When big agribusiness teams up with international aid organizations to corner the market on seeds, everyone loses.

A secretive conference, co-organised by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), one of the world’s largest donors, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) takes place in London today, 23 March 2015.

The meeting bears the ludicrously long sobriquet ‘Multiple Pathways for Promoting the Commercial and Sustainable Production and Delivery of Early Generation Seed of Food Crops in Sub-Saharan Africa.’ To give it a more succinct description, this is a meeting where corporations will discuss how to increase their control of the global seed sector.

The list of invited participants reads like a roll call for some of the most renowned actors in the agribusiness world. Syngenta (the world’s third biggest seed and biotechnology company), and its ‘greenwashing’ relative, the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, will make an appearance, as well as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and donor organisations like the UK’s Department for International Development and The World Bank.

The invite list is entirely made up of corporations, development agencies and aid donors. Not a single farmer organisation was invited. But then, why invite a farmer organisation when your aim is helping companies sell new seed varieties?

From what we’ve seen of the pre-meeting documents that were circulated, the aim of the conference will be to share findings of a report by Monitor Deloitte on developing the commercial seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa.

The neoliberal agenda and food sovereignty

The report recommends that in countries where demand for patented seeds is weaker (i.e. where farmers are using their own seed saving networks), public-private partnerships should be developed so that private companies are protected from ‘investment risk’. It also recommends that that NGOs and aid donors should encourage governments to introduce intellectual property rights for seed breeders and help to persuade farmers to buy commercial, patented seeds rather than relying on their own traditional varieties.

Finally, in line with the broader neoliberal agenda of agribusiness companies across the world, the report suggests that governments should remove regulations (like export restrictions) so that the seed sector is opened up to the global market.

This neoliberal agenda of deregulation and privatisation, currently promoted in almost every sphere of human activity – from food production to health and education – poses a serious threat to food sovereignty and the ability of food producers and consumers to define their own food systems and policies.

The two organisations organising the conference, BMGF and USAID, are two of the main driving forces behind the adoption of commercial, patented seeds among poor farmers in Africa. When seed markets are dominated by a handful of companies selling their patented seeds, farmers’ ability to save, exchange and sell their own seed varieties is threatened.