Accountability in Chile: IFI Demands Formal State Response to Protect Traditional Seeds and Trafkintü

Written By Lidia Arriagada Garcia

Santiago, Chile / New York, USA — August 28, 2026

Images for Inclusion Inc’s President & C.E.O., Lidia Arriagada Garcia, executing on-site document verification at La Moneda Palace, Santiago, Chile, on August 5, 2026.

The defense of the biocultural heritage and customary rights of the eleven legally recognized Indigenous Peoples in Chile has entered a critical legal phase. Images for Inclusion (IFI) is deploying its institutional resources and field-monitoring strategies to enforce strict adherence to Chilean administrative law and binding international human rights treaties.

The In-Person Filing at La Moneda Palace in Santiago

On August 5, 2026, a formal Written Objection and Legal-Administrative Challenge was physically filed at the Palacio de La Moneda, the seat of the Chilean government. This administrative demand was issued simultaneously to the President of the Republic, José Antonio Kast Rist; the Ministry of Agriculture; the National Directorate of the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG); and the Comptroller General of the Republic. The core dispute centers on the SAG’s draft resolution, an administrative measure pushed by the current administration that threatens to subject non-monetary, non-onerous seed transfers—including traditional bartering (Trafkintü), gifts, and community donations—to the exact same commercial enforcement, registration, and laboratory regimes designed for massive industrial agribusiness corporations. Specifically, Article 2 of the draft aggressively defines the "commerce of seeds" as "any assignment, delivery, or transmission... whether for consideration or not."

Images for Inclusion Inc’s President & C.E.O., Lidia Arriagada Garcia, coordinating entry and intake file procedures at La Moneda Palace, Santiago, Chile, on August 5, 2026.

Lidia Arriagada Garcia, concluding the administrative filing procedures outside La Moneda Palace, Santiago, Chile, on August 5, 2026.

Official presidential intake stamp received by Images for Inclusion Inc’s President & C.E.O., at La Moneda Palace, Santiago, Chile, on August 5, 2026.

Our position remains unyielding: equating Trafkintü (ancestral bartering) with commercial trade constitutes a direct violation of customary indigenous law. As Lidia Arriagada Garcia stated in recent press declarations, IFI is demanding a comprehensive, explicit technical exemption clause to protect traditional native seeds, agrobiodiversity, and the structural safety of indigenous women seed-keepers from commercial agro-industrial regulations.

Official response letter N.º A2026-798 issued to Images for Inclusion Inc’s President & C.E.O. by the Presidency of Chile on August 28, 2026.

State Tracking Activated

On August 28, 2026, the Citizen Management Department inside La Moneda Palace issued an official confirmation letter signed by its director, Mrs. Ruth Hurtado Olave. Through this administrative act, the Chilean State has formally assigned File Case N.º A2026-798 to our request, applying the internal government distribution tracking codes: RHO/DNS/JCE.

This marks a significant milestone for accountability. These tracking codes verify that La Moneda has officially transferred our complete legal file to the National Director of the SAG, Don Domingo Rojas Philippi (DNS), and the Legal Division of the Ministry of Agriculture (JCE). The State can no longer claim administrative ignorance; IFI's legal challenge is now permanently locked inside the central electronic registries of the Chilean Government.

By transforming a routine citizen acknowledgment into an official tracking mechanism, this response serves as definitive proof of the state's awareness. The inclusion of technical destination markers signals that our independent legal analysis—anchored in constitutional, administrative, and international human rights frameworks—must now receive a formal, explicit, and grounded review by the competent sectorial authorities rather than being sidelined as an informal public comment.

Roadmap Ahead: Field Action

The SAG has publicly claimed that the objective of the resolution is strictly to regulate commercial "seed currents" and not ancestral practices, but Indigenous communities note that such intentions must be written explicitly into the regulatory text to provide real legal certainty.

Under Articles 24–27 of Chilean Law No. 19.880, administrative proceedings are subject to statutory requirements governing the processing of requests, calculation of procedural deadlines, and timely issuance of final decisions. While our initial challenge was physically filed at La Moneda Palace on August 5, 2026, the State’s internal distribution records show that 23 calendar days elapsed before the documentation was formally processed and transferred to the competent sectoral authorities on August 28. With File No. A2026-798 now formally assigned and routed, IFI will continue to monitor compliance with the applicable statutory deadlines and its request for an express, sufficient, and duly reasoned response.

To prevent this case from stalling in transit, on Thursday, September 3, 2026, IFI’s legal and field team will execute synchronized accountability measures directly at the SAG Central Headquarters on Av. Presidente Bulnes 140, located near the presidential palace in Santiago. Our team will hand-deliver a formal request for urgent administrative dispatch (Pronto Despacho), legally anchored to File No. A2026-798. This follow-up action is consistent with IFI's international standards established during our July 2026 interventions in Geneva before the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), where we challenged administrative decrees that weaken indigenous consultation standards.

The Pronto Despacho package will feature a secure cloud link and an embedded QR Code to ensure the SAG's Legal Division cannot omit pages or file annexes. Furthermore, an identical backup set will be delivered to the office of the Minister of Agriculture, Jaime Campos Quiroga, enforcing strict hierarchical oversight. Should the administrative silence persist, IFI will file a formal complaint before the Comptroller General of the Republic, Dorothy Pérez Gutiérrez, and activate emergency communications before the UN Special Rapporteurs under our Special Consultative Status before the ECOSOC.

To maintain absolute transparency and ensure the structural integrity of our civil petition, we are sharing public digital access to our official filing:

Related Press Coverage

We invite our global network, civil society organizations, and international partners to read the comprehensive news coverage detailing the deep cultural and political impact of this ongoing food sovereignty debate in Chile, published on August 6, 2026:

Lidia Arriagada Garcia

Lidia is a leading voice on Indigenous human rights, contributing authoritative articles for IFI. Her writing is informed by rigorous study and true involvement, drawing on extensive reading, direct work and dialogue with Indigenous Peoples in the field. She advocates for the human rights of Indigenous Peoples, especially Indigenous women and girls, from her active presence in the United Nations forums and mechanisms at the international level — as both Civil Society at the UN through Consultative Status and a Mapuche woman. Therefore, as president and CEO of our NGO, she effectively bridges grassroots programs with international human rights dialogue, providing a unique perspective.

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