Perspectives and paradoxes in the Latvian organic sector in the context of EU acccession

The Latvian Organic Agriculture Association (LBLA) marked its ten year anniversary this year, one year after joining the European Union (EU). In these ten years, the number of certified or transition period organic farms has grown from 38 to almost 3000, with two thirds of that growth occurring since EU accession. During the same period, however, the amount of certified organic produce reaching the consumer has increased only marginally, as many obstacles remain for farmers to develop and gain market access. This paper analyzes the effects of EU accession from the farmers' perspective, and reveals that the implementation of EU regulations in the Latvian post-socialist context often has unintended consequences due to the complex interaction of EU and Latvian administrative processes, differences in farmers' experiences and expectations, and the dilapidated state of existing rural infrastructure. These findings raise crucial questions about how current EU policies and support structures will assist or hinder farmers in new member states in establishing a niche in European organic agriculture and contributing to sustainable rural development

Privately public seeds: competing visions of property, personhood, and democracy in Costa Rica's entry into CAFTA and the Union for Plant Variety Protection (UPOV)

Costa Rica's entry into the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was hotly contested and the subject of a national referendum. For activists opposing the treaty, questions of 'privatizing seeds' through imposing intellectual property rights were among the main concerns raised by the treaty, as one requirement of CAFTA was signing the international Convention on Plant Variety Protection known as UPOV. The threat to farmers' seeds in Costa Rica and many other parts of the world is more complicated than being a clear-cut issue of privatization. Struggles for control over seeds are a crucial part of the political economy of agriculture that are grounded in debates over the significance of the physical and social properties of seeds as a natural resource. This article explores how debates over intellectual property rights to seeds confound simple distinctions between public domain and private property, and the implications for agricultural genetic diversity. Moreover, through the story of Costa Rica's engagement with CAFTA and UPOV, I contemplate the broader effects of the free trade paradigm on reconfiguring ideas not only of property but also of personhood and democracy. I will argue that through reconfiguring the boundary between the public domain and private property in the realm of seeds, recent intellectual property trends also reinscribe the definition of farmers along pre-defined class lines. Through their actions, groups involved offer competing visions of how a local resource should be defined and internationally connected; these visions can be understood as competing visions of political ecology in practice. Keywords: Costa Rica, CAFTA, UPOV, intellectual property, seed

Land and Seeds: The Cultural, Ecological, and Global Politics of Organic Agriculture in Latvia and Costa Rica.

This dissertation is a multi-sited ethnography of organic agriculture movements in the historically, culturally, and ecologically diverse contexts of Latvia and Costa Rica. It explores how the divergent traditions and practices surrounding landscape preservation, biodiversity conservation, and seed production have shaped national organic movements in these countries. My research reveals that despite radically different backgrounds and strategies, both movements are limited in similar ways due to their marginal positions within their respective countries and the global economy. They share certain problems in moving organically grown products to market, which differ from the trends of “conventionalization” encountered by organic sectors in industrialized countries. Further, the dissertation investigates how the two movements have reacted to the respective regional economic integration processes of joining the European Union (EU) and resisting entry into the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). I trace the course of two rural development struggles over land surveying and land use practices in Latvia, and intellectual property rights over seeds in Costa Rica. These struggles reflect broader contests over cultural landscapes as formed through organic farmer practices; public versus private control over space, place and property; the formation of farmer social networks and relations; and broader ideas of democracy and participation in social and political life. I argue that the culturally specific responses to these processes of regionalization and globalization have emerged out of the different environmental and agricultural histories, political narratives, and cultural symbols in each country. The Latvian organic movement tends towards re-territorialization, emphasizing the social imaginaries of the nation and land in response to the EU. In contrast, the Costa Rican organic movement has joined together with other social movements in resisting CAFTA through a global perspective of interchange and circulation of ideas across borders, paralleling their emphasis on seed exchange as a form of resistance to intellectual property rights. Heated debates at the global level about the standardization of norms for organic agriculture across such different ecological and cultural terrains reflect the difficulty of “uniting the organic world in all its diversity,” as stated in the mission of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM).Ph.D.Natural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61739/1/guntra_1.pd

