The battle over seeds in Latin America: the legal siege and people’s response
Corporate encroachment is increasingly disguised as legal protection. Under laws that allegedly safeguard seeds, doors are opened for their registration, certification, or privatisation. Faced with this encroachment, Indigenous and rural communities defend their seeds as if they were a living territory. What is at stake is not just agriculture, but an essential pillar of Latin American societies.
Current discussions on intellectual property and free trade agreements are merely an update of a persistent strategy: attempts by agribusiness to appropriate seeds through regulations or laws governing their circulation, sale, and use. In the recent context, these mechanisms have regained strength through international agreements that are reshaping the agricultural system to the industry’s advantage.
For years, various governments have promoted regulations that, under the promise of “regulating” seed trade, have ultimately harmed the traditional practices of farmers. By introducing control criteria over plant varieties and management procedures, these regulations consolidate a system that favors corporations and reduce the scope for farmers to use, save, and exchange seeds.
In parallel, farmers and Indigenous organisations have promoted legislative and regulatory initiatives aimed at safeguarding their knowledge and guaranteeing the free use of seeds. However, several of these proposals are disconnected from the reality on the ground in rural areas, either due to inadequate technical design or a failure to fully incorporate the needs of those who sustain agricultural diversity.
The legal architecture of control
Much of this siege is based on legislation shaped by the standards of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). This framework limits farmers’ right to save, reuse, and exchange seeds, and expands the rights of those who claim “ownership” over new varieties. Added to this are the regimes derived from the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which authorise the patenting of plant varieties and agricultural technologies, reinforcing communities’ dependence on industry.
Free trade agreements exacerbate this trend. In several Latin American countries, the signing of agreements with the United States or the European Union has been accompanied by pressure to adopt UPOV 91 or implement patent systems for plant varieties. More recently, the United Arab Emirates has replicated this pressure in countries of the Global South. Taken together, these regulations impose plant breeders’ rights, rigid rules for marketing, and mechanisms that clash head-on with peasant farming practices.
The case of Chile illustrates this tension quite clearly. In 2024, a resolution intended to officially recognise traditional seeds ended up including criteria that restricted community exchange and trade. The modifications introduced during the legislative process favored seed companies and granted the Ministry of Agriculture the power to regulate the quantity of seeds that could be exchanged. For organizations like the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI), this represented a direct threat to their seed systems and a covert way to promote adherence to UPOV 91. Social pressure ultimately led to the resolution’s repeal.
This experience illustrates how bureaucratic requirements — mandatory registration, storage standards, or uniform procedures — can become hindering barriers to practices that have kept agrobiodiversity alive. But it also reveals another key aspect: corporate encroachment is not inevitable. In various countries, farmers and Indigenous mobilisations have succeeded in halting regulations that sought to impose seed registration or restrict their circulation. Where these struggles have been sustained, privatisation has met its limits, and communities have defended their right to use, multiply, and exchange their seeds.
Corporate advance and farmers resistance
An illustrative example of corporate pressure occurred in Honduras in 2012, when Parliament passed the Plant Varieties Protection Act. Behind this initiative were business chambers linked to agribusiness and the seed industry, as well as transnational corporations operating in the region — including industry giants like Monsanto (now part of Bayer), Syngenta, and Cargill — interested in expanding seed ownership regimes. The legislation restricted farmers’ right to save, share, or exchange their seeds, sparking immediate public backlash. Farmers organizations like the National Association for the Promotion of Organic Agriculture (ANAFAE) waged a struggle of over a decade until the law was finally declared unconstitutional.
The repeal of this law was not an isolated event. It was the culmination of years of resistance led by ANAFAE and other peasant organisations, which denounced that the Monsanto Law violated the Constitution: “[the Monsanto Law] restricts the population’s development. In a country where many families depend on what they grow to survive, this type of law condemns us to hunger”.[1]
The Supreme Court agreed. It determined that Decree No. 21-2012 violated national sovereignty, the rights of farming communities, and the right to food. It also concluded that the UPOV Convention — which was the basis of the legislation — contravened essential constitutional principles, such as the right to life, human dignity, a decent standard of living, food, and health. Despite this ruling and the efforts of different organisations, Congress, backed by corporations in the sector, is again trying to revive the so-called “Monsanto Law”.
What happened in Honduras was not an isolated case: it marked the beginning of a wave of legislative initiatives that has swept across Latin America with the same formula: intellectual property, mandatory registrations and the criminalisation of seed exchange, almost always driven by the same transnational companies.
