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How BRICS Is Revolutionizing Global Seed Systems
Sustainability · Seed and Genetics
How BRICS Is Revolutionizing Global Seed Systems
Of all the agricultural inputs, seed is where BRICS has been weakest – and where 2026 moved furthest. Fertilizer and crop protection are commodity industries the bloc already dominates. Seed is different: it is a knowledge industry, protected by intellectual property, concentrated in a handful of multinationals, and slow to change. The instruments agreed in New Delhi will not overturn that in a season. What they may do is give member countries something they have not had – a shared route to varieties bred for their own conditions.
Key takeaways
- A small number of multinational firms control the majority of the commercial global seed market. This is the imbalance BRICS is responding to.
- BRICS AGRIN – the Agro-Inputs, Genetic Resources and Information Network – is the central instrument, covering seeds, planting material and germplasm alongside fertilizers and bio-inputs.
- A Global Forum on Farmers’ Rights in Seed Systems was also agreed, addressing the friction between farmers’ rights and plant breeders’ rights.
- The provision with the most direct field value is multi-location variety trialling across very different growing conditions.
- All of it is voluntary and coordinated rather than binding. Seed systems change over a decade, not a season.
The problem BRICS is responding to
Commercial seed is one of the most consolidated inputs in agriculture. A handful of multinational firms account for the clear majority of the global market, and the genetics that matter most – hybrid vigour, disease resistance packages, trait stacks – sit inside proprietary breeding programmes.
For much of the Global South this produces a specific, practical problem rather than an abstract one. Varieties are largely bred for the conditions and market requirements of the regions where the breeding companies concentrate their programmes. A hybrid selected under temperate conditions with reliable rainfall and neutral-pH soil does not necessarily perform on a calcareous soil at pH 8.2 with saline irrigation water and forty-degree heat during grain fill.
Growers in Egypt, North Africa and the Gulf know this from experience. The catalogue rarely matches the constraint.
What was actually agreed in 2026
Under India’s chairship, BRICS agriculture ministers put forward a set of instruments that reached the summit in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September. Three are directly relevant to seed.
- BRICS AGRINThe Agro-Inputs, Genetic Resources and Information Network. A voluntary, farmer-centred framework covering seeds and planting material, plant genetic resources, fertilizers, bio-inputs and crop protection inputs, working through information exchange, shared learning and mutually agreed arrangements consistent with national law.
- A Global Forum on Farmers’ Rights in Seed SystemsA standing venue for policy discussion and knowledge sharing on farmers’ rights, coordinated initially through India’s plant variety protection authority. Its stated purpose includes addressing the interface between farmers’ rights and plant breeders’ rights.
- Multi-location variety triallingEmbedded within AGRIN: technical cooperation and trials of crop varieties under different growing conditions across member states. This is the least headline-worthy provision and the most agronomically useful.
The framing also references the international treaty machinery that already governs genetic resource exchange, including the multilateral system for plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and its standard material transfer agreement. In other words, this is designed to run alongside existing treaties rather than replace them.
Farmers’ rights and breeders’ rights: the real argument
The Global Forum exists because two legitimate principles collide.
| Plant breeders’ rights | Farmers’ rights | |
|---|---|---|
| Core claim | Developing a variety takes years and capital, and deserves protected commercial return | Farming communities conserved and improved the genetic base that breeding programmes draw on |
| Practical form | Restrictions on saving, reusing, exchanging or selling protected seed | The right to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed, and to share in benefits |
| Where it bites | Without protection, investment in breeding for smaller markets does not happen | Without the right to save seed, smallholders lose independence and local adaptation slows |
India has legislated a distinctive position on this for years, recognising farmers as both cultivators and breeders. Exporting that framing into a multilateral forum is the substance of what was agreed, and it is a genuine departure from the direction international seed law has travelled.
Why multi-location trials matter more than the declarations
If a single provision here changes yields in this region, it is this one – and it gets almost no attention.
A variety trialled only in its country of origin carries limited information for a grower elsewhere. Testing the same material across the Nile Delta, the Brazilian cerrado, the Indo-Gangetic plain, Ethiopian highlands and Gulf desert agriculture generates something a catalogue never can: performance data under stress conditions that resemble your own.
