diff --git a/gnu/system.scm b/gnu/system.scm
index d15c864384..ed8289b375 100644
--- a/gnu/system.scm
+++ b/gnu/system.scm
@@ -311,7 +311,7 @@ (define %base-packages
          ;; there to avoid duplication.
          (map canonical-package
               (list guile-2.0 bash coreutils findutils grep sed
-                    diffutils gawk tar gzip bzip2 xz lzip))))
+                    diffutils patch gawk tar gzip bzip2 xz lzip))))
 
 (define %default-issue
   ;; Default contents for /etc/issue.