Funding CRISPR: Understanding the role of government and philanthropic institutions in supporting academic research within the CRISPR innovation system

CRISPR/Cas has the potential to revolutionize medicine, agriculture, and biology. Understanding the trajectory of innovation, how it is influenced and who pays for it, is an essential research policy question, especially as US government support for research experiences a relative decline. We use a new method -- based on funding sources identified in publications' funding acknowledgements -- to map the networks involved in supporting key stages of highly influential research, namely basic biological research and technology development. We present a model of co-funding networks at the two most prominent institutions for CRISPR/Cas research, the University of California and the Harvard/MIT/Broad Institute, to illuminate how philanthropic and charitable organizations have articulated with US government agencies to co-finance the discovery and development of CRISPR/Cas. We mapped foundational US government support to both stages of CRISPR/Cas research at both institutions, while philanthropic organizations have concentrated in co-funding CRISPR/Cas technology development as opposed to basic biological research. This is particularly true for the Broad/Harvard/MIT system, where philanthropic investment clustered around particular technological development themes. These network models raise fundamental questions about the role of the state and the influence of philanthropy over the trajectory of transformative technologies.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

The social dimensions of sustainability and change in diversified farming systems

Agricultural systems are embedded in wider social-ecological processes that must be considered in any complete discussion of sustainable agriculture. Just as climatic profiles will influence the future viability of crops, institutions, i.e., governance agreements, rural household and community norms, local associations, markets, and agricultural ministries, to name but a few, create the conditions that foster sustainable food systems. Because discussions of agricultural sustainability often overlook the full range of social dimensions, we propose a dual focus on a broad set of criteria, i.e., human health, labor, democratic participation, resiliency, biological and cultural diversity, equity, and ethics, to assess social outcomes, and on institutions that could support diversified farming systems (DFS). A comparative analysis of case studies from California\u27s Central Valley, Mesoamerican coffee agroforestry systems, and European Union agricultural parks finds that DFS practices are unevenly adopted within and among these systems and interdependent with institutional environments that specifically promote diversified farming practices. Influential institutions in these cases include state policies, farmers\u27 cooperatives/associations, and organized civic efforts to influence agroenvironmental policy, share knowledge, and shape markets for more ‘sustainable\u27 products. The Californian and Mesoamerican cases considers organic and fair trade certifications, finding that although they promote several DFS practices and generate social benefits, they are inadequate as a single strategy to promote agricultural sustainability. The complex governance and multifunctional management of Europe\u27s peri-urban agricultural parks show unexpected potential for promoting DFS. Unless DFS are anchored in supportive institutions and evaluated against an inclusive set of social and environmental criteria, short-term investments to advance diversified agriculture could miss a valuable opportunity to connect ecological benefits with social benefits in the medium and long terms

Debrief on the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS)

What are the roles and responsibilities of U.S. academia in global fora such as the United Nations Food Systems Summit? In an effort to be better global partners, the Inter-institutional Network for Food and Agricultural Sustainability (INFAS) accepted an invitation to participate in the UNFSS. INFAS then convened a debriefing for our members to hear from our colleagues about their experiences and any outcomes that may have emerged from the Food Systems Summit. The Food Systems Summit process was deeply flawed, resulting in confusion and power inequities, yet it stimulated coalition-building and reflection on how and why to participate in global food governance

Breeding Grounds for Biodiversity Renewing Crop Genetic Resources in an Age of Industrial Food

