Seed solidarity blocks harmful text in UK-India trade deal
In July 2025, the UK signed a trade deal with India, and it did not contain provisions that would have forced India to implement harmful seed laws. Transform Trade, which fights for trade that values people over profit, have claimed it as a huge win for farmers’ seed rights in India and for people power in the UK.
Transform Trade, formerly Traidcraft, had helped expose how UK trade rules are spreading restrictive laws around the world that are based on the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants 1991, or UPOV91. This obscure mechanism hands control of seeds to corporations that may market GM varieties and means that farmers can be arrested and even imprisoned for sharing and saving seeds.
With its Farmers, Food and Freedom report, Transform Trade raised awareness of the threat posed by UPOV91. Over 25,000 signed its #StopUPOV petition, which it delivered to the Minister for Trade Policy, Douglas Alexander, along with the demand to remove UPOV91 from all trade deals. When the text of the UK-India trade deal was published, UPOV was not included.
Transform Trade’s Hannah Conway said:
“The omission of a UPOV91 provision in the UK-India FTA is fantastic news for the millions of smallholder farmers in India who rely on local seed banks for their food and livelihoods. India has preserved the rights of farmers to save, exchange and sell their own seeds for generations, and that will thankfully continue.
However this does beg the question: if the UK Government can sign this FTA without pushing for strict seed laws, why must UPOV91 be included in its other trade agreements? Surely it can respect the autonomy of any country with which it trades, and recognise the importance of farmers’ seed systems in other parts of the world.”
Meanwhile Transform Trade has been working with Pahariya farmers in Jharkhand, India to support their community seed banks, which “create jobs and promote local varieties of crops”, it said. “Over the last year, Pahadiya farmers have introduced a new millet seed to their seed banks and formed a Farmer Producer Company to advocate for better prices for their produce.”
The seed banks in the Pahariya community are run by women. Photo credit: Transform Trade
But the fight against UPOV in UK trade deals is far from over: it is still part of 19 deals affecting 68 countries, according to Transform Trade.
This article first appeared in the GM Freeze newsletter, Thin Ice, issue 69.
