Panel 5.1. Building alternative seed commons: new challenges and international perspectives
co-Chairs: Armelle Maze1, Fabien Girard2, Maria Gerullis3, Cathleen McCluskey4, and Morgane Leclerq5
1INRAE, Université Paris-Saclay, 2Université de Grenoble, France, 3Universitât Gottingen, 4University of Wisconsin-Madison, Organic seed alliance, 5Université de Laval
This panel session will explore the contemporary challenges faced in the building of alternative seed commons in the context of growing loss of genetic agrobiodiversity and climate change. In the context of a growing concentration of seed firms, alternative peasant seed networks are nowadays developing across the world by proposing a paradigm shift from the classical non delegative and hierarchical genetic breeding and seed certification towards participatory breeding systems by peasants. The panel will address the legal issues posed at the international by seed treaties, but also the organizational and epistemic challenges posed at national levels for supporting the development and democratization of collective participatory breeding systems of at the farmer level. It also will question the way scientific knowledge and access to data can measure agrobiodiversity evolution
Panel 5.2. Geographical Indications as Global Knowledge Commons – new challenges in the context of agroecological transition and climate change
co-Chairs: Armelle Maze1, Marie Odile Noziîres2, and Matthew J. Zinsli3
1INRAE University Paris-Saclay, 2Virginie Baritaux and Etienne Polge (INRAE, France), 3University of Wisconsin–Madison - University of Quito
This panel session will address, using an extended IAD/SES framework, the challenges faced by local farmers groups benefiting of the legal protection and intellectual property rights on Geographical Indications in the context of agroecological transitions and climate change. The extension worldwide of protected denomination of origin and place-based names has become an opportunity for local economic development and the valorization of local know-how and traditions developed by farmers. However, obtaining such legal protection remains a long process and require reconnecting knowledge commons with complex natural commons, such as human-made agroecosystems. Its is also questioning the role of epistemic power among participants and the nature and role of collective action supporting geographical indications that can favor a logic of equity, democratic participation and empowerment of local communities.
1INRAE, France2UMR SADAPT, France, 3Université Paris-Saclay, France, 4VetAgroSup, France, 5UMR Territoires, France, 6UMR SELMET, France; 4INRAE, UMR Territoires, France; 5INRAE, UMR SELMET, France
In this communication, we propose to reassess the role of protected geographical indications (GIs) as “territorial commons”, defined as a set of shared collective natural and immaterial resources used by a supporting the specific GIs agroecosystems and coproduced by a community of actors at territorial and landscape levels. A number of recent studies have emphasized the parallel between the specific collective organization of GIs systems and the seminal analysis developed by Elinor Ostrom (1990) on governing the commons, and most recent development with the new commons (Hess and Ostrom, 2007) and the sustainability of social ecological systems (Ostrom 2009). As a matter of fact, the definition of terroir, as adopted by the OIV (2010) and defined by INAO, provide strong and closed connection with the governance of commons, as defined by Ostrom (1990, 2009) combining both biophysical factors and shared cultural and knowledge resources developed by local communities (Mazé 2023).
First applied to the governance of specific natural resources, such as water, prairies, forest, their extension to more complex agroecosystems, combining different territorial material and immaterial resources at landscape level, we first propose a methodological and analytical extension of the IAD/SES framework (Ostrom 2009, McGinnis and Ostrom 2014)to analyze the sustainability of complex GIs agroecosystems both at landscape level and to capture from a dynamic and processual analysis of past and current transformations in the context of agroecological transitions and global climate changes. By considering GIs agroecosystems as dynamic social-ecological systems (SES), our analysis emphasizes the different models of territorial and ecological embeddedness supporting GIs in France and the trade-offs faces in supporting the development of biodiversity-based agriculture. The methodology and analytical extensions proposed are illustrated by a few number case studies of French GIs that, there is no unique way of characterizing biodiversity-based agroecological model for GIs. Understanding this diversity is a crucial step in relation to their territorial embeddedness at landscape level, as well as reassessing the specific links between GIs products and their terroir.
Monday, June 16, 2025 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Integrative Learning Center ILCS231
Wild Native Plants: Origin Labelling as a Paradigm Shift for Seed Certification. an Exploratory Analysis in France
in-person
Armelle Mazé1, Juan Fernandez-Manjarres2, and Nathalie Frascaria-Lacoste3
1INRAE, UMR SADAPT, Université Paris-Saclay, France, 2CNRS, ESE, Université Paris-Saclay, France, 3AgroParisTech, ESE, Université Paris-Saclay, France
In this communication, we analyze the emergence and controversies that have led to the progressive structuration since two decades in France of alternative seed systems for wild and local plants under the label “Végétal Local”. Initiated by an alliance between regional botanical conservatoires, agroforestry networks as an alternative to the classical seed certification both for herbaceous plants and forest tree seed certification and its FRM (Forest Reproductive Material Regulation) standards. Based on in depth interviews with key actors, our analysis shows that the dynamics surrounding the development of the label follow different regional patterns, as well as the national level, enabling their progressive recognition by public authorities and a change in regulations at national and EU levels. More importantly, we also highlight differences of visions between the actor’s networks about the relationship between the co-evolution of the plants (including both herbaceous and trees) with their environment and its translation into the governance of the label “vegetal local”.
