Seeds

‘We sell what we collect’: In Kismayo, displaced women turn acacia seeds into a lifeline KISMAYO, Somalia — Before sunrise on the outskirts of this southern port city, groups of women shoulder sacks and long sticks and set out from the internal displacement camps. They walk together into the scrub outside Kismayo, toward stands of acacia trees where, with a shake and a thud, their day’s earnings fall to the ground. Their harvest — tiny, brown acacia seeds, locally known as abqo — has become a fragile but vital income stream.…

Kenya’s High Court on Thursday struck down parts of a decade-old seed law, clearing the way for small-scale farmers to save and share local seed varieties without fear of prosecution — a decision celebrated as a major victory for “food sovereignty” advocates and rural communities. In a ruling delivered in Machakos, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Nairobi, the court found provisions of the 2012 Seed and Plant Varieties Act unconstitutional. Those provisions had criminalized saving uncertified seeds and then…