Supporting Sustainable Innovations: An Examination of India Farmer Agrobiodiversity Conservation

Abstract

Critical to sustainable agriculture, agrobiodiversity conservation provides immediate benefits and retains options for climate change adaptation. Reframing conservation as sustainable seed innovation allows for a dynamic view of farmer contributions. Sustainable seed innovation entails in situ conservation and the innovation of new plant varieties through traditional practices. Farmer interviews from regions throughout India form the empirical basis, while the concept intellectual property-broad, integrated with evolutionary economics, informs theory. Sustainable seed innovation within India receives support primarily from nonprofit groups favoring open-source systems. Conserving natural and financial capital motivated farmers to adopt sustainable techniques, but farmers believed attracting additional innovators required development of new markets. India’s Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act recognizes farmers as plant breeders but does not provide incentive to innovate sustainably. Moreover, agricultural policies reinforced by an underlying discourse where “progressive” farmers follow unsustainable practices incentivizes formal innovations, at the expense of sustainable innovations of farmers.

Farmers’ resilience to climate change through the circular economy and sustainable agriculture: a review from developed and developing countries

“…-Besides awareness of the climate change issues and knowledge and skills, risk of income loss, farm size, and training and extension services influence farmers' decision to the adaptation and mitigation strategies (Byrareddy et al, 2021;Ma et al, 2022;Maleksaeidi et al, 2016;Musafiri et al, 2022;Samuel and Sylvia, 2019;Setsoafia, Ma and Renwick, 2022;Singh et al, 2021;Sohail and Chen, 2022;Wilk, Andersson and Warburton, 2013;Zeweld et al, 2018). -High cost of production and financial access were the common barriers for farmers to implement sustainable practice (Bhalerao et al, 2022;Bosma et al, 2012;Branca et al, 2021;Branca et al, 2022;Kopytko, 2019;Sarkar et al, 2022). -No article has mentioned circular economy and its relation to the topic of the study.…”

“…-Policies such as the Low Carbon Agriculture Plan (Foguesatto, Borges and Machado, 2019) and India's Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act (Kopytko, 2019) support the development of sustainable agriculture. CA.…”

Incentivizing research & innovation with agrobiodiversity conserved in situ: Possibilities and limitations of a blockchain-based solution

“…Arguably, conservation is not innovation. However, research conducted from multidisciplinary, legal as well as ecological economics approaches have recommended that for 'sustainable innovations' 2 in 'plant varieties' 3 , recognizing farmers' efforts as 'innovation', and not merely as 'conservation' is necessary and can support the cause of CRI with agrobiodiversity [20,25]- [28]. Recognizing farmers' contributions as innovations can also help address issues of growing rural-urban migration (NO REFER-ENCE FOUND) and growing disinterest in agriculture among younger generations of farmers (NO REFERENCE FOUND).…”

Spiritual Inspiration of Village Cadres and Inclusive Innovation of Bricolage in Rural Autonomy in China

“…In 2013, the report of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and the No.1 Central Document pointed out that initiatives of farmers must be promoted across the country. Some international conferences and influential journals have also begun to pay attention to innovation of farmers, as seen in Dolinska and D'Aquino ( 2016 ), Chindime et al ( 2016 ), and Kopytko ( 2019 ). Research by Chinese scholars, such as Li ( 2013 ), is also highly significant.…”