In Ecuador, several organisations challenged the Organic Law of Agrobiodiversity, Seeds, and Agricultural Development, passed in 2017, because it failed to guarantee the right of Indigenous and farmers communities to use and exchange their seeds. The law sought to create a national seed registry and limited the right to save, transport, and exchange seeds according to their cultural criteria and traditional management practices. The law was also challenged for attempting to allow the introduction of genetically modified seeds for experimental purposes, something constitutionally banned by Article 401 of the Constitution.
A similar concern has erupted in Guatemala, where Indigenous communities have been rallying for several years, demanding that the government discard a proposed law based on the UPOV 91 guidelines. These protests have become the focus of a national strike challenging government policies. Indigenous Peoples and farmers, along with civil society allies, have organised mobilisations and gatherings denouncing the law as a violation of their rights because it was not subject to free, prior, and informed consultation. They also warn that it poses a threat to ancestral food systems, food sovereignty, and the continuity of traditional peasant and Indigenous practices.
In Argentina, the government of Javier Milei attempted to include a clause (Article 241) in its proposed “Omnibus Bill” to adhere to UPOV 91. The initiative was backed by transnational seed companies such as Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva and BASF. The article sought to prevent farmers — including large-scale soybean producers, a sector with significant influence in the country — from reusing their seeds, thus expanding corporate control over crops and jeopardising food sovereignty. The response was pushback from a broad social movement that succeeded in defeating the proposal and eliminating Article 241.
In January 24, 2024, a nationwide strike and mobilisation led by major labor unions brought together nearly five million people. UPOV 91 was at the heart of the protest, which succeeded in halting the law. However, the struggle continues, as the government maintains its intention to introduce a new bill to restrict farmers’ rights to freely save and use seeds.
In the case of Chile, the signing of the free trade agreement with the United States has become a tool to pressure the government into ratifying its adherence to UPOV 91 and increasing protections for seed companies. Currently, civil society organisations have rejected the entry into force of the free trade agreement with the European Union and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11 or CPTPP), as they also include obligations for the country to adopt UPOV 91. They warn that this threatens the betterment and protection of peasant seeds by facilitating corporate registration and criminalising the free exchange of seeds.
In Bolivia, during 2025, farmers and Indigenous organisations rejected the country’s accession to UPOV 91. They believe that the restrictions and privatisation mechanisms promoted by this convention violate their rights and compromise food sovereignty. They maintain that the protection of native seeds is a pillar of their identity and of the cultural practices that sustain community life.
The concern has spread regionally. In May 2024, peasant and civil society organisations from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Ecuador met in Costa Rica “for the defense of seeds and maize.” They shared experiences and agreed on joint actions to confront the growing control that transnational corporations seek to impose on seeds and other reproductive materials through intellectual property, marketing laws, and various regulations. The delegations specifically denounced free trade agreements and the UPOV laws, which they consider an extremely serious threat to their communities.
That same impulse runs through the entire region today: Latin American peasantry sustains various forms of resistance against attempts to privatise and control seeds, and denounces these regulations as direct threats to agrobiodiversity and their autonomy.
The risk of regulating farmers seeds
In recent years, social organisations in countries like Guatemala and Peru have promoted bills aimed at “protecting” native or creole seeds and guaranteeing their free use and exchange. While these initiatives stem from a legitimate concern, they can become a risk for communities. Laws intended to safeguard seeds can be reinterpreted, modified, or co-opted by agribusiness stakeholders, who find in legal language ways to further their interests.
In Peru, the Native Seed Advocacy Group (GRISEN) presented Bill No. 11521, whose central purpose is to protect traditional native seed systems and safeguard ancestral knowledge and agrobiodiversity. However, some parts of the text raise concerns. Article 5 establishes a restrictive definition of “Traditional Native Seed Systems,” which could exclude other conservation and exchange practices. Article 11 introduces registration mechanisms that, if applied with technical or commercial criteria foreign to rural people, could limit free exchange. Furthermore, Article 13 reserves the power to distribute native seeds to the State, assigning communities a merely passive role.
In Brazil there are three different legal frameworks that regulate seeds and intellectual property: (1) the Cultivar Bill, inspired by UPOV; (2) the Seed and Seedling Law along with its regulations; and (3) the provisions on patents of genetic sequences derived from TRIPS, adopted within the framework of the WTO; which allowed the patentability of transgenic seeds through the Industrial Property Law No. 9.279/1996.
