Protect the right of small farmers to save harvested seed, replant it, and share it with neighbors
Steps to make it happen
- The law states clearly that farmers may plant the seeds they harvest from their own fields in the next year.
- Neighboring farmers can share seeds with each other without any money changing hands.
- Companies still need permission when they sell seeds of a new variety they created.
- Large farms that reuse seeds of a new variety pay a small fee.
- Sellers may not put a rule in a seed contract that says buyers cannot save seeds.
- Each region builds a seed library where people leave old local crop seeds and borrow them.
- Farmers can get simple seed tests so that crop diseases and pests do not spread.
- Small farmers saving seeds and growing local crops becomes a normal part of farming.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal clearly recognizes as a right that farmers may keep seed from crops they harvest in their own fields and plant it in their own fields in the following years, and that they may swap or give seed to other farmers without selling it for profit. It mainly covers small, family-run farms. If the land they farm or their sales fall below a set line, they can save seed without paying any fee, even for newly developed varieties. If a farm above that line reuses seed of a variety that is still within its developer's rights period, it pays the developer a fee lower than the usual price of seed, so the share of the person who created the variety is protected too. On the other hand, multiplying seed of a variety someone else developed, putting it in bags and selling it as a product still needs the developer's permission, as it does now, and is outside this proposal. Also, when a seller of seeds or seedlings makes buyers promise in a contract not to save seed, which in effect takes away a right granted by law, that promise is void. For traditional varieties handed down in a region for a long time, local people can register their names and traits, which prevents a third party from claiming them as its own invention and keeping them for itself. Public support is given to local seed libraries that collect, store and lend seeds. When seeds move across borders, or in areas where a disease has broken out, the testing rules meant to stop the spread of plant diseases and pests come first.
BenefitsEases farmers' costs and keeps crop variety alive in the fields
Because farmers do not have to buy all their seed again every year, the burden on small farms with little cash income gets lighter, and it is easier to keep planting the next season even after a bad harvest. By choosing and saving their own seed, farmers little by little select plants that can stand the heat, dryness and diseases of their land, and crops suited to the region grow. Traditional varieties keep growing in real fields and not only in cold storage, so crops with traits that are useful when the climate changes are less likely to be lost. The habit of sharing seed among neighbors also becomes a way to pass on growing knowledge and food culture, and it keeps the community connected. If traditional varieties are registered locally, the work of people who have raised them over a long time cannot be taken and kept by an outsider. In addition, fees can still be collected from large farms, so the income of people who develop varieties is not cut off entirely, and the design gives some consideration to both the will to develop varieties and the work of farmers.
DrawbacksLess investment in new varieties and more work to manage the rules
What developers worry about most is that if seed can be saved freely, sales fall and they can no longer spend money on creating new varieties. Disease-resistant and drought-tolerant varieties often take more than ten years to develop, and if that cost cannot be earned back, there may end up being fewer excellent varieties for farmers to use in the future. The line between small and large farms is also hard to draw, and it creates both attempts to look small to avoid fees and the work and cost of checking who used which variety and how much. Continued seed saving also risks letting a variety's traits slowly break down, or spreading diseases and weed seeds carried on the seed, and in regions where testing is weak, yields and quality could fall. Registering traditional varieties could cause disputes over who speaks for a region and where the border lies between an old variety and a new one. Some voices oppose limiting freedom of contract, and some point out that it is hard to fit this with international agreements that already exist.
Learn the background
For nearly ten thousand years, humans have farmed by keeping part of the harvest as seed, planting it the next season and sharing it with neighbors. Even now, in many parts of the world, it is said that most of the seed small farmers use is seed they saved themselves or got by trading. But as systems that protect the rights of people who develop new varieties have spread, there are more and more situations in which saving and sharing seed is restricted. Developing a variety takes many years and a lot of money, so a system that rewards that effort is needed. However, when the rules are built around large-scale commercial farming, farmers who cannot afford to buy seed again every year suffer, and the wide variety of crops handed down to suit local climates and soils may disappear. As the climate changes more sharply, having seeds with many different traits kept alive in the fields also works as insurance for future food. It is time to think again about how to balance the rights of developers with what farmers have always done.
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It helps pay for the server and the AI's planting
This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-15d) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes