LA VALORISATION DU GUARANA EN AMAZONIE BRESILIENNE : CULTURE DE RENTE ET/OU CULTURE DES FILIERES

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5International audienceIn Brazil, the question of the requalification of local knowledge is hardly perceptible. It has become a main political stake for rural populations that are facing agribusiness expansion. The example of Guarana, a plant from Amazonia, is emblematic of the competition between different models of production, each of them based on specific history, beliefs, practices and botanical varieties. After numerous decades along which productivist model of production has been dominant, the commercial success of the Guarana based products and the local appropriation of the system of reference linked with sustainable development have favoured the diversification of the forms of management and economic development of the plant in its origin area. While the multinational company AMBEV, leader on the market of Guarana based soda, intends to keep the control on the market of the Guarana, various categories of producers (American Indians; caboclos, local communities, rural workers) are mobilizing for few years to stand up their know-how and the specificity of their production linked with their territory. Among those groups, the Satéré Mawé indians claim that they are depositary of the genetic diversity of the plant and that they still collect native seedlings in the forest to maintain the diversity in their fields. In this paper, we will watch the regional history and we will underline how environmental stakes (such as biodiversity conservation, traditional knowledge protection, green market) result within the territory in new cleavages related with the uses of natural resources

Agricultural biodiversity, knowledge systems and policy decisions

International audienceSince the Earth Summit (1992), there has been an epistemological shift in research on the diversity of living organisms: there has been a switch from the sphere of biology to the sphere of society and the political and human sciences. Managing agricultural diversity, which mainly concerns varietal creation methods, intellectual property rights over genetic resources and access to seeds, does not raise any new challenges but these latter aspects are highlighted due to ecological urgency. We shall show this through the history of maize hybrids. Indeed, there are two major options. In the first option, so-called productivist agriculture, the aim will be to try and modify the environment, to make it more uniform while, at the same time, introducing and marketing a new genotype with broad adaptability or specific adaptation, though in both cases the environment will be artificialized. The second alternative, defended by the champions of smallholder agriculture, consists in growing a range of varieties or varieties populations, which themselves have the ability to adapt, hence a potential for evolution and, thereby, adaptation. The second option is usually greatly preferred by human populations in phase with their environment, as is often the case in the agricultures of the South. In addition, the pluralist principle of the democratic system enables the emergence of all kinds of controversies and those concerning environmental issues are very present as our common way of life is implicated. Within the biology field, quarrels over genetic risk, symbolized by MGOs, are emblematic. It can be seen that these ecological debates are all mediated by science, which holds expert, codified, scientific and easily accessible knowledge. However, since article 8j (CDB, 1992) stating that property rights are applicable to the genetic resources and local knowledge possessed by human communities, there has been renewed interest in the tacit knowledge incorporated in our practices, know-how and collective memories, which are much more difficult to decipher. No player, whether individual or collective, scientific or not, has enough knowledge and legitimacy to solve an environmental problem, which is necessarily of a collective nature, whereas our collective process of policy decisions appears to be increasingly “technocratic”, i.e. resulting from the aggregation of expert opinions. In such a context, some hybrid forums are emerging; they enable minorities to express their views, preferences and values and bring with them a new democratic form. These systems invent procedures for bringing knowledge out of isolation and they trigger collective learning processes. We shall attempt to understand the relation existing between the knowledge and policy decision systems, notably by structuring the functioning of delegation systems, which may generate more or less reasonable positions, depending on their configuration. Based on the results of an interdisciplinary workshop to be held in October 2013 under the NSS-Dialogues association, we shall focus ourselves, as scientists, on the issue of scientific mediation and its status in policy decisions

De la paysannerie française aux peuples de la forêt amazonienne

Avec le développement durable, le Nord et le Sud se sont rejoints dans la réhabilitation du paysan pour son rôle dans le maintien de la biodiversité, pour ses relations avec le territoire et pour son inscription dans la longue durée. On peut néanmoins douter de l’efficacité du terme « paysan » pour rendre compte de la réalité rurale d’un pays comme le Brésil. Pour preuve, la figure du paysan n’y est guère mobilisée quand il s’agit de répondre à des questions d’environnement. C’est à d’autres catégories sociales que l’on s’adresse, telles les « populations traditionnelles ». L’auteure établit un parallèle entre les sociétés paysannes et les peuples exotiques et explique ce qui l’a incitée à emprunter à la sociologie rurale française ses méthodes pour les appliquer à des populations amazoniennes. Deux champs disciplinaires ont eu, selon elle, un rôle pionnier dans le renouvellement de la vision classique du changement social : l’anthropologie du développement et la sociologie rurale française, parce qu’elles avaient en commun un objet qui les a rapidement amenées à transgresser les clôtures disciplinaires dans le traitement de la question de la nature et de la question sociale.From the French peasantry to peoples in the Amazonian forestGiven sustainable development, North and South have joined to rehabilitate peasants in their role of maintaining biodiversity; their relations with the territory; and their orientation toward the long run. We wonder, however, whether the word "peasant" is helpful for explaining rural life in a country like Brazil. Proof of this is that the figure of the peasant seldom crops up when responses are formulated to environmental questions. Instead, other social categories come to mind, such as "traditional peoples". After drawing a parallel between peasant societies and "exotic" peoples, the author explains what led her to borrow methods from French rural sociology for application to Amazonian peoples. Two disciplines – the anthropology of development and French rural sociology – played a pioneering role in renewing the classical vision of social change. They shared a topic that soon led them to trespass disciplinary boundaries while addressing social issues and the question of nature

Innovate to resist? Territorialization of Guaraná in Amazonía (Brazil)

En los últimos años, Brasil ha conocido importantes transformaciones entre las cuales se encuentra el refuerzo de la participación ciudadana en la elaboración de políticas públicas e instrumentos innovadores para el desarrollo rural como son por un lado, “los territorios ciudadanos” conformados en 2008 y por otro lado el acceso al sistema de indicaciones geográficas creado en 2002. Consideraremos a estos mecanismos como favorables a la institucionalización de territorios específicos donde la gobernanza rompería con políticas tradicionales de manera que la valorización de recursos agrícolas localizados garantice un acceso seguro al mercado. Analizaremos el caso particular de la región de Maués (Amazonas), conocida originalmente como la tierra del guaraná (Paullinia cupana var. sorbilis). Esta planta forestal amazónica fue domesticada por las tribus Satéré Mawé para luego difundirse en la región y en otros Estados . A parte de su valorización en el marco de cadenas productivas, mostramos que el guaraná es el objeto de luchas de apropiación por parte de distintos colectivos con el objetivo de su reinscripción en su territorio de origen. El acceso a las indicaciones geográficas se encuentra en el corazón de un proceso multiforme de territorialización de Guaraná donde diversos actores se enfrentan, se excluyen o se coordinan para defender su especialización.In recent years, Brazil has experienced major transformations among which the strengthening of citizen participation in public policy development and innovative instruments for rural development such as on the one hand, "the territories of citizenship" formed in 2008 and on the other hand access to the geographical indications (GIs) scheme established in 2002. We consider these mechanisms as favorable to the institutionalization of specific territories where governance would break with traditional policies so that the valorization of localized agricultural resources ensure a secure access to the market. We discuss the particular case of the region of Maués (Amazonas), originally known as the land of guaraná (Paullinia cupana var. sorbilis). This Amazon forest plant was domesticated by the Sateré-Mawé people before spreading in the region and to other Brazilian states. Apart from its valorization within classic production chains, we show that guaraná is the object of appropriation struggles by different groups aiming at reinscribing it in its territory of origin. Access to GIs finds itself at the heart of a multifaceted territorialization process of guaraná in which different actors face each other, are excluded or coordinate to defend their specialization