To highlight action points for farmers’ rights advocacy, over forty farmers, (including female farmers), extension workers, and agriculture practitioners recently attended APHD partner Caritas Pakistan’s National Consultation on Farmers’ Rights and Seed Rights on 22-23 November 2006 in Lahore.

      Farmers from the five dioceses (regions) of Pakistan (Multan, Hyderabad, Faisalabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi) actively took part in the consultation that included representatives of other NGO’s working at the grassroots in Pakistan. Included was an interface between farmers and resource persons on the current situation facing farmers, based on the impacts of WTO agreements. It was noted that with the commercialization of agriculture, and introduction of new technologies, multinational companies had started investing heavily in the Pakistan agriculture sector. The increased mechanization in agriculture has led to historic levels of maximum yields per acre, resulting from high yielding seed varieties being promoted.

      However, challenges related to certain WTO agreements severely threaten developing countries’ farmers’ rights to livelihood security, food security, and rural development. Disturbingly, Pakistani farmers are being deprived of their rights to Protecting Pakistan’s Seeds control their natural resources, and access to quality seeds. Multinational companies, it was said, are now increasing their hold on the production, development and supply of all agriculture inputs, particularly seeds. With the passage of time, farmers in developing countries are losing their control to save, sow, and exchange their seeds, and are becoming more and more dependant on these foreign corporations for basic seed production.