Farmer rights to seeds for food and livelihood security: building more resilient agrifood systems

9:00-12:00 CEST

The workshop aims at raising the profile of farmers’ rights to seeds demonstrating their multiple benefits as well as sharing options for encouraging, guiding, and promoting the realization of these rights on national levels.   

The programme, moderated by Carolina Rizzi Starr, FAO agricultural officer and Anna Kanshieva FAO biodiversity specialist, will include the following agenda items: 

Opening by Raimund Jehle, FAO Regional Programme Leader

Regional seed systems programme in Europe and Central Asia by Zsuzsanna Keresztes, FAO

Plenary 1. Farmers’ rights to seeds: international policy framework, with speakers:  

• Gordana Duric, University of Banja Luka on Multilateral agreements related to seeds; 
• Sangeeta Shashikant, Third World Network, on UPOV-91 and the impacts on farmers right to seeds;   
• Christophe Golay, Geneva Academy, on Humans' rights and the rights to seed (UNDROP);
• Titilayo Adebola, Senior Advisor to the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, on the Farmers Rights and SDG Targets: Linking Agriculture and Agroecology; 
• Mario Marino, ITPGRFA Secretariat, on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the farmers’ rights;  
• Andrea Ferrante, Schola Campesina, on the demand for seeds policies focusing on small farmers' needs.

Plenary 2. International experience on seed policies’ harmonisation, with speakers: 

• Fulya Batur, European Coordination for Let's Liberate Diversity, on the EU reform towards the new seed marketing legislation;  
• Hans Martin Lorenzen, Agricultural and Rural Convention 2020 (ARC2020), presenting the case of Denmark;  
• Co-existing formal and farmers’ seeds system – the Brazilian case;  
• Azamat Mukashev, expert, presenting the case of Kyrgyzstan;  
• Viaceslav Grigorița, Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry, presenting the case of the Republic of Moldova.
  

Second-day panel discussions will present country cases, with speakers: 

• Anzor Maisuradze, heritage wheat producer, Mariam Jorjadze, Elkana, from Georgia; 
• Riccardo Bocci, Rete semi rurali, Fabio Aranzulla, Luca Cinquemani, Aterraterra, from Italy; 
• Gulya Amankulova, Dyikan Muras Seed-Savers Network, Aida Jamangulova, Agency for Development Initiatives, from Kyrgyzstan; 
• Guy Kastler, European Coordination Via Campesina’s Seeds Working Group, Cyrille Pacteau, Le Réseau Semences Paysannes, from France; 
• Oxana Guzun & Ana Benoliel Coutinho, Grădina Moldovei, from the Republic of Moldova; 
• Ivanna Bilous, Nasivanky family farm, Yulia Pitenko, Tykha yizha Ukrayiny, from Ukraine. 

Closing by the Council of the EU Presidency 

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