When the High Court struck down key sections of Kenya’s Seeds and Plant Varieties Act late last month, smallholder farmers didn’t just win a legal battle, they reclaimed a piece of their dignity.
For years, the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act (Cap 326), as amended in 2012, had threatened farmers with fines and even prison for doing what has been done freely for generations: saving, sharing and selling indigenous seeds. The court has now corrected that imbalance, affirming the farmer-managed seed systems. The community seed banks, seed fairs, and neighbour-to-neighbour exchanges that quietly feed the country are not criminal enterprises but constitutionally protected practices.
In policy lingo this is the farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS), sometimes called informal or local seed systems. Across Africa, an estimated 80–90 per cent of all seed that farmers plant still comes from farmer-managed or local systems rather than from formal seed companies.
According to analyses by the World Bank and the African Union, the so-called “informal” seed system supplies roughly 80–85 per cent of all planted seed in sub-Saharan Africa.
Most seed used by farmers is sourced informally through farm-saved seed, exchanges with neighbours, purchases in local markets, and community seed banks.
Farmer-managed seed systems are critical because they sustain hundreds of different food crops and varieties, including many “neglected and under-utilised” species that formal breeding largely overlooks.
These so-called “minor” crops include a wide range of African leafy vegetables, root crops such as yams, arrowroots and sweet potatoes, pulses like Bambara nuts, pigeon peas and cowpeas, and local cereals such as pearl millet, finger millet and sorghum.
The African Union, in its continental position on food systems, has identified these crops as “crops for the future” because of their potential to significantly contribute to climate resilience; food and nutrition security, including improved dietary diversity; sustainable, nature-positive agriculture; and social and gender inclusion.
Women play a pivotal role in the seed systems that sustain these crops, particularly within informal farmer-managed systems. They are often central to variety selection and multiplication, as well as the cleaning, storage and marketing of seed.
In this way, farmer-managed seed systems not only conserve agrobiodiversity and strengthen resilience, but also underpin women’s knowledge, agency and livelihoods in African food systems.
The AU, through the African Seed and Biotechnology Platform (ASBP) and the Cluster on Food and Nutrition Security and opportunity crops, has developed a comprehensive framework and strategy on farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS), recognising their central role in strengthening Africa’s food security and resilience.
At the heart of the framework is the legal recognition of FMSS as a distinct and legitimate seed system. It affirms farmers’ rights to save, use, exchange, and sell their own seed, acknowledging these practices as foundational to sustainable food systems rather than informal or transitional arrangements.
The framework places biodiversity and local varieties at the center of seed system development. It prioritises conservation through community seed banks and the dynamic use of local, farmer-managed varieties, including neglected and under-utilised crops. These seeds are treated as a shared commons that underpin agrobiodiversity, climate resilience, and culturally appropriate food systems.
Community-based seed production is strongly promoted as a means of increasing seed availability and affordability. By encouraging locally rooted seed enterprises and alternative quality assurance mechanisms, the framework supports seed access within farmers’ own territories, reducing dependence on distant or costly commercial seed markets.
Farmer knowledge, innovation, and experimentation are recognised as central pillars of seed system development. Farmers are acknowledged not only as seed users, but as custodians of agrobiodiversity and active breeders and innovators.
The framework promotes participatory plant breeding and joint research processes that bring farmers and scientists together to co-create locally adapted seed solutions.
Governance within the framework is intentionally inclusive and bottom-up. It encourages meaningful community participation in shaping seed policies, laws, and regulations at local, national, and regional levels.
This approach aims to safeguard farmer-managed seed systems from being undermined by restrictive intellectual property regimes, overly stringent seed laws, or trade rules that marginalise informal and traditional seed practices.
Equity and social inclusion are also integral to the framework’s vision. It emphasizes ensuring access to seed and information for marginalised and often overlooked groups, including smallholder farmers, pastoralists, Indigenous peoples, youth, and land-poor farmers, recognising their critical role in sustaining diverse seed systems.
Finally, the framework adopts a territorial and food systems approach that links seeds to local food cultures, landscapes, and markets rather than focusing solely on yield per hectare. Seed work is aligned with broader food sovereignty and right-to-food objectives, positioning farmer-managed seed systems as a cornerstone of resilient, inclusive, and culturally grounded African food systems.
Countries such as Uganda have developed national seed policies that reflect the key tenets of farmer-managed seed systems outlined above. Kenya should follow this emerging continental direction by undertaking a thorough review of its own seed laws and regulations.
Aligning policy with farmer-managed systems would not only bring Kenya in step with broader African reforms in the seed sector, but also strengthen the transformation of its food systems, supporting agrobiodiversity, climate resilience, and the rights and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, especially women, who are at the heart of seed selection, saving, exchange and local seed markets.
The writer works at The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT
