Introduction

1In his book entitled Guns, Germs and Steel, American geographer Jared Diamond (1997) identifies the control of domesticated plant and animal species as one of the underlying factors in the “pattern of history”. By enabling the development of sedentary societies some 10,000 years ago, in which the search for food was no longer the sole concern of human populations, agriculture enabled the emergence of actors specialising in activities other than hunting and gathering, such as blacksmiths, merchants or bankers. Diamond argues that this allowed for the invention and development of tools of domination (weapons, ships, etc.) and the expansion of the civilisations that possessed them.

2This means that power struggles associated with species of agronomic interest have been occurring for several millennia. Today, the issues revolving around access to these species in all their diversity and to the information associated with them are equally important: independence and food security for States, food and economic self-sufficiency for family farming, and economic power for the seed industry. The importance of these issues is reinforced by the urgency of climate change and the agro-ecological transition.

3The issue of access to the diversity of domesticated species is all the more important because of the high degree of interdependence between countries: no country can claim to have access to the genetic resources required to meet all its needs, despite the fact that many States have established mechanisms for the conservation of genetic resources of agronomic interest. Innovations in the field of synthetic biology hold enormous promise, but they will not obviate the need for genetic resources. Leaving aside the question of their social acceptability, these innovations as yet concern only the modification of living organisms, requiring the utilisation of genetic resources, and do not enable ex nihilo creations.

4Unlike much of wild biodiversity, domestic biodiversity has been subject to multiple exchanges between individuals and between human communities throughout its history. Since the earliest days of domestication, it has been the fruit of human labour transformed and passed on from generation to generation. Domestic biodiversity is, in the true sense of the word, a heritage of humanity – biological as well as historical and cultural.

5Resource and heritage: this duality of domestic biodiversity causes the principle of access and benefit sharing (ABS) to be considered as both an obvious fact (surely access to domestic diversity and its utilisation should be subject to similar ABS regulations as wild biodiversity) and as a question (why should a heritage of humanity cease to be common?).

6These questions will permeate the topics developed in this chapter, which presents a brief history of domestic biodiversity and the emergence of the notion of genetic resources, before discussing the relationship between ABS and collections of agronomic material.

Origin of domestic biodiversity

7The plants that humans grow and the animals they raise did not always exist as we know them today. They are products of the domestication of wild species by humans, followed by selection over the subsequent millennia.

8Agriculture has led to the profound transformation of landscapes, with knock-on impacts on the evolution of the biodiversity associated with them. Domestication itself is one of the most striking examples of the impact of human activity on the evolution of living beings; indeed, it was the diversity of domesticated species that helped Darwin understand the effects of selection. Through agriculture, humans ceased to be spectators of nature and became actors in the world they inhabited and transformed (Cauvin, 2000; Cohen, 2009). The importance of access to resources in natura for food and clothing began to diminish in favour of access to land, plant seeds and breeding animals.

9Domestication has occurred in many parts of the world. For example, wheat and barley were domesticated in the Middle East; maize, tomatoes and potatoes in Central and Latin America; millet and sorghum in Africa; rice in Asia and Africa. Other examples include swine in Asia, and sheep in the Middle East. Domesticated species acquire traits that facilitate their cultivation, harvesting or breeding. Plants and pets have come a long way since then. Many species (corn, rice, cows, poultry, etc.) have conquered the planet. This shows that the globalisation of agriculture did not begin in this century or even the last. Human migrations have progressively extended the cultivation and breeding areas of domesticated species, while great explorations took them across the oceans and from one continent to another.

10These movements mean that domesticated species are continually evolving and diversifying by adapting to new environments under the combined effects of human and natural selection. Selection by farmers also contributes to diversification, by developing varieties or breeds that correspond to various needs and preferences (early maturity, colour, taste, ease of processing, etc.). Exchanges of seeds between farmers also alter the genetic material subject to this selection process. Gene flows with related wild species also occur in the evolution of cultivated plants, and sometimes of farm animals or pets. The complex evolutionary history of domesticated species – and especially that of cultivated plants – usually makes it impossible to attribute the creation of a particular cultivated variety to a specific community or farmer, given that communities and farmers work with genetic material that has been modified repeatedly over the course of its history.

11However, certain rules have applied to the circulation of seeds, especially in regions where specific plants are deeply rooted in the culture of human communities (millet and sorghum in Africa, yam in Oceania, maize in Mexico, etc.). Many studies have documented the fact that exchanges of seeds between families, village communities or ethnic communities do not occur at random (Bellon, 1991; Labeyrie et al., 2014; Caillon & Degeorges, 2007). Others have highlighted the role of social status in access to seeds (Baco, 2007; Badstue et al., 2006; Ricciardi, 2015; Thomas & Caillon, 2016). The cultural, social and economic regulation of access to genetic resources is therefore an ancient process, and such access is not always governed by formal legal systems.

From biological diversity to genetic resources

12The first collections of domesticated species were of a naturalistic nature (see Chapter 2). They were more concerned with representing the diversity of species – especially “exotics” – than diversity within species, and they were created to further the pursuit of knowledge rather than for agronomic purposes. In France, the Potager du Roy (The King’s Kitchen Garden), which was designed to provide fruit and vegetables for Louis XIV’s table at Versailles, can be considered as the precursor of agronomic collections, marking a departure from the “cabinets of curiosities” of the plant world. However, the conception of biological diversity according to Western science was strongly influenced by Linnaeus and the classification of the living world into entities called species (Gouyon, 2001), which would remain the basic unit for understanding the diversity of life for many years to come.

13The emergence of a seed industry and varietal selection processes that were conceptualised along these lines led to the creation of the first collections of what would later be called “plant genetic resources”. In France, the Vilmorin wheat collection in the late 19^th century (Vilmorin Catalogue 1880) epitomises this consideration of intraspecific diversity.

14The tutelary figure in plant genetic resources is the Russian agronomist and geneticist Nicolai Vavilov (1887-1943), who left an immense legacy and body of work. In an attempt to meet the industrialisation needs of Soviet agriculture (Pistorius, 1997), Vavilov scoured the continents in order to build up collections that were representative of the diversity of plants of agronomic interest. In doing so, he developed the theory of centres of origin of cultivated plants (postulating that areas with the greatest diversity of these plants are likely to be their areas of origin) (Vavilov, 1987). Many of his assumptions proved to be correct. Adopting a Mendelian vision of genetics, Vavilov clashed with the sinister Lysenko and his conception of the transmission of acquired characteristics. Lysenko won the power struggle, and Vavilov died in Stalin’s jails.

15Fenzi & Bonneuil (2016) integrated Vavilov’s work into the historical construction of a “particular cosmovision of biological diversity”, in which biological diversity is composed of dissociable elements – elementary building blocks that can be used to engineer the living world. With the emergence of genetics, the gene became one of these elements, and the living organisms that contain them were consciously regarded as “genetic resources”, although this specific term does not seem to have been coined until the late 1960s when it appeared in the work of the Australian geneticist Otto Frankel (Frankel et al., 1995).

The major collections of agronomic resources

16In the 1960s and 1970s, the Green Revolution had a double effect: on the one hand, it dealt a severe blow to cultivated diversity by supporting the adoption of high-yield varieties over large areas, accompanied by the relevant package of advice and inputs; on the other hand, it accelerated a movement to safeguard the traditional varieties that were endangered by this adoption, by conducting large-scale campaigns to collect and store the materials collected in these surveys in the genebanks of international agricultural research centres. As far back as 1973, this movement was promoted as an initiative intended specifically to protect “genetic resources” rather than biodiversity for its own sake, insofar as its primary aim was to amass a reservoir of genetic diversity that could be used by breeders (Louafi, 2011).

17It should be noted, however, that despite being such a powerful concept for the past half-century, the predominance of ex situ conservation in the plant genetic resource conservation field was not really established until after the 1967 FAO IBP conference (Pistorius, 1997), where the respective merits of in situ and ex situ conservation were debated. The principle of an international network of genebanks was endorsed at the end of this conference, and was developed from 1971 onwards with the creation of the CGIAR genebank network (Louafi, 2011; Box 1).

18In fact, this development of ex situ conservation is an extension of the Vavilovian approach. Its intrinsic characteristics and developments, both proclaimed and unspoken, have had a lasting impact on the world of agronomic genetic resources. As a consequence:

• the organisation of genebanks is being professionalised, creating specific jobs and processes. In research centres, genebanks are often independent of varietal improvement departments. In universities, a distinction is sometimes made between courses on genetic resources and courses on plant breeding;
• breeders are seen as the primary clients of genebanks, via the collection-conservation-characterisation-evaluation-use chain. Collections are not only used by breeders, but also by researchers, who frequently justify their research on grounds of the need to improve knowledge of genetic resources before they can improve their use;
• the role of farmers in the origins of diversity is recognised, but they are mainly seen as providers of a diversity (and sometimes of the associated traditional knowledge) that will be used to produce varieties for which they will be the end users. Their role in conserving diversity is not recognised since this function is attributed to genebanks. Although they are not prohibited from accessing genebanks, in reality, such access is difficult; farmers are not expected to use genebanks other than by growing improved varieties;
• the cause of global food security justifies the internationalisation of resources.

