Gènes, pouvoirs et profits: Recherche publique et régimes de production des savoirs de Mendel aux OGM by Christophe Bonneuil and Frédéric Thomas (review)

For the last thirty years or so the role of public-sector "applied" research has been controversial. What kind of work should it be conducting, and who is its proper clientele? Faced with these questions, some might wish to turn to history for orientation, but (at least in the area of agricultural research) they will be disappointed. Since J. R. Kloppenburg's pathbreaking First the Seed (1988), there has been remarkably little work on this issue. Until now: Gènes, pouvoirs et profits is a first-rate contribution to the debate.

It is a large book, and it covers a lot of ground. Parts will be of interest mainly to historians of agricultural science and technology, e.g., the story of how the French public sector's work was tailored to the needs of large commercial farmers rather than to those of smallholders, or the story of the development of hybrid corn in France. Tracing the history of public-sector plant breeding in France might seem to be a rather narrow focus. But this book perfectly illustrates the principle that a well-constructed case study can be effective in illuminating matters of general import.

The story begins in the late nineteenth century when in France, as elsewhere, state institutions for agricultural testing and research were first established. Until the 1940s, however, the public sector's role in such research was relatively small. Breeding new plant varieties was left for the most part to commercial seed companies whose varieties were designed primarily for the large farms of northern France. Public-sector breeders restricted themselves to improving only those crops in which the private sector was uninterested, and measures to regulate the seed market were designed and implemented jointly by the public and private sectors.

All of this began to change radically in the 1940s, when the new Vichy government set out to "correct" the weaknesses of the market through a major expansion of the state. Continuing after the war and into the 1970s, this technocratic vision granted engineer-scientists enormous power to modernize the French economy. In the case of plant breeding, this era was marked by the establishment in 1946 of INRA, the national institute of agronomic research, whose role was not only much larger but also qualitatively different than that of prewar public agencies. On the one hand, INRA's breeding work grew substantially; the institute developed many improved varieties and called for the creation of institutions and policies that would ease the introduction of new technology. At the same time, INRA adopted a much more aggressive role vis-à-vis the private sector. No longer shying away from competing with commercial breeders, and playing a much more dominant role in the regulation of the seed market, it sought to force the private sector into reforms that would better serve "the national interest." That interest, however, was defined solely by INRA's experts; farmers were treated as passive users of technology.

In the 1970s, however, this regime began to unravel. Having had a huge impact on French agriculture, public-sector breeders were now confronted with many of the criticisms then being directed at the green revolution. High-tech agriculture was attacked as costly in energetic terms, destructive of the environment, and neglectful of the small farmer. At the same time, INRA (like its counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom) was coming under growing pressure from both the state and the private sector to abandon breeding. The proper role of public research, private business argued, was to conduct fundamental research that would strengthen the competitiveness of the private sector. A minority of INRA's staff resisted, arguing that the institute should pursue a more socially responsible role that would address the...