Beating the bounds: how does ‘open source’ become a seed commons?

Abstract

In response to ongoing plant genetic enclosures, the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) is creating a ‘protected commons’ for seed. It is a project, I argue, that reflects characteristics of a growing transnational commoning movement. From the Zapatistas to seed wars, such movements draw attention to commons not simply as a resource, but as a dynamic and evolving social activity: commoning. In the US, OSSI includes 38 plant breeders, 48 seed companies and 377 crop varieties. Yet challenges remain for OSSI to gain wider legitimacy for ‘freed seed’, to build trust in a moral pledge, and to establish fair guidelines for which people and which seed can participate in making the commons. Using the metaphor of ‘beating the bounds’ – a feudal practice of contesting enclosures – I ask how OSSI defends the commons in intersecting arenas. The first way is legal, as OSSI negotiates a move from contract law toward moral economy law. Next is epistemic, as an informal breeder network revitalizes farmer knowledge, while proving more structurally able and culturally equipped to lead commoning efforts. Finally, I reflect on the nature of boundary beating itself, aided by Global South movements. Seed sovereignty perspectives suggest room for a pluriverse of commons to grow.

Keywords:

• commons
• seed sovereignty
• open source
• plant breeding
• agroecology
• intellectual property

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to the community of the Open Source Seed Initiative for giving me entrée in their process of ‘commoning’. Carol Deppe, Joseph Lofthouse, Frank Morton, C.R. Lawn, Alejandro Argumedo, Claire Luby, Irwin Goldman and Jack Kloppenburg have taught me invaluable lessons about the social context of plant breeding. This paper also would not exist without Liz Carlisle, Annie Shattuck and Jahi Chappell, whose formal and informal conversations, editing advice and methodological suggestions strengthened my approach. My PhD advisor Alastair Iles and long-distance seed mentor Garrett-Graddy Lovelace have been invaluable interlocutors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 MST is the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra, or Landless Workers Movement, of Brazil.

2 Since becoming aware of the OSSI in 2013, I have done field research in Washington State and California visiting small-scale farms, extension stations, seed companies and public seed libraries that support local plant breeding and more equitable access to seed. In 2014, I visited OSSI board member Alejandro Argumedo in Peru to learn about indigenous practices in Parque de la Papa, a coalition of five Quechua communities near Cuzco. Interviews with US-based OSSI board members and affiliated freelance breeders were conducted in 2016 and 2017, and I distributed a survey about open-source seed to key seed sovereignty informants in Venezuela, India, Mexico, the US and Canada in late 2016. Follow-up interviews with civil-society groups deepened my understanding of peasant and indigenous concerns. Dates for primary interviews are included in the text below; all were accompanied by extensive follow-up correspondences. Document analysis was another important pillar of inquiry: I conducted a literature review on biotechnology and intellectual property laws for seed from 1930 to the present; reviewed the history of land-grant science and breeding; and studied texts on international governance frameworks for plant genetic resources. These provided a strong picture of ‘enclosures’ against which I could situate OSSI and its open-source pledge. In addition to the aforementioned interviews, I analyzed the language and practices of freelance and professional breeders in a variety of media: trade press books, mail-order seed catalogs, seed cooperative and company websites, gardening blogs and popular science articles. I coded the discourses visible in all of these materials, providing the basis for a qualitative assessment of how dynamic resources, communities and social protocols configure OSSI as a commoning practice.

3 Although the big seed companies have traditionally focused on agronomic crops such as corn, cotton, canola and soybean, the IP regime they employ is now ‘trickling down’ to specialty crops – fruits, vegetables, nuts and horticultural crops – through a complex of patents, licenses and bag tags (Goldman interview, June 17, 2017).

4 ChemChina and SinoChem recently announced plans for a $100 billion merger in 2018. It will create the world’s largest chemicals group, and will follow ChemChina’s $43 billion purchase of the Swiss agrochemicals leader Syngenta (Weinland 2017).

5 An estimated 90 percent of the seeds that peasant farmers plant every year come from their own bins or are bartered with neighbors in local markets (McGuire and Sperling 2016).

6 RCEP will include the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It will also include six regional partners with extant ASEAN free trade agreements: Australia, China, India, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. It will affect an estimated 3.5 billion people and 12 percent of world trade (GRAIN 2016).

7 Bayer North America has approached OSSI about pledging genetically engineered lines. Because of such proposals, OSSI has taken the following position: while it cannot discourage seed corporations from open-sourcing their own products, it can refuse their entry into the OSSI commons.

8 These decisions concerning seed exclusion/inclusion are made by OSSI’s Variety Review Committee comprising three board members who are breeders. They review each application according to OSSI’s policies, which in turn have been approved by the entire board. Depending on the issue (e.g. policy on GMOs or hybrids), the Committee has long discussions over several meetings. OSSI is a 501(C)3 with formal bylaws that structure their decision-making. So far, they have made decisions entirely by consensus, reflected in unanimous votes when a formal vote is called for (Kloppenburg interview, December 7, 2016).

9 Another reason OSSI requires that seeds be ‘new’ is that it avoids IP infringement. As Kloppenburg describes, ‘Because we get novel material, the only way you can get it is through our channels, our chain of custody. It’s one of our breeders who’s pledged it’. By the same rationale, the chain of custody protects OSSI seed from unauthorized use. ‘If you’ve seen that variety out there and it doesn’t have the OSSI logo on it, or it doesn’t say OSSI pledge, then someone’s taking it in a way that they shouldn’t have taken it’ (interview, December 7, 2016).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Notes on contributors

Maywa Montenegro de Wit

Maywa Montenegro de Wit is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. With a background in molecular biology and science journalism, she now combines political ecology, geography and Science & Technology Studies to examine the knowledge politics underpinning access to crop genetic resources. This work informs her broader interests in agroecology, food sovereignty and emancipatory rural studies. Email: [email protected]