A treaty specific to plant genetic resources

19The pre-eminence of the international network of genebanks supported by CGIAR has frequently been called into question. In 1983, a challenge to the legitimacy of international collections lodged by countries of the Global South (India, Indonesia, Mexico in particular) led the FAO to reaffirm that these resources were a common heritage of humanity, through the “International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources”. However, as Thomas (2017) pointed out, at a time when the nascent potential of biotechnologies was just beginning to emerge, making resources freely available without any guarantees concerning their commercial exploitation was unacceptable. Therefore, enabling plant genetic resources to benefit from a special regime in the CBD was not sufficient, and the practices of accessing, exchanging and using plant genetic resources were potentially subject to the ABS principle defined by the CBD. This principle makes access to and use of a genetic resource dependent on the user informing the provider about its intentions, on the provider’s prior consent, and on the contractualisation of the terms and conditions for sharing monetary or non-monetary benefits by the provider and the user. The FAO was concerned about the possibility of the transaction costs associated with access regulations hindering the movements and uses of plant genetic resources and jeopardising food security. The FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture then had to engage in a balancing act, aligning the objectives for the conservation and utilisation of plant genetic resources for agriculture and food with the first two objectives of the CBD (conservation and sustainable use), while maintaining a form of open access to these resources (Chiarolla et al., 2013). In 2001, the FAO conference therefore adopted the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). This treaty uses a multilateral system to establish a “common pool” of plant genetic resources that can be freely added to by States (in accordance with the principle of States’ sovereignty over their genetic resources).

20It is sometimes forgotten that the Nagoya Protocol (Article 4.4) recognises the existence of other regimes of access to genetic resources as long as these regimes are not at odds with its objectives and those of the CBD. Then it does not apply. In its preamble, it also acknowledges the special nature of agricultural biodiversity, the importance of genetic resources for food security and the interdependence of countries. The ITPGRFA, which includes objectives and measures relating to conservation, utilisation, and fair and equitable benefit-sharing, is indeed recognised by the Nagoya Protocol as one of the exceptions to the general regime. Schloen et al. (2011) identified three characteristics of genetic resources for food and agriculture: they are elements of a biodiversity shaped by humans and their existence is closely linked to human activity; most of the products derived from these genetic resources can themselves be used as genetic resources (e.g. new varieties); and the erosion of these genetic resources is not linked to overexploitation, but rather to under-exploitation. For Chiarolla et al. (2013), the key issue is that national ABS regulations do not treat genetic resources for food and agriculture as ordinary resources.

21The ITPGRFA’s multilateral system enables easy access to the plant genetic resources deposited with it. Benefit sharing is also multilateralised (Box 2).

22Thomas (2014), however, considered the ITPGRFA to be a less virtuous approach than it may initially seem, as it enables the avoidance of contractual negotiations between suppliers and users of genetic resources, and is more favourable to users (researchers, breeders) of the multilateral system than to the farmers who provide genetic resources. Moreover, while the ITPGRFA recognises farmers’ rights (echoing Article 8j of the CBD), it is not binding and leaves the signatory States free to put in place appropriate measures. These tensions came to the fore in the negotiations on the revision of the ITPGRFA (extension of the list in Annex I, inclusion of digital sequence information [DSI], etc.).

Biological Resource Centres (BRCs)

23In the plant world, the expression “genebanks” or “seed banks” is still very commonly used to designate the infrastructures responsible for the conservation and management of collections of plant genetic resources, in a form that makes it possible to obtain plants from the conserved materials (seeds, entire plants, vitroplants, etc.). The public – even an informed public – is more familiar with this expression than the term “Biological Resource Centre” (BRC – in French: “Centre de ressources biologiques”), which nevertheless prevails today in the French genetic resources landscape.

24The BRC concept was promoted by the OECD in the early 2000s and has the advantage of being a single notion covering varied mechanisms for the conservation of very different components of the living world. The main feature common to these mechanisms is the requirement for traceability of the material conserved and distributed. Quality standards have been developed specifically for BRCs (NF S96-900 standard in France).

25Biological Resource Centres are part of the infrastructure that provides access to high-quality biological material for public and private research in the life sciences. Varied types of material are preserved. Centres that conserve biological resources of human origin contain samples of blood, tissue, cell lines, etc. Animal and plant BRCs conserve reproductive material (such as embryos and sperm from domesticated animal breeds, seeds), as well as “genomic” resources (mainly DNA fragments), which are used in research and easily exchanged by laboratories.

26In addition to the collections of biological material themselves, BRCs manage databases of related information known as “passport” data on the origin of the material, as well as physiological, agronomic and molecular data, etc. This information is becoming increasingly important and sensitive, as the resources conserved are all the more useful when they are documented.

27BRCs are tasked with the following main missions:

• ensuring the acquisition and the correct and permanent conservation of the biological material for which they are responsible;
• ensuring the traceability of this biological material, which means being able to identify it precisely at any stage of the conservation, multiplication, distribution, processes, etc.;
• characterising the biological material in the collection in order to promote its use and make information about it available;
• proposing the dissemination of this biological material.

28Methodological developments to improve the services rendered and the coordination of networks are often added to these missions. Changes in the socio-economic context impact certain activities. For example, the agro-ecological transition will lead to changes in the methods and criteria for evaluating agronomic resources. The pressure on public funding may lead some BRCs to prioritise their most profitable services.

29Compliance with national and international regulations on the exchange of biological material is an imperative for BRCs, in terms of health, biosecurity, the protection of endangered species and, of course, ABS.

BRCs and ABS

30BRCs and the ABS scheme share a similar trajectory, both in their design and implementation, and with regard to the ongoing debates. In fact, the BRCs and ABS regulations are designed and organised on the basis of the same division of living organisms into elementary building blocks: biological resources. The biological material is central, while the related information is said to be “associated”, whether it concerns traditional knowledge or phenotyping data.

31As a result, the approach adopted by BRCs, thanks to the traceability requirements and procedures, can also ensure compliance with ABS regulations. Providing material that offers users legal certainty is just another requirement, in addition to the obligations to provide samples that conform to the characteristics advertised in the catalogue, provide a good germination capacity, and are as healthy as possible. The systematic use of Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs), which predate the ITPGRFA and the Nagoya Protocol, facilitates this adaptation. Nevertheless, the managers of BRCs face problems concerning ABS implementation. The “regularisation” of collections, consisting of auditing and, if necessary, obtaining documents specifying the conditions for conservation and dissemination, is a massive undertaking. Immersion in the archives, and reliance on elders’ recollections about the introduction of given parts of collections are now part of the daily routine at BRCs. The quest for legal certainty is complicated by the heterogeneous implementation of ABS arrangements by States. And even when legal certainty is assured, questions of legitimacy may arise concerning the dissemination of foreign material, or even the depositing of material in the ITPGRFA Multilateral System.

32It is noteworthy that in an OECD (2001) report, the related data were included within the scope of biological resources: “Biological resources – living organisms, cells, genes, and the related information – are the essential raw materials for the advancement of biotechnology, human health, and research and development in the life sciences.” It should be noted that if it were included in the debate on the inclusion of DSI (digital sequencing information) in the scope of ABS, this definition could simply be expressed as “DSI is a biological resource”! (see Chapter 16).

33Finally, BRCs and ABS share the difficulty of transcending their assigned functions.

34BRCs are burdened by their image as ivory-towers or even bunkers, preserving diversity for the benefit of industry and research, and remaining aloof from farmers’ needs and concerns, especially in the plant world. In France, the BRC network consisting of INRAE, CIRAD and IRD is named “Ressources agronomiques pour la Recherche” (Agronomic Resources for Research) (https://www.agrobrc-rare.org), even though it is intended to serve other users. Media coverage of the Svalbard Global Reserve has contributed to a skewed perception of what genetic resource conservation really is. In fact, this reserve is merely a backup facility for existing genebanks, and does not perform any of the basic BRC tasks such as characterisation, documentation, or resource distribution, which are the day-to-day activities of plant genetic resource managers. The technologies used for conserving and analysing domestic diversity are not compatible with the more emotional, sensual vision of domestic diversity embodied by certain peasant movements.

35The accusations levelled at BRCs are often excessive. However, the role and governance of BRCs will need to change in order to take better account of the expectations of a wider range of stakeholders, broaden the circle of beneficiaries, and embrace a less fragmented, less “gene-centric”, and more dynamic conception of cultivated biodiversity.