Farmer seed networks make a limited contribution to agriculture? Four common misconceptions

a b s t r a c t The importance of seed provisioning in food security and nutrition, agricultural development and rural livelihoods, and agrobiodiversity and germplasm conservation is well accepted by policy makers, practitioners and researchers. The role of farmer seed networks is less well understood and yet is central to debates on current issues ranging from seed sovereignty and rights for farmers to GMOs and the conservation of crop germplasm. In this paper we identify four common misconceptions regarding the nature and importance of farmer seed networks today. (1) Farmer seed networks are inefficient for seed dissemination. (2) Farmer seed networks are closed, conservative systems. (3) Farmer seed networks provide ready, egalitarian access to seed. (4) Farmer seed networks are destined to weaken and disappear. We challenge these misconceptions by drawing upon recent research findings and the authors' collective field experience in studying farmer seed systems in Africa, Europe, Latin America and Oceania. Priorities for future research are suggested that would advance our understanding of seed networks and better inform agricultural and food policy

Farmer seed networks make a limited contribution to agriculture? Four common misconceptions

The importance of seed provisioning in food security and nutrition, agricultural development and rural livelihoods, and agrobiodiversity and germplasm conservation is well accepted by policy makers, practitioners and researchers. The role of farmer seed networks is less well understood and yet is central to debates on current issues ranging from seed sovereignty and rights for farmers to GMOs and the conservation of crop germplasm. In this paper we identify four common misconceptions regarding the nature and importance of farmer seed networks today. (1) Farmer seed networks are inefficient for seed dissemination. (2) Farmer seed networks are closed, conservative systems. (3) Farmer seed networks provide ready, egalitarian access to seed. (4) Farmer seed networks are destined to weaken and disappear. We challenge these misconceptions by drawing upon recent research findings and the authors’ collective field experience in studying farmer seed systems in Africa, Europe, Latin America and Oceania. Priorities for future research are suggested that would advance our understanding of seed networks and better inform agricultural and food policy

The Governance of Agrobiodiversity

Agrobiodiversity relates to humans and their environments. It is the result of interactions between humans and nature, and thus is simultaneously social and biological by nature. Without humans, agrobiodiversity would not exist. Seeds, as carriers of major agrobiodiversity components, are not mere material objects that exist outside of social relations: they are also sociobiological artifacts embedded in these relations. The multifaceted, highly dynamic realities of agrobiodiversity mean that those interested in questions of governance need to understand the limitations and political implications of the complementary and sometimes contradictory instrumental and relational perspectives on seeds; that is, the understanding of seeds as a production input or as the subject of a social network, in which agrobiodiversity brings together production and social linkages. International instruments aim to provide a legal basis for mediating competing interests and methodologies. In addressing governance, the global framing of these instruments refl ects the dynamics of agrobiodiversity in global socioeconomic and environmental changes. From the earliest recognition of the potential value of crop diversity, crop genetic resources were treated as public goods in the public domain. Breeding companies have opposed this treatment. Breeders sought exclusivity and reward for their creative activities in using genetic resources to create novel varieties. Governance of agrobiodiversity—defi ned by a set of relationships that infl uences the access to and conservation, exchange, and commercialization of agrobiodiversity—refl ects underlying value systems. Confl icting approaches (e.g., “stewardship” vs. “ownership” approaches) toward governance based on divergent value systems and rationales can be distinguished. It is important to identify the actors involved, from local to global, to understand the power dynamics that infl uence the interactions among these various actors and their ability to infl uence or control the management of agrobiodiversity. The governance of agrobiodiversity and the power dynamics involved are increasingly crucial in the context of rapidly changing farming and food systems, especially in the context of globalization, migration, and urbanization. This chapter elaborates an emergent research agenda, focusing on aspects of power relations in agrobiodiversity governance, agrobiodiversity and food systems, nutrition, taste and health, and the governance of genetic information

Farmer seed networks make a limited contribution to agriculture? Four common misconceptions

a b s t r a c t The importance of seed provisioning in food security and nutrition, agricultural development and rural livelihoods, and agrobiodiversity and germplasm conservation is well accepted by policy makers, practitioners and researchers. The role of farmer seed networks is less well understood and yet is central to debates on current issues ranging from seed sovereignty and rights for farmers to GMOs and the conservation of crop germplasm. In this paper we identify four common misconceptions regarding the nature and importance of farmer seed networks today. (1) Farmer seed networks are inefficient for seed dissemination. (2) Farmer seed networks are closed, conservative systems. (3) Farmer seed networks provide ready, egalitarian access to seed. (4) Farmer seed networks are destined to weaken and disappear. We challenge these misconceptions by drawing upon recent research findings and the authors' collective field experience in studying farmer seed systems in Africa, Europe, Latin America and Oceania. Priorities for future research are suggested that would advance our understanding of seed networks and better inform agricultural and food policy