The FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) recognises the rights of farmers to use, save, sell and exchange their own seeds. A right reaffirmed by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).

Crocevia has been campaigning for years at the national, European and international level for these collective rights to be respected and integrated in a binding way into national legislations. In this battle, we stand in defence of peasant agroecology against GMOs and other attempts to privatise genetic resources by the seed industry, research and industrial agriculture. We follow the negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity and of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources (CGRFA), supporting the participation of food sovereignty movements in these spaces.

In Italy and Europe we fight to stop the advance of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) through a networked campaign with European and Italian organisations and movements. We carry out investigations and advocacy against New Genomic Techniques (NGT), the new GMOs. We focus on criticising the risks of seed privatisation linked to a deregulation of these organisms. Linked to patents and other forms of intellectual property, in fact, the new GMOs allow companies to obtain exclusive ownership of genetic resources for agriculture, violating farmers’ rights.