Farmers Rights at Crossroads: SKI at the 11th Governing Body meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in Lima
In November 2025, SKI’s Farmers’ Rights campaign anchored by the slogan “Our Seeds. Our Rights. Our Lives.” made its mark again on the global stage at the 11th Governing Body meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in Lima, Peru. SKI partners, farmers and researchers from all 4 countries travelled to Lima to share SKI’s valuable lessons in securing farmers rights in practice across our region – amidst unsupportive laws – and how crucial these rights are to scaling agroecology, transforming food systems and addressing the climate crisis.
Over the course of the meeting, SKI hosted and presented in seven side events and deepened collaboration with allies in the Civil Society Organization (CSO) Forum, contributing to official negotiations and country delegate positions. The highlight, however, came during the opening ceremony, when SKI Youth Representative Mavis Gofa from Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers’ Forum (ZIMSOFF) reminded delegates that:
“Peasant and Indigenous seed systems are the foundation of our food systems, our heritage is not a relic of the past; it is a repository of solutions for the future.”
She emphasized that seeds are not merely genetic material but the basis of life itself, calling for recognition of Farmers Rights as collective human rights.
In SKI’s official side event, “Southern Africa Experience on Farmers’ Rights and Agroecology” SKI partners including the University of Cape Town (UCT), Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT), Zambia Alliance for Agrobiodiversity and Agroecology (ZAAB) and Biodiversity Conservation Initiative (BCI) shared evidence evidence from SKI’s transformatory and collaborative approaches making Farmers Rights a reality, and a potent reminder why this collective work is so important in current global contexts.
In Mavis’s poignant words from the world stage: “Let us cultivate a future where every policy and every plate of food reflect our shared commitment—to life, to heritage, and to future generations. The future I envisage is anchored on women and youth- who are the farmers and the future” (Mavis Gofa, small-scale farmer from Mutoko, Zimbabwe).
