Report from the EU Food Justice Forum, Brussels, 9 June 2026
In a world where multinational agribusinesses increasingly treat food systems as financial markets, smallholder farmers from Zimbabwe, rice breeders from the Philippines and EU parliamentarians gathered in a Brussels conference centre on 9 June 2026. The civil society-organised EU Food Justice Forum placed one simple but politically charged argument at its centre: whoever controls the seed controls the food.
Food as a Non-Negotiable Right
The opening session left no room for ambiguity. Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated clearly that the right to adequate, safe and sustainable nutrition is not a political option but a binding human rights obligation. Gabriel Ferrero of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP) added that this right faces particular risk in an era of escalating geopolitical instability and shrinking development budgets.
The plenary sessions examined in unflinching detail how the EU’s internal and external policies, spanning the Common Agricultural Policy, development cooperation and trade agreements, structurally shape global food systems. Considerable criticism was directed at the growing financialisation of agriculture under the EU’s “Global Gateway” strategy, in which land and farming are increasingly positioned as investment vehicles for private actors, at the direct expense of food sovereignty in the Global South.
The Seed at the Heart of the Conflict
The most politically charged moment of the day unfolded in Workshop D: “Seed Diversity and Farmers’ Rights”. Here, a contradiction of fundamental importance to development policy was carefully dissected. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, up to 90 per cent of all seed used comes from farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS), which form the backbone of climate resilience and local food security.
Locardia Shayamunda, a smallholder farmer and researcher from Zimbabwe, gave a compelling account of how ongoing EPA negotiations between the EU and Zimbabwe are placing this system under severe strain. The plant variety protection standard UPOV 91, which the EU systematically seeks to impose through bilateral Economic Partnership Agreements across Africa and Asia, effectively restricts smallholder farmers from storing, exchanging or selling their own seed. For the 70 per cent of Zimbabwe’s population living in rural areas, this is not a matter of tradition but of economic survival.
Kyle, a representative of the Philippine network MASIPAG, reported that a planned EU free trade agreement threatens the collective breeding work of farmers who have developed over 2,400 rice varieties adapted to local climatic conditions. Madagascar, according to forum reports, is close to signing a comparable agreement under intense EU pressure, risking the displacement of traditional varieties by imported hybrid rice. Shayamunda summarised the structural flaw succinctly: a one-size-fits-all approach from industrial seed corporations is destined to fail in countries with highly diverse agro-ecological zones.
European Laws as a Global Template
The forum examined two current EU legislative reforms whose consequences reach far beyond Europe’s borders. Jean Thevenot, a smallholder farmer from France and member of La Via Campesina, raised alarm over the proposed Plant Reproductive Material (PRM) Regulation. The draft legislation classifies virtually all seed exchange, including non-commercial swaps between farmers for the purpose of preserving variety diversity, as a commercial transaction. A survey by the Austrian organisation ARCHE NOAH found that 30 per cent of small European farms would be forced to reduce their variety offerings under this regulatory burden, and 13 per cent would face closure altogether.
Simultaneously, New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) are set to be approved without mandatory risk assessment or labelling requirements. The development policy danger lies in the patentability of natural genetic traits: should patented genetic modifications spread into the fields of traditional farmers in the Global South, those farmers face the threat of licensing lawsuits. Italian expert Ricardo Bocci highlighted a further, often overlooked problem: many African states are currently copying outdated, restrictive EU seed laws, unaware that Europe has spent the past two decades negotiating important exemptions for conservation and organic varieties. The Global South is thus inheriting Europe’s mistakes without inheriting the hard-won flexibility that accompanied them.
From Uniformity to Diversity
The forum did not stop at diagnosis. Three clear lines of action emerged. First, participatory plant breeding (PPB): the Italian “Resilient Rice” project demonstrates that climate-resilient, non-uniform seed mixtures combining 16 rice varieties can be legally marketed whilst actively incorporating farmers’ knowledge. Second, autonomous legal frameworks: the African Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) and the African Union are developing a pan-African framework for FMSS that would legally recognise rather than criminalise farmer-managed seed. Third, a demand for genuine policy coherence: European NGOs were called upon to hold the EU to its own legal obligation regarding Policy Coherence for Development, and to insist that UPOV 91 clauses be removed from all free trade and partnership agreements.
The forum’s closing session made the overarching message plain: anyone serious about global food justice must replace the agro-industry’s world of uniformity with a world of diversity. Achieving that requires a broad alliance of peasant movements from the Global South, European civil society, researchers and politically engaged consumers.
Key Actors and Further Reading
EU Food Justice Forum
Programme, speakers and documentation from the 9 June 2026 event.
foodjusticeforum.eu
La Via Campesina
International peasant movement coordinating global resistance to UPOV 91 and seed patents.
viacampesina.org
MASIPAG (Philippines)
Philippine network for farmer-led plant breeding and rice variety diversity.
masipag.org
African Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA)
Pan-African civil society network developing an independent framework for farmer-managed seed systems.
afsafrica.org
ARCHE NOAH
Austrian organisation for the conservation of cultivated plant diversity; author of the cited survey on the impact of the PRM reform.
arche-noah.at
FIAN International
Human rights organisation focused on the right to food; supports implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP).
fian.org
IFOAM Organics Europe
European umbrella body for organic farming; active on CAP reform and PRM legislation.
ifoam-eu.org
Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP)
Multilateral fund represented at the forum by strategy adviser Gabriel Ferrero.
gafspfund.org
EU Plant Reproductive Material (PRM) Regulation
Current legislative documents from the European Commission.
ec.europa.eu
EU New Genomic Techniques (NGT) Regulation
Legislative progress and parliamentary positions.
europarl.europa.eu
UPOV Convention
Official documentation from the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants.
upov.int