In the Landworkers' Alliance second COP podcast we explore how Seed Sovereignty plays a vital role in the climate justice movement in conversation with Katie Hastings, a Landworkers Alliance member and also working on the Gaia Foundations Seed Sovereignty Programme, and Cidi Otieno from the Kenyan Peasants' League

Earlier this month the UK government’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs unveiled plans to deregulate gene editing techniques in the UK, claiming that deregulation & free market approaches to genetic engineering will help to protect our environment and tackle climate change.  We don’t agree, along with the majority of the public who responded to the consultation on GMOs earlier this year.  The majority of respondents recognised the risks that GMOs present to our health, our ecology and the rights and livelihoods of agroecological farmers both here in the UK and internationally.  And yet the government ploughs on.  And with Unilever as one of the official sponsors of COP … it won’t be a surprise if GMOs get strongly pushed on the COP agenda as a solution to the climate crisis.  This is not a true solution.  In this podcast we’ll focus on Seed Sovereignty and why this is a vital component of the food sovereignty and climate justice movement, helping to build ecological, social and cultural resilience in the face of the climate crisis.  

Find out more and join in at the UK Seed Sovereignty Gathering on 23rd October and at our Seed Sovereignty workshop during the COP26 Peoples' Summit gathering in Glasgow