The tension between ‘informal’ exchange networks and ‘over-regulation’ of access to seeds: raising a social sharing disruption

The tension between farmers’ seed systems for the exchanges of PGRFA (Lou- waars, 2008: 29-50) and national or international over-regulation on access to seeds (Serageldin, 1999) is at the heart of the current economic and politi­cal hurdle of seed management.

For immemorial times, farmer and breeder communities have managed the exchange of PGRFA (Pistorius, 1997; Crucible II Group, 2000) and have accessed seeds through local markets or farmers’ seed networks as a social practice (Visser and Smolders, 2003). As Pautasso et al. state (2013: 156), ‘seed circulation is typically a social process: it is based on trust, may or may not be reciprocal, and is influenced by socio-cultural norms and practices’. Bertacchini (2008: 91) confirms that ‘[s]uch an exchange does not occur as a bilateral impersonal mar­ket transaction.²⁹ On the contrary, it is grounded on mechanism of reciprocity and cooperation. Indeed, traditional seed systems are mostly based on social and family relations, cast in the context of mutual interdependence and trust, often forming dynamic networks with a high degree of complexity’.³⁰ Until recently, it was common practice for breeders and researchers to similarly access seeds through farmers’ seed networks and between collaborators from different labo­ratories, situated in different regions or continents.

However, the regulatory intensification of the past 30 years created a regime complex (see Chapter 2) where an ‘over-regulation’ of access to seeds has favoured only one type of situation: i.e. the dominant neo-liberal monopolistic seed market. Anvar (2008) confirms that the current regime hinders the mere existence of any other type of seed system, where flexibility and heterogeneity would allow for a plurality of situations to coexist, thereby unlocking the current monopolistic and enclosing system. Furthermore, the current system narrows the value of seeds and seed networks to merely an economic value, whereas it is recognized that this value is much wider and touches upon cultural heritage, social dimensions, ecosystems, etc (Cleveland et al., 1994; Ellen and Platten, 2011; Veteto and Skarbo, 2009; Sthapit, 2008). In his thesis, Bertacchini (2008 : 90) argues that ‘[t]raditional farming systems - with practices of seed saving and exchange based more on reciprocity and cooperation - should be seen as a form of social sharing for germplasm production and distribution, which in turn enhances crop genetic diversity’ (emphasis added). However, the current setting leads to a gridlock, a situation where ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ seed networks are opposed and competing. Whereas McGuire and Sperling (2016: 23) call for more integration of both formal and informal seed networks in order to ‘deliver the types of products needed to catalyse smallholder advances: to encourage increased production; nutritional gains; and to foster farming system resilience’. They conclude inter alia that ‘the seed sector strategy has to become more smallholder-focused’. Formal seed networks are locked by economic pressures (i.e. monopolies; conventional agriculture and increasing use of hybrid varieties) and by complex legal regulations (CBD and its contractual approach to access­ing genetic resources, IPRs, UPOV, constraining national seed legislations),³¹ which both hinder the social sharing dimension of seed networks.

Challenges in the exchange of PGRFA 63 are supposed to fit traditional farmers’ interests within such a system, Bertac- chini (2008: 90) explores the options and economic implications to support the traditional farmers’ organization of germplasm production and distribution and refocus the debate on the social sharing value that characterize traditional agricultural systems. However, few studies exist on the role(s) of seed networks in preserving and sustainably using crop biodiversity.

As Pautasso et al. (2013: 157) argue, further (interdisciplinary) studies are needed to understand better the role of seed exchange networks in biodiversity conservation and use in a more holistic manner. They state indeed that ‘with seed exchange itself, it is difficult to separate purely biological from social factors [...]; rather, these factors interact to a considerable degree, both in cause and effect’. This need for further studying seed networks is even more important in that ‘local seed exchange networks are essential to agrobiodiversity conservation, because they permit access to seed and the maintenance of landraces in agro­ecosystems throughout the world, despite the trend towards more uniform seed material flowing through formal, commercial seed systems’ (ibid).³² Pautasso et al. suggest an exhaustive list of research methods that include: ethnographic fieldwork, participatory approaches, public good experiments, biogeography and landscape genetics, simulation models, scenarios, statistical analysis, indicators, life cycle assessments and impact evaluations, meta-analyses and finally network analyses. To complement this last research method proposed, nodal governance could be added as one method particularly useful in analysing the social sharing aspect of seed exchange networks. According to Burris et al (2005: 33) ‘[n]odal governance is an elaboration of contemporary network theory that explains how a variety of actors operating within social systems interact along networks to govern the systems they inhabit’ (also see Drahos, 2004; Holley and Shearing, 2017). This approach could contribute to enhancing the continuum between formal and informal seed networks (favouring systems’ heterogeneity, flexibility and pluralism) and between traditional and improved varieties rather than sup­planting one system by the other.³³