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Rows of jars of beans, sorghum, varieties of nightshade and other indigenous seeds sit neatly on wooden shelves in Gilgil’s seed bank awaiting the next planting season. Forty-three-year-old Beatrice farms in Gilgil, in Nakuru County, and also manages a community seed bank, a locally run initiative that stores indigenous seeds for replanting and sharing within the community. Beatrice and other farmers in the area stopped using commercial seeds after being introduced to indigenous varieties by the Seed Savers Network, a local organization.
“Commercial seeds cannot be reused. We need to buy new ones every season and we can’t always afford them. Now that I use indigenous seeds, I no longer need to buy seeds. I’m ready to plant as soon as the rain comes, and I save a lot of money,” says Beatrice. “I also have access to more varieties: we have ten types of beans and five types of nightshades in our community seed bank,” she adds. “And I’ve noticed I don’t need to use as much pesticide anymore. These varieties are more resistant to diseases than commercial seeds.”
Yet in the eyes of the law, Beatrice and her fellow farmers are criminals. In Kenya, the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act criminalizes the saving, exchange, and sale of traditional or uncertified seeds by smallholder farmers. Introduced in 1973 and amended in 2012 and 2016, the law has grown increasingly rigid and protective of commercial plant breeders. Although no farmer has yet been charged, they risk up to two years in prison and a fine of up to one million Kenyan shillings (US$7,740).
The Act requires seeds to be registered in order to be sold or used. Registration functions like a patent: it grants the owner exclusive rights to produce, sell, and distribute the registered variety. But the registration process is long, complex, and prohibitively expensive. It includes a characterization test (to prove the seed is a distinct variety) and a National Performance Trial (to test yield, adaptation, and agronomic performance). NPT alone costs up to KSh550,000 Kenyan (US$4,000), a sum most smallholder farmers cannot afford.
Daniel Wanjama, director of the Seed Savers Network, likens this to the “doctrine of discovery” during colonial times. Indigenous seeds and plant varieties only begin to “exist” legally once the state or breeders register them, sidelining centuries of farmers’ stewardship. “They have given away farmers’ varieties by somehow facilitating biopiracy,” he says.
While cases of biopiracy in Kenya are believed to be numerous, few have been formally documented, highlighting the urgent need for investigation and record-keeping. One case involves a bacterial strain collected in Ruiru that was later developed by Bayer for cancer research, with no benefits returning to the community. In Baringo, scientists extracted the Thermus thermophilus enzyme from hot springs, which was later patented and used commercially abroad without local involvement. And in Mount Kenya, the bark of Prunus africana (known as Mũiri in central Kenya), long used by communities to treat prostate ailments, was commercialized by a French entrepreneur who made millions exporting it for pharmaceutical use, again without any benefit-sharing.
The government argues the law is meant to prevent the circulation of low-quality seeds. But behind the scenes, industrialized countries and seed companies have applied heavy pressure for restrictive protections of plant varieties to be put in place. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, agrochemical giants like Monsanto, Syngenta, and Pioneer lobbied during international trade negotiations for plant variety protection to be included under intellectual property rights. This resulted in all World Trade Organization (WTO) members being required to introduce plant variety protection provisions in their national law.
In 2012, under strong pressure from industrialized countries and seed companies, Kenya amended its seed law to mirror the 1991 version of the Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 1991), an international treaty that significantly tightened plant breeders’ rights by restricting farmers’ practices such as saving, exchanging, and replanting seeds without authorization. “The Kenyan Seed and Plant Varieties Act is a copy-paste of UPOV 1991,” says Dominic, Advocacy Officer at Seed Savers Network. “Under this law, breeders can legally take action against farmers if they are not happy with what the farmers do with the seed.” This law was adopted in Kenya despite the “sui generis” option under WTO rules that allows countries to customize international treaties to suit their national context – for example, to accommodate traditional knowledge and the needs of local communities.
Foreign donors also exerted pressure to modernize Kenya’s seed sector for commercial agriculture. AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa), a 2006 multimillion-dollar donor programme backed primarily by the Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations and headquartered in Nairobi, conditioned financial support on seed systems reform and input subsidies. Other donor programmes followed suit. Kenyan politicians facilitated this shift by rolling out programmes that distributed hybrid seeds for free or at subsidized rates while maintaining financial and political ties with agrochemical companies.
A recent investigation by Lighthouse Reports uncovered that a US-funded entity called v-Fluence, and its private network, Bonus Eventus, actively worked to soften Kenya’s stance on pesticides and GMOs by maintaining deep ties with government officials, including a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture and a former head of the National Biosafety Authority. According to the investigation, Bonus Eventus has compiled detailed information of around 500 campaigners, scientists, and environmentalists perceived to be working against agrichemical interests.
Indigenous seeds remain crucial to Kenyan farmers and consumers. On top of being more affordable for smallholder farmers, they provide access to diverse crop varieties and more nutritious foods. While hybrid commercial seeds can produce higher yields under ideal conditions and with heavy inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation), being adapted to local soils, indigenous seeds are more resilient to drought, pests, and diseases. Research also shows that commercial seeds contribute to monoculture and a decline in agrobiodiversity.
