From the production of rules to seed production: Global Intellectual Property and local knowledge

Abstract

This paper analyzes the links and overlappings between traditional knowledge and biodiversity in the context of ecological family farming in southern Brazil. The data presented are part of an ethnographic study carried out among a network of ecological farmers, Ecovida, in the west of Santa Catarina state. The current global patent regime, most prominently the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), has had direct effects on seed production and agricultural food crops. In a scenario of increasing creation of patents, patent regulations, provisions on cultivars (plant varieties and seed breeding) and a number of other global trade control mechanisms, family farmers and other related social actors have rejected the multilateral development agencies' notion of life as "resource". This study has a two-fold aim: first, it approaches the international context of the intellectual property regime on biodiversity and knowledge production; second, it examines the actions taken by farmers participating in the Ecovida network toward creating alternative ways of managing knowledge to produce "free" seeds. As an outcome, there is a parallel political action of criticism and resistance to the current narrowing of agriculture's genetic base, and organized efforts to multiply seeds, know-how and knowledge through networks, banks and centers of agro-biodiversity. Our central argument is that all these social actors -who make up the so-called ecological network and who seek, in their activities, to carry on the multiplication and variability of seeds and promote the diversity of knowledge to produce diverse seeds -are also creating collective strategies of social resistance vis-à-vis the prevailing global modes of controlling vibrant v.9 n.1 g. f. w. radomsky, o. f. leal knowledge, seeds and food production. provisão sobre cultivares (variedades de plantas e sementes modificadas) e um número de outros mecanismos de controle do comércio global, agricultores familiares e outros atores sociais relacionados rejeitam a noção de vida, entendida como recurso, proposta pelas agências multilaterais de desenvolvimento. Este estudo tem dois objetivos: primeiro, analisar o contexto internacional do regime de propriedade intelectual sobre a biodiversidade e a produção de conhecimento; segundo, examinar as ações realizadas por agricultores que participam da Rede Ecovida de Agroecologia para criarem formas alternativas de gerenciamento de conhecimentos para produzir sementes "livres". O resultado é a ação paralela de crítica ao estreitamento da base genética na agricultura e o esforço de multiplicar sementes e conhecimentos através de redes, bancos e centros de agrobiodiversidade. Nosso argumento central é de estes atores sociais -que constroem a rede agroecológica e procuram, por meio de suas atividades, constituir a multiplicação e a variabilidade das sementes e promover a diversidade de conhecimentos vinculados a elas -também estão criando estratégias coletivas ...