Seeds are central to agrobiodiversity, and farmers have historically bred a rich array of crop seeds to sustain rural and urban communities. Over the past 150 years, however, trajectories in macroeconomic development, science and research, and agricultural policy have dovetailed with environmental changes to diminish seed diversity and the living agricultures it supports. While genetic erosion has emerged as a global challenge, access to that diversity has also come into stark relief: Industry consolidation, the development of transgenic crops, and intellectual property rights are now seen as constraints on free exchange of seeds and the ability of farmers and breeders to adapt and breed resilient crop cultivars. How can seed diversity – and access to it – be expanded once more?To address this question, my dissertation develops a ‘political ecology of seeds.’ Building on the foundational account of seed primitive accumulation by Kloppenburg (1988), I examine several dimensions left underexplored in this and other accounts: new, countervailing forces of repossession working against primitive accumulation; the knowledge politics of seed production and of seed science; and the co-production of institutions, policies, discourse, and knowledge together. Using a constructivist theoretical framework, my project explores how knowledge politics and coproduction are instrumental in carving out new – and retracing old – territories for seed enclosures in the contemporary era. By examining how often-invisible discourses and practices underpin seed dispossession, we are better equipped to organize alternatives – not only to reject colonial and capitalist habits of thought/practice, but to revitalize communal, ethical, and economic strategies of repossession. My thesis includes three core papers, alongside introduction, theory, and conclusion chapters. In the first paper, I critically interrogate meanings of ‘diversity’ via rivaling discourses of seed ‘loss’ and ‘persistence’ visible in the scientific, international policy, and farmer movement literatures over 40-plus years. On one hand, numerous studies and stories indicate that crop genetic diversity is rapidly eroding worldwide. On the other hand, much data suggests that far from disappearing, seed diversity persists – resisting homogenizing trends within industrial capitalism. Yet in lieu of binary analyses, a more accurate accounting, I argue, can come from investigating the epistemic practices and politics of agrobiodiversity: what is known – recognized, measured, valued – as being lost or maintained. Evaluating historical data on farmer naming systems along with newer methods of genomic and biochemical analysis, I develop a multi-dimensional framework for understanding seed diversity.My second paper considers crop wild relatives (CWR) as a fast-emerging site for new seed primitive accumulation. Faced with imminent climate change, scientists and agribusinesses are vying to develop crops that can survive drought, floods, and shifting pest regimes. CWR offer breeders the allure of ‘climate-hardy traits,’ infusing genomes of modern crops with ‘lost’ genetic variety. Paradoxically, wild relatives themselves are endangered, propelling CWR into the limelight as an international conservation and food-security priority. I examine accumulation processes along two fronts: conservation policies, where in situ approaches, typically regarded as empowering alternatives to ex situ, instead may support appropriation; and breeding and biotechnology research, which produces new use values for CWR while profoundly shaping upstream conservation priorities.My third and final paper explores the US-based Open Source Seed Initiative as one example of repossession. OSSI has created an alternative to intellectual property rights with a ‘protected commons’ for seed. Commons scholarship has contributed much on theories of institutional governance. But, I argue, attending to the practice of ‘commoning’ helps illuminate a more complex triad: communities who manage shared resources according to negotiated social protocols. Employing the metaphor of ‘beating the bounds’ – a feudal practice of contesting enclosures – I ask how OSSI defends the commons in intersecting arenas. First is legal, as OSSI negotiates a move from contract law toward moral economy law. Next is epistemic, as a ‘freelance’ breeder network revitalizes informal farmer-breeder knowledge, proving less structurally constrained than formal university breeders to lead commoning efforts. Third is seed sovereignty, as OSSI engages with global South movements whose diverse cosmovisions and seed cultures pose new challenges for constructing transnational commons. I conclude by using spatial ‘centricity’ to conceptualize power relations in seed systems. CWR exemplifies ‘ex-situ centric’ flows of seed knowledge, power, and value away from local communities to centralized, often distant sites of recognizing and classifying diversity. Expertise is conferred primarily upon those scientists and industrialists who can produce commodity goods. By contrast, OSSI mobilizes breeder and farmer knowledge in a countervailing, ‘in-situ centric’ direction: towards local spaces, towards legitimizing farmer-breeders as knowledge makers. This movement, I conclude, is not merely an opposite force: it triangulates across three bases of ‘emancipatory’ action at the heart of agroecology, food sovereignty and commoning. Uniting politics of recognition (race, gender, identity), politics of redistribution (class and inequality), and politics of representation (democracy and citizenship), the question of seed diversity and access, I suggest, is ultimately a political one. It calls for recognizing diverse knowledge-makers, redistributing genetic resources as commons, de-centralizing seed reproduction to suit heterogenous agroecologies, and addressing base inequalities in power that drive dispossession

How the most genetically versatile grain conquered the World

Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, 2003."September 2003."Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-83).by Maywa Montenegro de Wit.S.M.in Science Writin

How the most genetically versatile grain conquered the World

Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, 2003."September 2003."Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-83).by Maywa Montenegro de Wit.S.M.in Science Writin

Toward thick legitimacy: Creating a web of legitimacy for agroecology

Abstract Legitimacy is at the heart of knowledge politics surrounding agriculture and food. When people accept industrial food practices as credible and authoritative, they are consenting to their use and existence. With their thick legitimacy, industrial food systems paralyze the growth of alternative agricultures, including agroecology. Questions of how alternative agricultures can attain their own thick legitimacy in order to compete with, and displace, that of industrial food have not yet attracted much scrutiny. We show that both agroecological and scientific legitimacy grow out of a web of legitimation processes in the scientific, policy, political, legal, practice, and civic arenas. Crucially, legitimation often comes through meeting what we call ‘credibility tests’. Agroecologists can learn to navigate these co-constituted, multiple bases of legitimacy by paying attention to how credibility tests are currently being set in each arena, and beginning to recalibrate these tests to open more room for agroecology. Using a schematic of three non-exclusive pathways, we explore some possible practical interventions that agroecologists and other advocates of alternative agricultures could take. These pathways include: leveraging, while also reshaping, the existing standards and practices of science; extending influence into policy, legal, practical, and civic arenas; and centering attention on the ethical legitimacy of food systems. We conclude that agroecologists can benefit from considering how to build legitimacy for their work

Open Source for seeds and genetic sequence data: Practical experience and future strategies

International audienceApplication of the open source concept to seeds has a promising future. It reverses the logic of the intellectual property system with a renewable stock of open source material kept outside the exclusive intellectual property realm. Legal defensibility may currently be uncertain, but as open source builds a critical mass of practitioners and supporters, wider social legitimacy could strengthen the legal power. Future extension to other subject matter and settings is discussed on the basis of lessons learnt from current open source seed implementation experience in the US, Europe and Africa