Experiences of scientists supporting community engagement regarding crop genetic resources and the law: examples from traditionally based maize systems in North America

Abstract

In situ conserved crop genetic resources (CGRs) occur in the form of native or local crop varieties, developed and cultivated by peasant/farming communities, including indigenous communities across North America. The global significance of these CGRs has led to the construction of legal frameworks regarding core issues of access, use, benefit sharing, liability and redress, and the threats to the integrity and conservation of these crop varieties and the associated ancestral knowledge. Until recently, most of these frameworks have supported an industrial agriculture and food system paradigm and associated assumptions.

As social and biological scientists, we describe our methods and experiences from work with indigenous maize-growing communities around some of those core issues. Regarding the exploitation of community CGRs - early documentation of community opinions regarding Intellectual Property Rights in seeds, food and tribal name, and a recent example of the inadequacy of current protocols intended to prevent inequitable exploitation and eventual privatization of community CGRs. Regarding protecting the integrity of community CGRs, we summarize previous and ongoing work to uphold a constitutional mandate in Mexico to protect community CGRs of native maize from gene technology contamination, through a grassroots and bottom-up collaborative approach with peasants and small-scale maize producers that we have called “community biosafety.” We do not speak for these communities, but rather as scientists and partners testing conventional assumptions about agriculture and food systems, and alternatives to these.

From our standpoints, we reflect on lessons learned of utility for current and future research and practice around the interface of the legal, western scientific, and community perspectives on native and local crop varieties.

About the Speakers

Daniela Soleri has a PhD in ethnoecology with an emphasis in anthropology and participatory research, and a minor in plant science. She is a Research Scientist, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. As an ethnoecologist Soleri’s research uses theory and methods from social and biological sciences to explore epistemic justice in food systems. With these tools she documents and investigates people’s knowledge and management of their crop plants and foods, and the implications for improving science practice and public policy. Together with colleagues she has described the informal, adaptive processes and practices developed by small scale farmers to support desirable, viable maize and bean populations, or by transnational migrants to maintain healthy, culturally significant food systems in new places of residence. She tests assumptions that are fundamental in some food system research such as the function of seed selection, definitions of a crop variety, farmers’ attitudes towards new seed technologies and their related risk assessment, and the homogeneity of the nutrition transition in migrant communities. Her studies of the perceptions and goals of maize farmers viz a vis maize seed technologies – local varieties, and commercial hybrids and transgenics – are unique in distinguishing these technologies and documenting farmers’ own preferences, providing evidence of a more nuanced picture of the larger seed technology debate than is typically seen. In different ways, her research asks: Through respectful collaboration, how can researchers understand and support communities’ own efforts to construct food systems that reflect valued livelihoods, foods and cultural traditions while adapting to 21st century challenges including agrobiodiversity loss, rising social inequity, noncommunicable diseases, migration, and the climate crisis?

Further information can be found here.

Alma Piñeyro-Nelson is a biologist from the Faculty of Sciences at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM; National Autonomous University of Mexico), México (2007) and holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences, also at UNAM (2013). Her professional training includes a postdoctoral stance at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, where she was a UC-Mexus postdoctoral fellow (February 2013-April 2015). Since June 2015, she has been a Full professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM; Metropolitan Autonomous University) at its Xochimilco campus, where she works in the Department of Agricultural and Animal Production, teaching undergraduates in the agronomy major. Her areas of expertise are: molecular genetics of plant development, developmental evolution, agrobiodiversity conservation, as well as biosafety and biomonitoring of genetically modified organisms in Mexico, particularly maize. She has published several research articles related to her research areas and coordinated, together with Dr. Elena R. Álvarez-Buylla the multi-authored book: “El maíz en peligro ante los transgénicos: un análisis integral sobre el caso de México” (Ed.CEIICH-UNAM/UCCS, 2013). Piñeyro has worked with small-holder producers and peasants from different parts of Mexico (Oaxaca, Tlaxcala, Mexico City, Chiapas, Tabasco) throughout her career. Since 2022 she has been PI (Principal Investigator) or co-PI in three research projects funded by the National Council for Science and Technology (Mexico) focused on documenting transgene presence in different maize samples (native seed, hybrid seed, grain, processed flour, food) and has led multidisciplinary efforts focused on the co-construction of communitary biosafety measures in localities in Oaxaca and Tabasco.

Dr. Emmanuel González-Ortega currently is a researcher with/for Mexico (“Investigador por México”) at the Autonomous Metropolitan University-Xochimilco in Mexico City. He holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Barcelona, a MsSC in Plant Biotechnology from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav) in Mexico, and has Biotechnology Engineering degree from the Interdisciplinary Professional Unit of Biotechnology of the National Polytechnic Institute (UPIBI-IPN) in Mexico. González-Ortega is an expert in biosecurity of genetically modified organisms (GMO), GMO risk assessment, monitoring and identification of transgenic maize in the field and in foods produced with maize. He has participated in research projects aimed to the construction of bottom-up initiatives on maize biosecurity in indigenous/rural communities in several regions of Mexico. González-Ortega has been nominated by Mexican government to participate in several multilateral discussions in the context of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity such as “Risk assessment and risk management of GMO” and “Monitoring and Identification of GMO” discussions on the Development of the methodology for the second assessment and review of the effectiveness of the Nagoya Protocol. He has been recognized as expert in Synthetic Biology to participate in the Ad hoc Technical Expert Group on Synthetic Biology. He is interested in the biological, ecological, social, and cultural implications of the presence of GMOs. González-Ortega also has scientific expertise in molecular biology, molecular genetics, molecular virology. He is a member of the National System of Researchers, Level I, of the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation (SECIHTI) in Mexico.

Timezones

Santa Barbara     Monday 29 Sep 4.30pm

Mexico City         Monday 29 Sep 5.30pm

Brisbane              Tuesday 30 Sep 9.30am

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