36To a similar extent, and probably out of necessity, the formalism of ABS reduces biodiversity to the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that only make sense when they are put together, and the dialogue between stakeholders to the provider-direct user pairing (with the former not necessarily being the actual provider, but possibly the designated authority). ABS is therefore struggling to assert itself as the type of instrument that it needs to become in order to promote a global ambition to conserve biodiversity, mobilising all stakeholders in society. Only time will tell whether this state of affairs will continue, definitively sanctioning the CBD’s original sin of adding a commercial dimension to its objectives, or whether the ambitions of justice and equity pursued by the ABS mechanism will ultimately enable it to atone for what is perhaps only a youthful sin.

References

37Baco M. N., 2007 – Gestion locale de la diversité cultivée au Nord Bénin : éléments pour une politique publique de conservation de l’agrobiodiversité de l’igname (Dioscorea spp.). Orléans, PhD thesis.

38Badstue L. B., Bellon M. R., Berthaud J., Juárez X., Rosas I. M., Solano A. M., Ramírez A., 2006 – Examining the role of collective action in an informal seed system: a case study from the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico. Human Ecology, 34 (2): 249-273.

39Bellon M. R., 1991 – The ethnoecology of maize variety management: a case study from Mexico. Human Ecology, 19 (3): 389-418.

40Caillon S., Degeorges P., 2007 – Biodiversity: negotiating the border between nature and culture. Biodiversity and Conservation, 16 (10): 2919-2931.

41Cauvin J., 2000 – The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

42Chiarolla C., Louafi S., Schloen M., 2013 – « An analysis of the relationship between the Nagoya Protocol and instruments related to genetic resources for food and agriculture and farmers’ rights ». In: The 2010 Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing in Perspective, Leiden, Brill Nijhoff: 83-122.

43Cohen D., 2009 – La prospérité du vice : une introduction (inquiète) à l’économie. Paris, Albin Michel.

44Dedeurwaerdere T., Broggiato A., Louafi S., Welch E. W., Batur F., 2013 – « Governing global scientific research commons under the Nagoya Protocol ». In: The 2010 Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing in Perspective, Leiden, Brill Nijhoff: 389-421.

45Diamond J., 1997 – Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York, W. W. Norton.

46Fenzi M., Bonneuil C., 2016 – From “genetic resources” to “ecosystems services”: a century of science and global policies for crop diversity conservation. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, 38 (2): 72-83.

47Frankel O. H., Brown A. H., Burdon J. J., 1995 – The conservation of plant biodiversity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

48Gouyon P. H., 2001 – Les Harmonies de la nature à l’épreuve de la biologie : évolution et biodiversité. Versailles, Quae.

49Labeyrie V., Rono B., Leclerc C., 2014 – How social organization shapes crop diversity: an ecological anthropology approach among Tharaka farmers of Mount Kenya. Agriculture and Human Values, 31 (1): 97-107.

50Louafi S., 2011 – Entre courtiers et communautés de pratique : le rôle des CIRA dans la gouvernance globale des ressources génétiques. XIth AFSP Congress, Strasbourg, France, August 31 - September 2, 2011.

51Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2001 – Biological Resource Centers: Underpinning the Future of Life Sciences and Biotechnology. 68 p.

52Pistorius R., 1997 – Scientists, plants and politics: a history of the plant genetic resources movement. Bioversity International.

53Ricciardi V., 2015 - Social seed networks: identifying central farmers for equitable seed access. Agricultural Systems, 139: 110-121.

54Schloen S. M., Louafi S., Dedeurwaerdere T., 2011 – Access and benefit-sharing for genetic resources for food and agriculture-current use and exchange practices, commonalities, differences and user community needs. Report from a multi-stakeholder expert dialogue. Rome, CGRFA Background Study Paper No. 59, July 2011.

55Thomas F., 2014 – Les éthiques du partage des avantages dans la gouvernance internationale de la biodiversité sauvage et cultivée. Éthique publique. Revue internationale d’éthique sociétale et gouvernementale, 16 (1).

56Thomas F., 2017 – Ressources génétiques : garantir l’accès à un bien public mondial ou compenser sa marchandisation? Entreprises et histoire, 3 : 103-120.

57Thomas M., Caillon S., 2016 – Effects of farmer social status and plant biocultural value on seed circulation networks in Vanuatu. Ecology and Society, 21 (2).

58Vavilov N., 1987 – Origin and Geography of Cultivated Plants (translated by Doris Löve). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.