Repossession through sharing of and access to seeds: different cases and practices

ABSTRACT

Seeds are both the means and product of agricultural production. The corporate appropriation of seeds affects farmers’ autonomy and has been contested and resisted by farmers worldwide through practices of repossession. This article investigates different practices of the repossession of seeds emphasising the micro-structure and recent developments in agricultural practices that lead to a commonisation of seeds. Various practices of seed repossession present in India are analysed and compared with open-source initiatives to present examples of the diversity of singular initiatives aimed at the commonisation of seeds in the Global South. The article shows that each initiative applies a multitude of concrete practices to counter what we will refer to as metabolic rift, but without a single generic strategy, each seeking in its own way to repossess seeds and (re)locate them in a social space of commons.

KEYWORDS:

• Commons
• metabolic rift
• open source
• repossession
• seeds

Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank the two NGOs Loka Samabaya Pratisthan and Sambhav along with their members, especially Mr Natabar Sarangi and Ms Sabarmatee, for their willingness to accommodate the needs of this research. The first author is grateful to the farmers who participated and devoted their valuable time and insights. A special thanks is due to the community of farmers who contribute to maintaining these commons.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Archana Patnaik is a PhD student in Sociology and Anthropology of Development, Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She was awarded The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)-WOTRO (Science for Global Development) PhD fellowship in 2010. She worked as research assistant under the research scheme entitled ‘Science, Ethics and Technological Responsibility in Developing and Emerging Countries’ supported by the European Commission (EC), Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad from February 2009 till February 2010. Her research interests include areas of Sociology of Science and Technology, Sociology of Gender and Sociology of Development. She has presented her PhD work at several international conferences and some of her papers are under review in international journals.

Joost Jongerden (PhD) is an Assistant professor at Sociology and Anthropology of Development, Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He has special appointment as Professor at the Asian Platform for Global Sustainability & Transcultural Studies at Kyoto University in Japan. He has a special interest in socio-spatial and socio-political analysis of development and conflict.

Guido Ruivenkamp (PhD) is a Professor at Sociology and Anthropology of Development, Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He is appointed as Extraordinary Professor of Humanization of Technologies, University of Humanistic Studies at Utrecht, The Netherlands and Special Appointed as Professor at Kyoto University, Graduate School of Economics, Japan. He has special interest in studying the relationship between science, technology and food. He is the also the Project Leader of different projects in Asia and Africa.

Notes

1. Here we use United States English spelling ‘labor’ instead of ‘labour’ following Salleh (2010) since we derived meta-industrial labour from her ideas and concepts.

2. For a detailed discussion, see Foster (1999).

3. For a detailed discussion on these movements, see Gadgil and Guha (1994).

4. See the official website of OFAI for details: http://ofai.org/organisation/ [Accessed 10 August 2015].

5. See the official websites for details: http://www.navdanya.org/, http://ddsindia.com/www/default.asp,http://www.sahajasamrudha.org/ [Accessed 12 September 2014].

6. The CRRI has an extensive, ex situ genebank used for research and development of new varieties. See its official website of CRRI for details. Available from: http://crri.nic.in/Research/Divisions/GeneticR.htm [Accessed 10 September 2015].

7. See the official website of the Global Green Grants Fund for details: http://www.greengrants.org/2011/11/02/a-retired-teacher-seeds-organic-farming-in-india/ [Accessed 30 June 2015].

8. In India, states are divided into different administrative units of districts and then further sub-divided into sub-districts or blocks.

9. For details see the proceedings of the workshop. Available from: http://www.nirmanodisha.org/index.php [Accessed 12 September 2015].

10. See official website of Global Green Grants: http://www.greengrants.org/2011/11/02/a-retired-teacher-seeds-organic-farming-in-india/ [Accessed 23 August 2015].

11. Demeulenaere (2014) explains a similar social transition in her analysis of the French farmers’ movement emphasising ‘peasant seeds’.

12. See The Indian Express e-paper. Sahu, D., 2002. Life-changing odyssey. Available from: http://www.newindianexpress.com/education/edex/article554116.ece [Accessed 20 September 2015].

13. For detail description of the concept of space of commons, see Patnaik (2016).

14. For details, see the official website of OFAI: http://ofai.org/2014/08/invitation-for-open-source-seed-system-workshop/  [Accessed 10 August 2015].

15. See Apna Beej Open Source Seed Network. Available from: http://ofai.org/2014/08/invitation-for-open-source-seed-system-workshop/ [Accessed 15 August 2015].

16. CSA is a professional resource organisation, registered as a trust in 2004: see http://csa-india.org/who-we-are/

17. See CSA report on ‘Building Open Source Seed Systems’. Available from: http://csa-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/141029-OSSN-report1.pdf [Accessed 20 August 2015].

18. See the CSA document on ‘Building Open Source Seed Systems’ available on its official website. Available from http://csa-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Open_Source_Seed_Systems_1.0.pdf [Accessed 10 September 2015].

19. See CSA report on ‘Building Open Source Systems’. Available from http://csa-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/141029-OSSN-report.pdf [Accessed 10 September 2015].

20. For the complete list of individuals and organisations involved in OSSN see CSA report. Available from http://csa-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Open_Source_Seed_Systems_1.0.pdf [Accessed 18 September 2015].

Additional information

Funding

The fieldwork and research was conducted as part of The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) WOTRO funded project on Open Source and Commons.