{"id":10356,"date":"2026-01-08T01:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/10356\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T01:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:37:12","slug":"uk-catholic-charity-lauds-kenyas-move-to-overturn-regressive-seed-laws-pledges-to-support-sovereignty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/10356\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Catholic Charity Lauds Kenya\u2019s Move to Overturn Regressive Seed Laws, Pledges to Support Sovereignty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAfter years of campaigning, a group of farmers supported by civil society organizations, including our partner Biodiversity and Biosafety Association Kenya (BIBA Kenya), have successfully challenged Kenya\u2019s seed laws that criminalized farmers for saving their own seeds,\u201d the Catholic agency said.<\/p>\n

According to CAFOD, declaring the seed laws unconstitutional in Kenya sets \u201ca positive precedent to challenge similar laws in other countries as well as proposed new laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

The charity agency explained that the ruling in Kenya means that, without fear of prosecution, farmers in Kenya are now free not only to save their own seeds and share seeds within their communities but also to exchange and sell farmer varieties and strengthen farmer-managed seed systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a huge step towards restoring seed sovereignty, defending indigenous knowledge and protecting the heart of African agroecology, and affirms that seeds belong to farmers, communities and generations – not corporations,\u201d CAFOD said.<\/p>\n

The agency emphasized that the ruling \u201cis the result of years of campaigning, community mobilization, court battles, policy advocacy, farmer education and collective resistance against criminalization of indigenous seeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOverturning more regressive laws, such as those in Kenya, is imperative to return the rights to farmers to use their seeds to grow food,\u201d CAFOD said, and reaffirmed its long-standing efforts to challenge punitive seed laws through its Food Systems campaign.\u00a0 The agency noted that the initiative seeks \u201cto put an end to regressive seed laws that restrict, or even criminalize, smallholder farmers\u2019 access to their own seed varieties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen farmers cannot freely access their own seeds, food for their communities cannot be produced,\u201d the UK charity agency said.<\/p>\n

On the role of the World Bank in fighting against punitive seed laws, CAFOD said that the bank plays \u201ca key role in promoting these regressive seeds laws because once these laws are put in place, small farmers are forced to buy expensive commercial seeds, which are good for agri-business profit but have devastating consequences for millions of small farmers, including many of the communities that CAFOD serves.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \"Silas
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Silas Mwale Isenjia is a\u00a0Kenyan journalist with a great\u00a0zeal and interest for Catholic Church related communication. He holds a Bachelor\u2019s Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communication from Moi University in Kenya. Silas has vast experience\u00a0in the Media production industry. He currently works as a Journalist for ACI Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAfter years of campaigning, a group of farmers supported by civil society organizations, including our partner Biodiversity and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[645,647,80,646],"class_list":{"0":"post-10356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kenya","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-cna","10":"tag-kenya","11":"tag-keyword"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}