This past summer marked a significant development in the global trade regime, where details were finalized for a potential transformation of African agriculture. A pending draft protocol on intellectual property rights, supported by the trade organizations behind the African Continental Free Trade Area, aims to establish a proprietary and punitive model of food cultivation for all 54 African nations. This model seeks to replace traditional farming practices and traditions that have existed on the continent for centuries.
A key target of this initiative is the recognized human right of farmers to save, share, and cultivate seeds and crops based on their personal and community needs. The protocol, however, seeks to prioritize corporate property rights over local seed management, and it represents the latest battleground in a global struggle over the future of food. Based on draft laws created more than three decades ago in Geneva by Western seed companies, these new agricultural reforms aim to introduce legal and financial penalties across the African Union for farmers who do not adopt foreign-engineered seeds protected by patents, including genetically modified versions of native seeds. This shift would transform African farming into a lucrative opportunity for global agribusiness, promote export-oriented monocultures, and undermine resilience at a time when climate disruption is intensifying.
The architects of this new seed economy include major seed and biotech firms, their sponsoring governments, as well as numerous nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. In recent years, this alliance has strategically worked to expand and strengthen intellectual property restrictions around seeds, often under the banner of “climate-smart agriculture.” While this phrase implies practical, climate-driven improvements to food production, it masks a far more complex and contentious effort to reengineer global farming to benefit biotech and agribusiness, rather than African farmers or the climate.