“Back then, when our parents were young, they farmed without pesticides. I remember maize of different colours – reddish, yellow, black – and many varieties of beans. When I was introduced to seed saving a few years ago, I realized my parents had also conserved seeds after harvest,” recalls Beatrice. The decline started with the Green Revolution and the rise of modern agricultural paradigms that were first promoted by the colonial administration and later by the independent state. The Green Revolution emphasized input-intensive production that generated high yields but created dependency on seed companies and agrochemical suppliers while reducing crop diversity. Kenya was one of the first African countries to introduce hybrid maize breeding.
Commercial seeds often create more work for farmers and increase the need for chemicals. They are often sold together with the associated pesticides, and many cannot perform without them. Kenyan farmers now use significantly more pesticides than their neighbours in Tanzania and Uganda – including Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) that are banned in the European Union – without any evidence of higher productivity. Imports of pesticides in Kenya more than doubled between 2015 and 2018.
Other African countries have implemented plant variety protection more flexibly, recognizing the rights of farmers in using their seeds. Tanzania’s “Quality Declared Seed (QDS) System” allows small-scale farmers (up to five acres) to produce, declare, and sell seed locally at the ward level. However, farmers’ seeds must still undergo a registration and certification process, meaning that the system falls short of fully protecting traditional seed practices. Uganda’s Plant Variety Protection Act of 2014 recognizes community breeders and farmer-developed varieties, offering a more inclusive approach. Uganda also invests in local support, with many extension officers on the ground verifying seed quality – making the system more farmer-friendly in practice.
In Kenya, however, indigenous seed-saving remains legally precarious. While no farmer has yet been fined or jailed, the law leaves a loophole for abuse and sows confusion amongst farmers. Informal seed systems such as farm harvests, local markets, and seed sharing supply around 80 per cent of seeds in Kenya, meaning that the law threatens the bulk of the market. It also frames conserving and reusing indigenous seeds as archaic or unproductive. Farmers have reported cases of pressure from KEPHIS, the agency responsible for seed quality control, but these remain anecdotal and largely undocumented.
In 2022, Beatrice and 14 other farmers decided to sue the government over the law, which they consider unfair. The Law Society of Kenya and Greenpeace are interested parties in the case. The first case was filed in July 2022 at the High Court in Machakos. The initial hearing, scheduled for February 5, was postponed to May 20 due to a change of judge.
“The design of the case mainly relies on the fact that some provisions from this act are at odds with Article 11(3)(b) of the Kenyan Constitution, which requires the State to recognize and protect the ownership of indigenous seeds and plant varieties, their genetic and diverse characteristics, and their use by Kenyan communities,” explains Dominic. The lawsuit also argues that the Act undermines other constitutional rights, including equality (Art. 27), property (Art. 40), privacy (Art. 31), fair administrative action (Art. 47), public participation (Art. 118), and the sovereignty of the people (Art. 1). “The goal is to get a Court interpretation on farmers’ rights, because it’s important for communities to know whether they are legally allowed to continue practices that have existed for centuries,” says Dominic.
Beyond the Constitution, the lawsuit also highlights Kenya’s breach of its international commitments: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which requires benefit-sharing from genetic resources, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which guarantees farmers’ rights to save, use, and exchange seeds.
A similar battle has already played out abroad. In Canada, farmer Percy Schmeiser was taken to court by Monsanto after reusing patented canola seeds from his harvest. While Canada’s Plant Breeders’ Rights Act recognizes the “farmers’ privilege” to reuse seed for their own crops, Monsanto’s patents explicitly prohibit the saving of seed that it has produced. The Canadian Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that Schmeiser had infringed Monsanto’s patent by reusing Roundup Ready canola seeds without a license. Although the Court decided Monsanto was not entitled to damages, the ruling upheld seed patents and restricted farmers from reusing patented seeds, even for personal planting. The case set a precedent that patents can trump farmers’ rights – a warning that mirrors the concerns raised by Kenyan farmers today.
Ultimately, these cases highlight the importance of indigenous seeds for food security and sovereignty. Increasing corporate control over seeds risks rendering food production dependent on a handful of companies. “One kilogram of tomato seeds is more expensive than one kilogram of gold. If people can’t afford seeds, they can’t afford to grow food, and this will worsen food insecurity in the country,” says Wanjama. “What we are really fighting against is hunger,” says Beatrice. The battle over seeds is not only a legal struggle. It is a struggle for the future of Kenya’s food system. If farmers lose the right to their seeds, they lose the foundation of their livelihoods, and the country loses its resilience against hunger and climate change. The final ruling on the case is expected on the 27th of November 2027.
Editor’s Note:
A high court in Kenya on 27 November 2025 declared unconstitutional sections of a seed law that prevented farmers from sharing and selling indigenous seeds in what food campaigners have called a landmark win for food security. The ruling decriminalizes the age-old practice of saving, sharing, and exchanging indigenous seeds, affirming that farmer-managed seed systems are a protected right rather than a criminal activity. The court also struck down provisions granting sweeping powers to seed inspectors to raid community seed banks and seize seeds, and provisions that gave broad proprietary rights to plant breeders while limiting farmers’ rights. The decision restores seed autonomy to millions of smallholder farmers across Kenya and is celebrated as a significant victory for food sovereignty and community resilience.