The Seed and Seedling Law and the National Seed and Plant Registration System, which establish regulations for seed production, marketing, and certification, have been in effect since 2003. Decree No. 10,586, enacted in 2020, along with subsequent regulations, introduced significant changes, such as the exemption from registration for traditional seeds intended for personal use and the authorisation for farmers to reserve up to 10% of their seeds for planting. These reforms were primarily driven by the mobilisation of peasant organisations. However, “it is a contradictory law that so far has served some farmers organisations, due to the exceptions for native seeds and family farmers”.[2]
These exceptions have allowed peasants, Indigenous, and family farming communities to exchange seeds without state interference, without the need for registration in the official system. However, when it comes to selling seeds in markets, the law requires a technical registration that is inaccessible to most farmers. “It’s almost impossible to comply with all the requirements,” warns Naiara, a member of the Brazilian organization Terra de Direitos, highlighting the gap between the legal framework and the actual practices in the field.
Even with these restrictions, the exchange of peasant seeds remains a space of resistance and cultural reproduction. Community fairs, local networks, and ancestral knowledge sustain farmers autonomy over their seeds, without the need for institutional recognition in Brazil. However, “the State tolerates it because it considers them small initiatives, but it doesn’t support their expansion,” Naiara points out. This exclusion has concrete consequences: those who work with native seeds are excluded from credit, agricultural insurance, and public programs due to the traceability requirements imposed by the State and financial institutions.
In 2017, the government created the National Registry of Native Seed Varieties to facilitate access to the Food Acquisition Program (PAA). However, this registry also generated tensions. For some organisations, it represented progress; for others, a potential mechanism of state control that could restrict the commercialisation of native seeds. They also warned that the registries could become instruments of surveillance or persecution, especially in the face of changes in government and shifts in institutional priorities.
More recently, in October 2025, pro-agribusiness members of Congress pushed for a reform of the Cultivar Bill to align the country with the UPOV 91 rules. The proposal generated immediate rejection from farmers organisations such as the Small Farmers Movement (MPA).
On the other hand, in 2022 various peasant and Indigenous organisations in Guatemala presented Bill 6086, or the Biodiversity and Ancestral Knowledge Law, which was proposed as a legislative alternative aimed at protecting seeds, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge. The initiative sought to “defend biodiversity and ancestral knowledge from the extractive model, as well as from the plundering and dispossession by corporations and corrupt politicians,” proposing a regulatory framework that recognised this knowledge as collective heritage. Furthermore, it stipulated that its use should be governed by principles of justice and reciprocity, ensuring that the benefits would be primarily directed toward Indigenous Peoples.
However, according to organisations like REDSAG (Guatemalan Network for the Defense of Food Sovereignty), the legislative process was marked by pressure and attempts to modify its articles, introducing changes that jeopardise its fundamental principles. One example is Article 8, which states that the law does not affect the traditional exchange of protected knowledge between Indigenous and farmers communities; however, at the same time, it establishes that communities have no guarantee their seeds will not be appropriated by the State for its own use, generating uncertainty and distrust.
Furthermore, Article 15 allows communities to maintain their territorial management systems, but only “as long as they are compatible with scientific and technical standards.” This condition could facilitate the imposition of external standards that do not consider the diversity or particularity of farming practices, compromising community autonomy over their seeds and knowledge.
Article 22 opens the possibility that external legislation or international agreements could take precedence over local protection, which constitutes a threat to the sovereignty of peasant seeds and the safeguarding of ancestral knowledge against commercial or third-party interests.
Ultimately, this proposed bill was not passed by the Guatemalan Congress. In response, organisations have redirected their efforts to resist and denounce the government’s attempts to push through a Seed Law aligned with the interests of seed corporations.
The experience of Guatemalan organisations shows that even legislative initiatives designed to protect peasant and Indigenous seeds can ultimately fail to guarantee their recognition or free use. Modifications introduced in the legislative arena, often the result of corporate pressure, can distort the original intent of these proposals and transform them into threats to the rights of communities.
Defending farmers rights and their seeds essentially represents a struggle for control and autonomy. Experience in countries like Peru, Brazil, and Guatemala shows that laws and regulations, however well-intentioned, often become detached from the realities and needs of those who cultivate the land. In fact, state intervention can limit free exchange, impose inaccessible registration mechanisms, and relegate communities to the role of mere beneficiaries, while true control remains elusive.
While it is tempting to promote regulations or legislation that recognise peasant seeds as a fundamental right or as public property, recent experience shows that these initiatives are often subordinated to commercial and corporate interests. Therefore, it is more useful to focus efforts on dismantling laws that favor corporations than on creating new, supposedly protective legal frameworks that are vulnerable to capture.
In the coming years, the region will face a decisive choice: allow intellectual property to lock down agriculture and seeds, or strengthen the peasant systems that have kept alive the biodiversity upon which the world’s food supply depends. The battle over seeds in the region, far from being resolved, is only now entering its most intense phase.
[1]Personal communication with Octavio, member of ANAFAE
[2]Personal communication with Naiara, member of Terra de Direitos – Brazil
