On 23-26 June, I participated in the Sixth meeting of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Farmers’ Rights at the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation in Rome, Italy. 

As a group of experts, our task was to discuss and provide advice on the Assessment on the State of Implementation of Farmers’ Rights and finalise a draft Strategy for Options to Implement Farmers’ Rights. At that meeting last June, the IPC’s main objective was to ensure that the Assessment included limitations on implementing Article 9, and we managed to get this proposal through.

This year’s meeting was a lot more hands-on, as we needed to go through the draft Assessment text and ensure that limitations and lack of national progress were not glossed over in the report, particularly since the primary source for the Assessment comes from national reports submitted by the Contracting Parties. 

We also proposed that future assessments and the list of options must include reference to the impact of DSI on farmers’ rights, as this has emerged as a crosscutting theme in the Open-Ended Working Group on the Multilateral System, which the IPC is also involved in. Finally, there was also much debate among experts about the future of the AHTEG, with the IPC, GRULAC and Africa all in support of proposing a draft mandate to the Governing Body to make the AHTEG a permanent group. We had significant push back from some European experts on this, and I suspect this will continue during the Governing Body in Lima, Peru this November.

While the meetings were intense, it was wonderful to catch up with comrades from Italy, Mexico, Mali and Bolivia. At dinner, we discussed the importance of bringing the Treaty back to our movements on home soil, to ensure that small-scale farmers understand the significance of their Treaty on their right to use, exchange, and sell their seeds.

If you’re interesting in joining AFSA’s Seed Working Group, please get in touch!