Why the question of seeds and land matters the most to small-holder farmers.
Land and seeds means life to indigenous/rural communities, it should be free from dependency, because no one grows food on air.

African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) in partnership with Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) and Southern African People’s Solidarity Network (SAPSN) hosted a regional farmer speak out, seminar and strategy session on Farm Input Subsidy Programmes (FISPs) as part of the SADC People’s Summit by SAPSN to coincide with the SADC Heads of State Summit in Windhoek, Namibia, on 15–17 August 2018.
RWA and SAPSN mobilized members from around the region to discuss a range of issues, including women and land, the FISPs, democracy, governance and human rights, youth empowerment and participation, economic justice, gender justice and empowerment, climate change, environmental justice and natural resources governance, social services delivery and mining and extractives.

A list of welcoming messages from member countries were artistically well presented noting the necessity to restore our indigenous seeds amid increasing pressure from Multinational Corporations to deprive smallholder farmers of their right to share and use their seeds. These messages were as follows.
From Zambia ‘’Monsanto, Monsanto what have we done for you, where do you come from, we don’t want you, Africa is not for sale, we do not want your seeds, you are destroying our land, please go away, why do you want us to be poor, see our indigenous seeds, they are delicious, rich in nutrients, why do you want to destroy it and take from us, is it because it produces more nutrients? We say no and please go away”.
From Zimbabwe “Seed Co, Seed Co you are destroying us, you are a parasite, sucking our blood and leaving us poor and poorer, you want to use our indigenous seeds, the sorghum seed, that gives us energy, not easily affected by climate change, it resist droughts and floods, so Seed Co go to where you came from and leave Africa with sovereignty in food systems’’.
From Lesotho “Ooh Monsanto and Syngenta what have we done as Africans to deserve your cruelty, why are you destroying our seeds, our seeds is our life, we can’t live without it, please leave us alone, go away and stay away from Africa”.
From Swaziland ‘’Shame to you Monsanto, you have taken away our indigenous sesame seeds, it is no more African, it is in supermarket, and it is sold to people who don’t know what it is and where it came from, help me, help Africans to bring back the sesame seeds, because it very rich in protein, it protects the skin for women, bring back our African seeds’’.
From Mauritius ‘’Multinational companies please stop pushing us to mono-culture, you have corruptly lobbed our government to grant you permission to practice fishing throughout the coast and now we citizens do no longer have access to Tuna fish, Also you have developed aquaculture in our sees by which it poisons water and you are using genetically foods to feed the fish and this has caused diseases to fish and sea water users. Now local communities have to import fish to eat and therefore locals have lost employment opportunities. Let’s all say no to capitalism a very exploitative system of life’’.
From Namibia ‘’Monsanto, you have been encouraging us to join you in your multinational projects, we say no to you because we know who we are and what we stand for. We are rural women, farmers and pastoralists, guardians of land and seeds, we have our own seeds which are connected to our fore grandfathers and mothers, we know how to keep and solve its challenges, you want to modify them and give us GMO’s we say No to GMO’s, our parents taught us how to grow our own seeds, If you want to help us or join us please make a peanut butter form our groundnuts so that we eat health foods free from GMO’s don’t encourage us to destroy our seeds, but ask us what we want and we can put our ideas. We say No to GMO’s; we know our rights and how to protect them”.
From Tanzania ‘’we are guardians of life, land and seeds, there has been on-going scientific research about GMO’s in Tanzania I ask the government of Tanzania and those who funded the project is GMO a smallholder farmers need? Why are you not addressing farmer’s key challenges? Why are you investing in things that are jeopardizing smallholder farmers’ sovereignty? Please do research on indigenous seeds from smallholder farmers that come from about 120 tribes across Tanzania’’.
Discussions were conducted and raised key concerns from member countries on the challenges of FISPs. These includes high reliance to multinational donor companies on FISPs programs for which it deprive smallholder farmers of resilient food systems when at times when donations will be no more. Therefore government is highly encouraged to invest on biological farmers’ pesticides produced by farmers themselves. Creation of dependency syndrome to small-holder farmers on seeds from multinational companies (Monsanto, Syngenta) that generates billions of dollars from seeds sold to small-holder farmers. These multinational companies extract values from soil, environment and labour power from Africa and across the world.
Participants further revealed that FISPs programs rely on donor funds indebted to poor countries for which are levied with conditions. FISPs program deepens debt into our countries while at the same time Multinational Companies focuses on commodity foods without taking into considerations the nutrients composed in it.
After a thoroughly discussions of FISPs challenges a turn was given to provides key and ‘practical alternatives’ to FISPs programs in member countries. To mention few participants mentioned awareness provision through organised meetings and movements where possible by urging smallholder farmers associations to encourage farmer to farmer exchange of knowledge and skills on land and seeds. Also some noted alliance creation from consumer groups, indigenous seed groups and land advocates as an inclusive and workable solution. It is with these alliances that it becomes easier to influence policy changes because of massive supports from different groups of interests.

Agro-ecology seemed the most desirable alternative to small-holder farmers. Its practices like agro-forestry, botanic pesticides and bio-fertilizer/manure seemed to create sovereignty to small-holder farmers and rural communities at large. Capacity building to small-holder farmers to have seed banks in their local associations for easy sharing and exchange of knowledge about seeds.
SADC 2018 People’s Summit discussions on climate change, environmental justice and natural resources governance.
The meetings and discussions was attended by 600 delegates from across SADC attended the event that comprised a body of social movements, comprising of grassroots and non-governmental organisations. The theme was ‘’reclaiming SADC for social, economic and political justice, free movement and use of natural resources for youth employment, affordable land and housing for all’’.
SADC people’s summit discussed several concerns; including climate change emanated by multinational company’s emission of toxic gases and that it should not be used as a reason to demise indigenous communities from using their traditional seeds and knowledge. Small-holder farmers were urged to stand firm to defend their knowledge and traditions on seed and land.
Participants in the meeting discussed and recommended that smallholder farmers should question where the food and water they eat and drink does come from? This came as a practical example in order to have a ‘’walk the talk’ movement and dialogue on smallholder farmers sovereignty on food, seed, land and all natural resources.
SADC Heads of State were urged to encourage and be concerned with climate change challenges, environmental justice by encouraging agro-ecology, and considering needs of smallholder farmers in rural communities, fair natural resources governance and utilization. The governments should let the free movement of people prevail to all SADC citizens without restrictions of visa requirements.
In marking the end of the seminar, a peaceful march was held to city centre where the resolutions were read and the ten (10) delegates chosen to present the resolutions to 38th SADC Heads of State meeting in Windhoek, Namibia.