Saving the taste of Food
The taste of food can even be better using authentic local seeds.
Seed sovereignty is the right of local communities of farmersto save, exchange, share ancient seed techniques, and plant their own seeds,free from corporate control or restrictive intellectual property laws.
The spread of imported hybrid and genetically modified (GM) seeds has created dependency on external suppliers with 3 strategies:
Seed Cultural ImprintingSeed Cultural GovernanceSeed Cultural Dominance
These commercial seeds often require chemical inputs and cannot be replanted the following season, breaking the cycle of community self-reliance.
In many countries, emerging seed laws restrict the informal seed trade, criminalizing farmers who exchange traditional seeds outside government-certified systems.
The result is a gradual erosion of local diversity, autonomy, cultural connection to foodand deleting the identity of an ancient tradition of intimacy with food and destroying the memory of shared moments around the table,like old cooking methods, deeply rooted regional practices, and a food culture that has shaped identities, landscapes, and social gathering life for generations.

Only local farmers can allow the autonomy to preserve the Indigenous agriculture that is "the bedrock to ensure ecological integrity, sustainability of nature, biodiversity, landscapes and ecosystems."
From farmers’ rights to seed sovereigntyResearchers and activists Pat Mooney and Cary Fowler are credited with coining the term farmers’ rights in the early 1980s.
In 1983, Pat Mooney published "The law of the seed", in which he laid the groundwork for the concept by making an argument for the essential contribution of farmers to the maintenance of plant genetic resources for agriculture.The same year, under the pressure of a small group of activists, the FAO adopted the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources and created an intergovernmental commission, providing an institutional forum for the discussion of farmers’ rights over the following two decades.
In 1989, FAO, "Resolution 5/89" officially endorsed farmers’ rights as the ‘rights arising from the past, present and future contributions of farmers in conserving, improving, and making available plant genetic resources, particularly those in the centres of origin.
The resolution stated that plant genetic resources were the common heritage of humankind, and that they should be freely available for use.

In the meantime, negotiations to transform the International Undertaking into a binding treaty resulted in the signing of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in 2001, the first international treaty pertaining exclusively to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.
Known for short as the Seed Treaty, it established farmers’ rights to the protection of traditional knowledge, to equitable benefit sharing and to participation in decisions regarding the management of plant genetic resources.

In December 2018, in a significant victory for peasant movements and their allies, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP).
Key Aspects
Adoption Date: December 2018 by the UN General Assembly (121 votes in favor, 8 against, 54 abstentions).
Core Purpose: Protects the rights of small-scale farmers, herders, fishers, and rural workers, improving access to land, water, and traditional seeds.
Legal Status: A non-binding declaration that establishes international norms and supports local legal struggles and food sovereignty.
The Declaration marks an important evolution in human rights law because it grants individual and collective rights to land, seeds and natural resources to groups that are neither Indigenous Peoples or minorities, signalling the emergence of local communities as legitimate rights-holders

“Locally controlled agri-food systems and agricultural research allow farmers to manage unpredictable and sometimes catastrophic change”. Furthermore, “Climate change and the current economic and financial crisis highlight the need for farmers to have direct, sovereign control over seeds and local know-how in order to design sustainable, resilient agricultural and food systems”.
The Bamako Declaration states that one way of promoting this resilience in the face of change is to encourage dialogue and the development of a common strategy through meetings between farmers from different countries.

New technologies and corporate strategies
Since the first breakthroughs in plant genetic engineering in the early 1980s, the pace of technological innovation has picked up rapidly.
Gene Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs) were developed in the 1990s, followed by new genome sequencing and editing technologies and gene drives.
Civil society organisations have tracked these scientific developments and raised awareness of their potential to consolidate corporate control over agriculture and negatively impact agrobiodiversity.
The Ban Terminator campaign is a prime example of how activists have influenced international policies in matters of agrobiodiversity, biotechnology and farmers’ rights at international forums such as the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity. 

How seeds became private property
For millennia, seeds belonged to the people who grew them. Farmers saved, shared, and adapted them to their land and climate. That changed in 1961 when the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) was created. For the first time, breeders gained exclusive rights over new plant varieties.
The World Trade Organization requires member states — virtually all the world's nations — to have some form of legislation protecting plant varieties. More and more of them are fulfilling this requirement by signing up to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), which places limits on the production, sale and exchange of seeds.
To meet UPOV criteria, commercial seeds must be genetically distinct, uniform and stable. Most ordinary seeds are none of these things.
The tipping point was the 1991 UPOV Act, which criminalizes seed saving and sharing practices.
Today, over 90 countries have adopted UPOV-compliant laws.
As a result, seed ownership has been monopolized: Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta, and BASF now control 56% of the global proprietary seed market, valued at around US$50 billion, according to an ETC Group report.

The loss of locally adapted seed varieties is eroding biodiversity. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 75% of global crop diversity was lost between 1900 and 2000.
This decline reduces seeds’ resilience to pests, diseases, and climate shocks, leaving farmers with less reliable harvests.
At the same time, market concentration drives up seed prices.
For instance, in the U.S., seed prices have surged by 270% from 1990 to 2020, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

Global pushback against corporate seed control
Across the Global South, farmers are mounting resistance to corporate seed dominance.
Africa: In Kenya, fifteen smallholders have taken the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act to the High Court, arguing it violates constitutional rights to culture, food, and property. In Benin, civil society organizations urged the government to withdraw its proposal to join UPOV, warning it would undermine local seeds and food sovereignty. In Ghana, a mass protest blocked a Plant Breeders’ Rights Bill aligned with UPOV ’91.

>>> https://agroecology-coalition.org/countries-advancing-seed-sovereignty/

>>> https://audacious.africa/blog-1.html