It is a story of patient, persistent advocacy — and it has ended in a landmark victory for farmers' rights.

A group of farmers supported by BIBA Kenya, working in partnership with CAFOD's Fix the Food System campaign, has successfully challenged Kenya's seed laws in court. Those laws had criminalised farmers for saving their own seeds — a practice that has sustained African agriculture for generations. The court has declared the laws unconstitutional.

The implications are significant. Farmers in Kenya are now free to save, share, exchange, and sell farmer varieties without fear of prosecution. The ruling sets a positive precedent that could be used to challenge similar laws in other countries across Africa. And it represents a major step towards restoring seed sovereignty — the right of farming communities to control their own food systems, defend indigenous knowledge, and protect African agroecology from the encroachment of corporate seed monopolies.

For CAFOD, this is a vindication of the conviction that faith-based advocacy can change the world. The Fix the Food System campaign has been working on this issue for years, and the victory in Kenya is a reminder that sustained, principled engagement with unjust laws — however slow the process — can produce real and lasting change.

Find out more at cafod.org.uk.