Draft Seeds Bill 2025 Poised to Increase Cost of Cultivation by Allowing Corporates to Indulge in Predatory Pricing of Seeds; All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)
Draft Seeds Bill 2025 Poised to Increase Cost of Cultivation by Allowing Corporates to Indulge in Predatory Pricing of Seeds; All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)
New Delhi, Nov 17
The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) condemns the anti-farmer, pro-corporate draft Seeds Bill 2025 introduced by the RSS-BJP-led NDA Government. The Seeds Bill is part of the larger political project of the RSS-BJP to dispossess the small farmers and surrender India’s seed sovereignty to a handful of multinational and domestic monopolies.
AIKS notes that the RSS-BJP-led NDA government is pushing this extremely pro-corporate bill at a time when the agrarian crisis is deepening in India. Several scientific studies have established that increasing corporate control on agriculture would intensify the agrarian crisis and farm suicides. The draft Bill has the necessary ingredients to accelerate the squeezing and looting of the peasantry. For instance, it would create a conducive atmosphere for the monopolies to indulge in predatory pricing of seeds.
AIKS is of the firm opinion that any new legislation regarding seeds — such as the draft Seeds Bill 2025 — must actively complement, not conflict with, the progressive legal safeguards already established under the PPVFR (Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Right) Act 2001, and India’s international commitments under the CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) and the ITPGRFA (International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture). These national and international commitments collectively uphold national sovereignty over genetic resources and protect indigenous varieties. They thus recognize farmers as breeders, conservers and rightful custodians of biodiversity with guaranteed rights to save, use, exchange and sell seeds.
In contrast, the draft Seeds Bill 2025 introduces a heavily centralized and corporatized regulatory system that risks weakening farmer-centered protection and diluting India’s legal architecture for biodiversity conservation and farmers’ rights. The draft appears to favour market control and stringent formalization of seed systems, potentially marginalizing indigenous varieties, public institutions and national/international seed networks. To be precise, the new draft of the Seeds Bill 2025 draws India’s regulatory architecture on seeds substantially away from the provisions of the PPVFR Act 2001 and actively shifts the balance in the seed sector in favour of big corporate players.
AIKS calls upon the peasantry and all other democratic forces to unite and launch a massive struggle against this anti-national, anti-peasant and anti-people Bill. This struggle is crucial for the survival of the Indian peasantry
