Exenciones en la prueba de acceso a los ciclos de grado medio

In Chapter 1, I overviewed the different phases in the international

governance of genetic resources policy. Here, I begin from the premise that the ITPGRFA represents a different phase in the political economy of

genebanking because it ushered in significant changes to the way material should be shared; and because this treaty (and associated documents) set out specific requirements (although they might be quite vaguely worded) that people are held to. I therefore intend to investigate this new phase through an account of the practices of genebanks - so as to derive insights into the way people conceptualise the conservation system and the value of

germplasm.

So far, I have argued that genebanks are responsible for maintaining germplasm that is considered valuable, and for doing so in ways that encompass different priorities and values. It is in that sense that they are a fundamental part of making the germplasm economy happen. In this section, I make the case that this represents a shift in priority towards more tangible, visible value. In other words, there is an effort to make ex situ conservation more productive. With the coming into force of the Seed Treaty there was a renewed effort by policy makers to encourage the flow of genetic resources through the MLS. I suggest that interpreting this situation with a focus on the seed bank suggests that this new arrangement is founded on arguments about the need to enable the value in genebanks to be made concrete by prioritizing access to/use of genetic resources. Moreover, the ITPGRFA approach hinges on the concept that the main benefit of the new system is mutual access to germplasm itself. In this way, this economy does not

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necessarily focus on money as the exclusive or obvious currency, but also on the flow of germplasm, information, funding, and labour: it appears as though success is measured not in the exchange value of the germplasm, but rather how lively the germplasm economy is in the first place. In a sense, however, the financial angle is never far away, in that making that value obvious is the way to justify further investment in the conservation of genetic resources. So, an interesting paradox emerges: on the one hand, it appears that it is not commercial/exchange value which matters, but rather the ability to

demonstrate use value. On the other, genebanks are having to operate as commercial entities in identifying new target audiences and developing means of reaching them.

Altogether, there has been a shift towards greater emphasis on use, and less emphasis put on the growth of collections for their own sake. Of course, the value of genetic resources was grounded on the potential for use from the beginning of ex situ conservation (Peres, 2016); but this expectation was not, thus far, fulfilled. So, one might argue that the value of genetic resources has always been (at least when it is within the genebank) potential/promissory. Certainly, there is a clearly promissory aspect33 _{to the way people talk about}

the value of genetic resources – the value of genetic resources is notoriously difficult to assess. 34 _{Such difficulty can be ascribed at least partially to the}

difficulty in tracing the value of germplasm used as parentage - although economists have tried (Smale, 2006; Smale & Koo, n.d.; Virchow, 1999), along with many others. The material which is kept in genebanks is

considered to be valuable as a kind of raw material for further research, plant

33 _{Indeed, it is because this is such a promissory economy that images and}

rhetoric are quite meaningful; gestures are important. Metaphors like ‘insurance’, ‘rich portfolio’ and ‘heritage’ immediately suggest why specific courses of action are valid. Returning to the idea of the Seed Vault that

opened up the thesis, we can see how it is telling – especially when there is a perceived need to make people more aware of the ‘disappearing riches’ that are kept in the world’s gene banks.

34 _{Although it should be borne in mind that there are live discussions on this}

point with regards to what constitutes the ‘use’ of a genebank, given that the provision of information, for example, is useful.

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breeding or training. In other words, it has generally been seen to be important not for the respective plant per se, but rather because of the possibility of introducing traits from banked materials into new, improved varieties, which were not present in existing contemporary improved varieties. I demonstrate this in the next extract, where a genebank staff member from the UK explains how they make sense of this interest in ‘heritage’ material for traits:

“there’s a good (.) scientific reason why a lot of people are interested in this heritage material and that’s because they- the material since the Green Revolution has been mined out, really, for a lot of interesting traits. It’s quite uniform, because (.) there were a few sources which were then expanded across, the you know, the globe; whereas the stuff that’s before that is a lot more variable so if you’re looking for hidden traits that might not be manifest in the elite material, the newer material [yeah] like drought tolerance and

aluminium tolerance and you know things like that heat stress tolerance [yeah] then the heritage material might offer you stuff that you wouldn’t find in more modern material.” (I2, UK, genebank staff lines 178-186)

