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10. Situated Meanings of Key Concepts in the Regulation of Plant Genetic Resources
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214 CHAPTER TEN Situated Meanings of Key Concepts in the Regulation of Plant Genetic Resources Kristine Skarbø The stakes in the realm of agricultural biodiversity are high: rural livelihoods around the planet, income and incentives in agricultural industries , and the very foundation for future food supply. Biodiversity connects actors in all corners of the world with common and competing interests into networks of transfer and exchange (Escobar 1998). The last decades have witnessed budding dreams about—and numbing conflicts over—the potentially profitable derivatives of plant genetic resources (PGR). Diverse actors and interests have given rise to tense debates about the rights to these resources and the distribution of benefits from their use. Amidst this heated discussion a number of initiatives aiming to regulate the realm have emerged. Early regimes to regulate PGR were conceived in the era when plant breeding was becoming an industry and focused on plant variety protection as an incentive for breeders. Other concerns have since been added to the agenda of these regulations, including the disappearing diversity of landraces from farmers’ fields (Frankel 1973; Fowler and Mooney 1990) and the lack of compensation along with the threat of losing access to germplasm for farmers, especially those in the Global South (Shiva 1993, 1997). New regulatory frameworks have been proposed during the last two decades recognizing that these custodians and original developers of landraces should be compensated for their use. In 1989, farmers’ rights Key Concepts in the Regulation of Plant Genetic Resources 215 were introduced as a progressive counterpart to plant breeders’ rights in the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO 1983; FAO 1989). The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD; effective 1993) declared that nations have sovereign rights over their biodiversity and that careful negotiations, encompassing prior informed consent, mutually agreed terms, and access and benefit sharing, must occur before any plant material transfer (UNEP 1993). Partly as a response to the inconvenience and high transaction cost these complicated negotiations would have for the particular instances of crop genetic resource use, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (effective 2004) established a multilateral system for facilitated exchange and access to planting material for a number of important food and fodder crops (FAO 2001; see also Fowler et al. 2001 and chapter 9, this volume). The treaty also elaborates on access and benefit sharing and the protection of farmers’ rights. Thus far, however, implementing these ground-breaking treaties has proven elusive (see chapter 9, this volume), and examples of successful biodiversity transfers with benefit sharing under the new frameworks’ conditions remain few (Brush and Stabinsky 1996; Petit et al. 2001; Hayden 2003; Srinivasan 2003; Rosenthal 2006; Wynberg et al. 2009). The most promising development is increased access to the genetic resources of sixty-four crops under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources . Five years after this policy was effected, the first round of grant distribution from its benefit sharing fund began. In 2009, eleven initiatives to strengthen the maintenance of biodiversity in developing countries were supported by these funds, including the site at which I conducted the research presented here (FAO 2009). Yet even if these important steps are being taken in the right direction, unresolved issues regarding the regulation of rights to and benefits from biodiversity continue to restrict exchange of much of these crucial resources. Since global negotiations inherently involve stakeholders with myriad perspectives, to have agreed on these treaty texts is a major advancement. But full implementation is wanting, and divergence in the interpretations of what the key concepts from these texts signify has been identified as one problem that may complicate this process (Posey 1994; Cleveland and Murray 1997). This chapter explores how key concepts in the debate about conserving and regulating PGR are interpreted by different actors. I use a relatively new research technique called “photovoice”—a promising photographic elicitation method that hands over the camera to participants —to document and understand the differences in how biodiversity, rights, and benefits are perceived by groups of people with different stakes and roles in relation to PGR. As we shall see, this method is a [44.206.227.65] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 21:06 GMT) powerful—and empowering—tool to gain understanding of the multiple perspectives that need to be taken into account when working out issues of implementation of these initiatives so important to our planet’s diversity of life. Situated Meanings...