Seed solidarity - a year of progress

It’s now over a year since we launched our ‘Farmers, Food and Freedom’ report about UPOV91 seed law’s malign influence on smallholder farmers. The report exposed how UK trade rules are spreading these restrictive laws around the world – where farmers can be arrested and even imprisoned for sharing and saving seeds.

Over 25,000 of you stood up for seed freedom by signing our #StopUPOV petition to keep these harmful seed laws out of UK trade deals - an incredible show of people power. We took that message straight to the top, writing to Douglas Alexander, Minister for Trade Policy, to demand the removal of UPOV91 and making it clear the public does not support these restrictive rules.  

While we pushed the UK Government to respect farmers’ rights in the UK-India trade deal, we also worked with Pahadiya farmers in Jharkhand, India to support their community seed banks - which create jobs and promote local varieties of crops. Over the last year, Pahadiya farmers have introduced a new millet seed to their seed banks and formed a Farmer Producer Company to advocate for better prices for their produce.  

The great progress the farmers have made could have been lost – but thanks to your pressure, MPs raised the issue in Parliament. And in even better news, when the text of the UK-India trade deal was released in July 2025, UPOV91 was not included. This is a huge win for farmers’ seed rights in India.  

Had UPOV91 been included in the agreement, this would have made it illegal for farmers to save or share some of their own seeds. India stood firm, and continues to protect farmers’ rights to seeds - that’s trade justice in action. 

But our work isn’t over. UPOV91 - a harmful international rule that hands control of seeds to corporations - is still part of 19 UK trade deals affecting 68 countries, including many in the Global South. You helped show what’s possible. Now we need to keep the pressure on, and make sure the UK never includes UPOV91 in a trade deal again. 

We’ll be meeting with UK Government officials soon, and we’ll be passing on your collective concerns - asking them to publicly commit to keeping UPOV91 out of all future trade agreements.  

Thank you for standing up for farmers’ rights - let’s stop UPOV for good.