Green grabbing at the ‘pharm’ gate: rosy periwinkle production in southern Madagascar

Abstract

The following article contrasts contemporary rosy periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) extraction in southern Madagascar with original bioprospecting research conducted 50 years ago. My study shows how plant extraction firms have shifted their approaches by creating new labor forms, which devolve risk and increase exploitation in attempts to capture the valuable biogenetic material needed for drug discovery. The periwinkle symbolizes a complex picture of many dynamic barriers to capitalist penetration at work, including the natural, social and political. Over time, these barriers change and act in conjunction to provide a complex commodity chain expressing many exploitative labor relations of green capitalism.

Keywords:

• green grabs
• bioprospecting
• natural barriers
• resource extraction
• neoliberal conservation
• Madagascar

Notes

I am deeply grateful to Richard Schroeder and Bradley Wilson for their intellectual support and guidance. I would also like to thank David Hughes, Kevin St. Martin, James Simon and three anonymous referees for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. The research for the article was made possible with the financial help of the Fulbright International Institute of Education (IIE) and the New Use Agriculture and Natural Plant Products Program (NUANPP) at Rutgers University. Funding for the writing portion came from the Rutgers University Graduate School Louis Bevier Fellowship.

¹This research is based on 14 months of intensive ethnographic fieldwork, including more than 115 semi-structured interviews and participant observation sessions, carried out in Madagascar in 2005 and 2006, and follow-up research with bioprospecting firms in the US. Between February and April 2006, two successive trips were made to the Tuléar region in Madagascar. During this time, interviews were conducted with peasant harvesters, collectors, middlemen and firm officials on their roles in the trade of periwinkle and their relationship with others in the bioprospecting commodity chain. Follow-up interviews were carried out and economic data were completed with the assistance of project managers, university and independent scientists and researchers, and administrators in the local, regional and national offices of the Malagasy government. All attempts were made to protect the confidentiality of the participants of this research, and information is reported anonymously.

²I define ‘green capitalism’ as the neoliberal agenda of promoting market-centered solutions to combat what is observed by some as an impending ecological crisis due to the expanding forces of production, consumption and natural resource extraction.

³Although many of the chemical components of the periwinkle have already been discovered, I observed during my research that firms were still conducting active drug research on the plant and, because of this, I view current extraction of the plant as bioprospecting. For a more expansive definition of bioprospecting, see Ten Kate and Laird 1999.

⁴Periwinkle is a pervasive self-seeder and especially ‘weedy’ and, in Madagascar, it can be found growing in previously cleared fallow land and on the boundaries of denuded hillsides (Andriamanalintsoa 1995).

⁵Andriamanalintsoa 1995.

⁶Anonymous interview 1 (14 February 2007).

⁷The period after full independence in 1960 is known as a time of successive strikes and social crises for the new and fragile state under Philibert Tsiranana (the First Republic, 1960–72).

⁸Lilly's efforts at ensuring its supply did not stop there. The company also began to buy prepared extract from suppliers in Budapest, Hungary, and made numerous attempts at in vivo cultivation and chemical synthesis (Brown 2003).

⁹Production in Texas with imported stock of periwinkle continued until the mid-1980s. In 1986, Lilly lost its sole proprietary rights to the drug, resulting in increased competition and, eventually, to the end of its US-based periwinkle operation in the early 1990s (Sheldon et al.1997, 15).

¹⁰One reason for the consistent demand for the periwinkle root is because the alkaloid content in the root is higher (up to 0.13 percent) than in the leaves Anonymous interview 67 (31 July 2006).

¹¹Anonymous interview 67 (31 July 2006).

¹²Anonymous interview 67 (31 July 2006).

¹³Anonymous interview 66 (25 April 2006).

¹⁴There is a rich literature devoted to Malagasy customs concerning ancestral worship and the use of sacrifice to make inroads with locals; cf. Hanson (2009).

¹⁵Anonymous interview 61 (2 February 2006).

¹⁶On the ‘access dynamics’ of natural commodities, see Ribot and Peluso (2003).

¹⁷Anonymous interview 61 (2 February 2006).

¹⁸At this time, 25,000 Malagasy francs (FMG) were roughly equivalent to US$2.78 (9,000 FMG=US$1). On 1 January 2005, the FMG was replaced with the Ariary. At that time, one FMG was valued at 0.2 Ariarys. I use FMG as a standard currency because many peasants were still using the currency during the time of data collection between May 2005 and April 2006.

¹⁹This was observed during field visits in February and April 2006.

²⁰Anonymous interview 70 (27 April 2006).

²¹Anonymous interview 78 (26 April 2006).

²²Anonymous interview 71 (27 April 2006).

²³Anonymous interview 74 (27 April 2006).

²⁴Anonymous interview 70 (27 April 2006).

²⁵These are all observations I encountered while conducting market surveys during my field research in February 2006.

²⁶Anonymous interview 101 (24 April 2006).

²⁷Anonymous interview 61 (2 February 2006).

²⁸From a single hectare, one can harvest 600–800 kilos of periwinkle root or 800 kilos of leaves (roughly three harvests) from the same plants.

²⁹‘Tobacco money’ is usually a bit of ‘extra’ cash (∼8,000–10,000 FMG or ∼$1), which can be used at a local market kiosk – Anonymous interview 75 (3 February 2006).

³⁰Anonymous interview 74 (3 February 2006).

³¹Anonymous interview 61 (2 February 2006).