SMTA does not obligate recipients of the seeds to acknowledge the contribution of farmers in their research publications or intellectual property right (IPR) applications. It does not obligate recipients to provide opportunities to involve farmers or other local researchers from the country of origin in the research and development. Nor does it require recipients to proactively and transparently inform the providers about the research outcomes

"There are no explicit safeguards in the SMTA to prevent the use of the seeds that undermines farmers’ rights."

Meanwhile, seed companies and food industries may access farmers’ seeds and develop modified varieties or other products over which intellectual property rights are then secured, including plant variety protection rights, without the consent of the farmers. This promotes biopiracy and some of the intellectual property rights acquired can then be used to harass farmers, limiting their right to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed/propagating material.

Treaty and SMTA do not stipulate what should be done with genetic sequence data or digital sequence information (GSD/DSI) generated from the seeds.

This data can be used not only to reduce the time required for research, development, and breeding, but also for developing products like artificial flavours, medical compounds, etc. The anonymous sharing of such data thus undermines benefit-sharing opportunities for the provider countries and farmers.

Most recipients who sequence the seeds upload the sequence data to databases that are unaccountable to the Treaty countries and allow anonymous use. This leads to lose of traceability by farmers and indigenous communities. Seeds are developed and breeded by Indigenous farmers for thousands of years. For example, indigenous rice has been breeded and cultivation in Tamil Nadu for atleast 3000 years. There is archaeological and literature evidence for this. Giving these generational wealth to anonymous people will lead to patenting and IPR claims by multinational companies that will be adversely affect the farmers interest from whom the seed is taken.

Usually Genetically modified seeds are patented and this allows Transnational corporation like Bayer to make high profit from Genetically Modified crops.

All over the world, the ownership of seed production and distribution is being concentrated in the hands of a few large corporations. Over the past 40 years, the world’s largest agrochemical firms have used intellectual property laws(WTO, UPOV-91), mergers and acquisitions , and new technologies to take control of the commercial seed sector. The top two companies control 40% of the seed market, The top four firms control 62% of the pesticide market. New technologies, such as genetically modified (GM) crops, have given large seed corporations significant leverage to control the market. This trend has significant impacts on small farmers, who may find it difficult to access high-quality seeds at affordable prices and may also face restrictions on their ability to save and exchange seeds.

Bt cotton was introduced in India around 2002. Farmers were growing indigenous cotton till then. Right now, 96% of cotton grown in India is Genetically modified. All genetically modified seeds are patented. So, Corporates earn a lot from these the seed sales. From 2002, corporation has earned more than 20,000 crore in Bt-cotton seeds alone in India. Meanwhile, more than 1 lakh cotton farmers had killed themself. The reason is high input cost incurred due to Bt-cotton. This translates into Corporates earning 20,000 crore by killing 1 lakh farmers across India.

In 1950s, Indian farmers had more than 2 lakh varieties of indigenous paddy seeds. These seeds have been cultivated and breeded by our ancestors for thousands of years. Right now, we have less than 1% of these seeds. Remaining all seeds are extinct. It is not available with farmers. This is the case of almost all food crops. But, multinational corporations have these seeds in their seed banks. Once these seeds are extinct, multinational companies will have the command over the seeds.

"One who controls the seeds control food. One who control the seeds controls the life form on the Earth."

To address the failure in securing adequate benefit sharing, an Ad Hoc Open-Ended Working Group (WG) was formed by the in 2013 to improve the functioning of the Treaty. In July 2025, the WG met and decided to submit a draft package of measures for the consideration of the 11th meeting of the Governing Body (GB11), although there was no consensus on the measures. GB11 will take place in Peru in November 24- 29, 2025.

The new changes instead of addressing all the problems, it widens it making it pro-corporate. The new proposal instead of 64 crops want all genetic materials of seeds stored in the national seeds bank. There is no talk about benefits sharing with farmers or any other concern raised by the experts and nation countries. If this comes into existence, it will make the conditions of farmers in third world countries worse.

Sequence Information is being generated from seeds under MLS and shared anonymously via the internet regardless of national laws and farmers' rights. New proposals seek to legitimize this practice. This is a complete wash out of national sovereign rights over plant genetic resources.

International Gene Banks in Global north control the transfer of seeds rather than national authorities in Asia, Africa, Near East and Latin America to which majority of seeds belong. There is not a even a mention of these issue in the new draft.

Farmers’ seeds are collected by various actors, either with intent or by chance, and often such seeds end up in national collections. Once included in the collections, the seeds can then be carried away by any person from any part of the world under the Treaty SMTA without any tracking. Such recipients may then share the seeds with others, or sequence them and publish the GSD/DSI anonymously. Outcomes of research on the seeds can also be monopolized through IPRs. All these can be done without the consent and knowledge of the respective farmers or their governments.

There is no constructive measures to rectify the existing holes in the treaty but draft will make the treaty more worse.

Click here on the below link to sign a letter to Union Government of India Stop the proposed draft of Seed Treaty,

https://forms.gle/YznGVSDyNzz1pryo9

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Karthik, the author of this article is an indigenous seed conserving conserving his village native indigenous paddy seeds. Click here know more about his conservation work. Click here to view his profile. Reach him at karthik@richhariyafoundation.org