Stealing into the wild

Conservation Science, Plant Breeding and the Makings of New Seed Enclosures

Bibliographic Data

ID2157223
AuthorsMaywa Montenegro De Wit (0000-0002-8975-5316, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume44
Issue1
Pages169-212
Publication date2017-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Peasant Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-6150 • E-ISSN: 1743-9361
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03066150.2016.1168405
OpenAlexW2444686895
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited79

Faced with pressing climatic changes, scientific and industrial interests are vying to develop crops that can survive drought, floods and shifting pest regimes. Increasingly, they look for solutions in an unlikely place: the gene pools of wild plants. Crop wild relatives (CWR) - species closely related to crops, including their ancestors - offer breeders the allure of retracing the domestication bottleneck, infusing genomes of modern crops with 'lost' genetic variety. Yet wild relatives also confront threats from climate change, urbanization and expansion of industrial agri-food. Thus, CWR, seen as both salvational and threatened, have become an international conservation and food-security priority. It is my contention that, in their common project to harness wild-relative potential, conservation and breeding science are co-evolving to extend seed commodity relations into new spheres. I examine enclosures along two fronts: first within 'systematic CWR conservation', where 'in situ' approaches, typically regarded as empowering and sustainable alternatives to 'ex situ', instead may support a complementary system of value extraction; second, in breeding and biotechnology research, which produces new value for CWR while profoundly shaping upstream conservation priorities. An important finding is that although today's 'ex situ-centric' complementarity favors dispossession, an 'in situ-centric' approach could foster democratic renewal of biocultural diversity

Agricultural biodiversity · Agriculture · Agroforestry · Biology · Domestication · Economics · Endangered species · Ex situ conservation · Food security · Genetic diversity · In situ conservation · Natural resource economics · Population · Sociology · Threatened species · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · CRISPR and Genetic Engineering · Genetically Modified Organisms Research · Ecology

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