Across the Philippine countryside, farmers sustain agriculture through seed saving, exchange, and farmer-led breeding. These practices support livelihoods, biodiversity, and climate resilience, while carrying forward generations of knowledge and culture. Filipino farmers have bred climate-resilient rice varieties and conserved more than 2,000 traditional plant varieties adapted to local conditions. By treating seeds as commons, they uphold systems that empower communities and advance food sovereignty.

The ongoing EU–Philippines Free Trade Agreement negotiations introduce the framework of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, which redefines seeds as private property. This framework risks the criminalization of farmers’ rights to save, exchange, and replant seeds, placing long-standing systems of stewardship under legal constraint. It also opens local genetic resources to intensified bioprospecting and biopiracy, accelerating patterns of genetic imperialism that shift control away from farming communities.

Seed sovereignty remains central to farmers’ autonomy. Through farmer-led seed commoning, communities secure access to seeds, share practical skills and breeding knowledge, and strengthen the foundations of food sovereignty. These systems are deeply tied to local and indigenous knowledge systems, which continuously evolve to respond to ecological and social needs, including the development of diverse, climate-adaptive crops that support nutrition, soil health, and community resilience.

Farmers’ rights to seeds are recognized in international human rights law. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas affirms their rights to maintain, control, protect, and develop seeds and traditional knowledge, and obliges states to respect and fulfill these rights. These are further reinforced by national commitments such as the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples and farmers over their knowledge systems and genetic resources.

The proposed alignment of national seed laws with UPOV frameworks risks subordinating these rights to a profit-oriented system that narrows the role of seeds into commodities. Such a shift undermines the dynamic relationship between farmers, seeds, and knowledge, especially in a time of climate uncertainty when diversity and adaptability are essential.

Globally, resistance to UPOV continues to grow. Social movements, Indigenous communities, and civil society organizations have challenged its adoption in countries such as Benin, Guatemala, Thailand, and Indonesia. In Honduras, the Supreme Court struck down a UPOV-based “Monsanto Law” in 2021 for violating constitutional and human rights principles. These developments reflect a broad global movement asserting farmers’ rights and resisting the privatization of seeds.

We call on the European Union and the Philippine government to remove the UPOV provision from the FTA negotiations and uphold the rights of Filipino farmers to their seeds, knowledge, and livelihoods.