Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment
SEARICE lobbies for complementarity of farmers’ seed systems and formal seed systems to ensure seed diversity
MANILA, 26 September 2023 – SEARICE called on governments in South and Southeast Asia to pass laws that acknowledge and support farmers’ seed systems as complementary to formal seed systems. This will ensure that seed development and production become effective and efficient, with a view towards guaranteeing seed diversity on which agricultural sustainability and resilience are founded.
SEARICE issued this call on 9 September, the first day of the three-day regional capacity building workshop under the "Rights-Based and Agroecological Initiatives for Sustainability and Equity in Asia” project, organized by SEARICE with support from SwedBio.
According to SEARICE executive director Normita Ignacio, “Currently, formal seed systems, which are governed by laws on seed certification, predominate, while farmers’ seed systems are frequently not just marginalized but are not recognized in national laws and are therefore not supported and excluded in government programs”.
Seed certification, which is conducted by designated government agencies, seeks to ensure that the quality of seeds in the field and in the market comply with very specific standards, including distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) as well as value for cultivation and use (VCU).
“Unfortunately, these standards give the impression that only certified seeds are of good quality,” explains Ignacio. “These standards also assume that farmers are simply end-users of innovation, and thus are best served by using varieties developed by professional plant breeders.”
In fact, however, “farmers have been altering the genetic makeup of the crops they grow,” adds Ignacio. “Many of our modern crops were developed by farmers, despite their lacking an understanding of the scientific basis of plant breeding.”
Such misperceptions account for the poor rate of adoption of certified seeds. A study[1] of rice varieties used by farmers in the Philippines, covering 79 provinces, showed that out of 74 varieties released in 1991 to 2004, only around 34 varieties were reportedly grown by farmers. Of these 34 varieties, an even narrower selection (10 varieties) was most commonly planted by farmers.
Just as importantly, treating farmers as passive recipients of seeds developed by the formal sector “isolates seeds from its caretakers,” says Ignacio.
This results in seeds being treated simply as commodities; farmers’ knowledge and traditions falling into disuse; the erosion of plant genetic diversity and increased vulnerability of the ecosystem; severe limits to farmers’ adaptive capacity to changing environments and consequently, threats to food security.
Ignacio advocates for complementarity between farmers’ seed systems and the formal seed systems.
“When developing seed legislations, we need to reflect on their potential impacts on smallholder farmers and their innovation systems,” she says. “States must recognize the fact that the dynamism of farmers’ seed system is the reason why we still have seed diversity, and should thus ensure their continued development.”