Stop the poison, Support the seed: a call for solidarity
Hybrid Event
Register HERE for online participation.
BACKGROUND
Inspired by Laudato Si’, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) is raising serious concerns about the direction of the AU–EU Partnership. In a joint statement with COMECE, published on 21 May 2025 alongside the 3rd EU-AU Ministerial Meeting in Brussels, SECAM criticizes the shift in EU priorities—from solidarity and development to geopolitical and economic self-interest. Initiatives like the Global Gateway often reinforce extractive models, favoring European corporate agendas over African needs. Resources like land, water, seeds, and minerals are increasingly commodified, and African communities are being asked to bear the environmental and social costs of Europe’s green transition. SECAM calls this unjust and far from a true partnership.
For these reasons, SECAM is organising a side event at the upcoming AU–EU Agricultural Ministerial Conference in Rome together with its partner organisations CIDSE, Broederlijk Delen, DKA-Austria, CCFD-Terre Solidaire, Focsiv, Fondazione Campagna Amica and Misereor, and with key actors in the informal platform “Our Land is Our Life” such as AFSA and ESAFF. The event will focus on two of the four key areas of concerns raised in the joint statement with COMECE and will bring together voices from the African Union, European Union, Civil Society, and the Catholic Church to advance shared priorities for people and the planet.
The objectives are to:
- Identify ways forward in strengthening on-going efforts to protect and enhance farmer-managed seeds systems given on-going AU efforts and in the context of recent Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) processes
- Identify steps that can be pursued by both the European Union and the African Union, and at national levels in addressing the risk posed by highly hazardous pesticides that continue to be exported to Africa even though these are already banned in Europe.
PROGRAMME
Opening Remarks
Panel Exchange: Farmer-Managed Seed Systems followed by Q&A exchange
– Update on current AU processes related to farmer-managed seed systems
– Reflections from African civil society and Church actors
– Case examples from Zambia: AFSA and Caritas/CAFOD campaigns
– Key demands and policy pathways
Panel Exchange: Pesticides and EU Toxic Exports followed by Q&A exchange
– African perspectives on pesticide use and import/export policies: policy expectations and commitments
– European perspectives
Summary of Take Aways
Closing Remarks
CIDSE contact: Manny Yap, Food and Land Officer (yap(at)cidse.org)
Cover & flyer illustration credits: AFSA