The constraints that matter here are specific and shared across the region:
- Salinity tolerance under irrigation water that is marginal and getting worse.
- Performance on high-pH calcareous soils, particularly the ability to acquire iron, zinc and phosphorus when soil chemistry locks them.
- Heat tolerance during flowering and grain fill, where a few days above a threshold decide the yield.
- Water use efficiency at a fixed allocation rather than a fixed area.
Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, India and Brazil between them cover an enormous range of these stresses. A shared trialling network is a slow instrument, but it is aimed at the right target.
What “revolutionizing” overstates
Worth saying plainly, because the coverage will not. These frameworks are voluntary, unfunded in any announced sense, and coordinated rather than binding. There is no BRICS seed company, no shared variety catalogue and no mechanism to compel a member to accept another’s genetics.
Seed systems also move slowly by nature. From a cross to a commercially available variety is commonly eight to twelve years, and building the institutional capacity behind that – breeding programmes, testing networks, certified seed multiplication, distribution – takes longer still. Nothing agreed in September 2026 changes what a grower can plant in 2027.
The honest assessment: this is the beginning of infrastructure, not a result. Whether it becomes real depends on whether members fund national breeding programmes and actually share material under the arrangements they signed.
What a grower should take from this now
- Select for your binding constraint, not for headline yieldIf salinity or heat during grain fill is what limits your field, a variety with a higher trial yield under unstressed conditions will underperform one bred for the stress.
- Buy certified seed and check the germination dateSeed quality is the cheapest yield insurance available and the most frequently neglected. Poor establishment cannot be corrected later by nutrition.
- Match the nutrition programme to the varietyModern high-yielding material removes more nutrient per hectare and often has a sharper demand curve. Feeding a new hybrid on an old programme wastes the genetics you paid for.
- Trial before you convertTwo or three blocks against your standard variety, same management, one season. Regional trial data is a guide; your field is the test.
- Record what actually happenedVariety, sowing date, establishment count, stress events, yield. Three seasons of your own data outranks any catalogue.
Genetics set the ceiling on what a field can produce. Nutrition and water decide how close you get to it. On the calcareous, low-organic-matter soils common across this region, the gap between the two is usually where the money is – the reasoning is set out in farming calcareous soils and our micronutrients guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is BRICS AGRIN?
The Agro-Inputs, Genetic Resources and Information Network, agreed under India’s 2026 chairship. It is a voluntary, farmer-centred framework for cooperation on seeds, planting material, germplasm, fertilizers, bio-inputs and crop protection, covering information exchange, technical cooperation and multi-location variety trials.
Will BRICS create a shared seed catalogue or a joint seed company?
Nothing of that kind has been agreed. The instruments are coordination mechanisms – shared information, shared trialling, a policy forum. National registration and variety approval remain entirely national.
What is the difference between farmers’ rights and plant breeders’ rights?
Plant breeders’ rights protect a developer’s commercial return in a new variety, typically by restricting saving and resale of protected seed. Farmers’ rights assert the entitlement of farming communities to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed and to share in the benefits of the genetic diversity they conserved. The new BRICS forum exists to work on that interface.
Will this make seed cheaper in Egypt?
Not in any near term. Nothing agreed affects pricing or import duty. The plausible long-run benefit is better availability of varieties actually adapted to regional stresses – salinity, heat and high-pH soils – which is worth more than a discount on unsuitable genetics.
How long does it take to develop a new crop variety?
Commonly eight to twelve years from initial cross to commercial availability, depending on the crop and breeding method, plus the time required for national testing and registration. This is why seed cooperation frameworks are measured in decades rather than seasons.
Genetics set the ceiling. Nutrition decides how close you get.
The Gate Group works with growers across Egypt, the Middle East and Africa to build nutrition programmes matched to the variety in the ground and the soil it is growing in.
Related reading: How BRICS is shaping global agriculture · The BRICS pesticide agenda · Reading the warning signs of soil salinity · Crop and agronomy knowledge