In this situation, then, it is difficult to predict what might be useful in the future, and to whom. Genebank collections are created a priori, which maximises potential usefulness, but also makes it difficult to predict what material will come to be useful. Another way of putting this would be to think that there are two different kinds of value which can be assigned to PGRFA. A distinction is often made by economists between so-called use value, which is the immediate use for a particular sample, and option value, which is the potential use value of a sample in the future. This is reflected, for

instance, in the uncertainty inherent to the very definition of PGRFA as ‘genetic material of actual or potential value’. This particular arrangement of value is enacted, or expressed, in the suggestion that genebanks act as ‘insurance’ for the future of agriculture. Moreover, even when genetic

material is used, it is difficult to ascertain the ‘farm gate’ value of germplasm. Uncertainty, then, is central to the difficulty ascertaining the value of

germplasm. There are difficulties knowing, for instance, the full panoply of the traits contained in the genebanks, nor what they could potentially be useful

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for. In the cases where materials do leave the genebank, it was not easy to trace where genetic resources were used after they left the genebank. In contrast, with the establishment of the MLS, there is the scope for eliminating some of these issues through a streamlined MLS, as well as the

establishment of the use of SMTAs with germplasm, thus creating a trail.

Whereas genebanks used to be proposed as the way to conserve genetic diversity, since the CBD came into existence they became considered rather as a complementary method to in situ and on-farm conservation. Hence, it makes sense to speak of a realignment of the job of genebanks. This shift towards greater focus on the actual over the potential value of the banked material was articulated in a variety of ideas and practices. Hence, in the current system of genetic resources governance, the sanctioned idea is that genetic material be utilized: that is the way to capitalize on the investment made onto the system itself. For instance, it became part of the impact which donors to international organisations were looking for and it became, in this way, very much prioritised. Such was the rationale for that change as explained by a participant working for an organization that seeks to enable international coordination between genebanks,

“So now then the next paradigm shift has been that, okay, it’s well and good to be conserving those germplasm either in-situ or ex-situ but, you know, okay, why? What is the benefits of that to humankind, to people’s livelihood? You know, livelihood of people became much more important. Donors put a lot more emphasis on the importance of, you know, the benefits that people derive from genetic resources. So our research focus then started to shift at that time…” (I16, international ex situ coordinator, 140-144)

My argument, then, is that genebanks continually work to demonstrate the value of their own collection. Demonstrating actual services to the community is an important way in which people can make the case for their own

existence, and ensure the future of their own collections. In so doing, the nature of the genebank as a resource for valuable genetic material is itself emphasised. This does not mean that genebanks were unconcerned about

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usefulness in the past; only that there appears to be a greater requirement to demonstrate impact of sorts. The value of genebank collections is, arguably, hard to pin down: both in terms of the value of particular material in the collection (which is hard to appreciate first hand, unless a special plot is made so that people can compare them) and of the post-collection work which happens within

genebanks with the aim of ‘adding value’. This is demonstrated in the excerpt below, where the interviewee comments on the scarcity of money available to demonstrate what work is already happening in seed banks.

Because... this is perhaps my opinion, but I think that if we were able to do this, if we could dedicate more to show what is going on, we could, without any particular effort, already show that gene banks are tremendously useful and the material is flowing to... certainly to research, but also to breeding (I14, coordinator, international organisation, lines 1058-1061)

It is in this context that we might explain the new direction of activities in genebanks: through active efforts to share it, it makes visible the value of germplasm as a resource and in so doing justifies its conservation in the first place. I return to this theme on Chapter 6 in reference to the funding of genebanks and how that relates to the construction of genebanks as resources. Moreover, not only is this project important to conserve the

conservation system itself, it also justifies the current framework of the MLS and, more broadly, the need to share resources internationally. This is significant, given the critiques35 _{of the system and the limited nature of the shared gene pool (given}

that if it can be shown to be effective, the CGRFA may agree to expand the list of Annex I materials, see Visser, 2012). The excerpt below provides explicit evidence

35 _{The critiques of the MLS can provide further detail regarding what is}

considered to be important about the functioning of genetic resources conservation systems. For instance, those who say that it is bad for farmers because they are being expropriated can make the case that the money is not going to go back to them, and that the language of the Treaty is not actually clear with respect to the feasibility of patenting the ‘product’ onto which genetic resources might be introduced.

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for the reasoning, by an interviewee involved in the policy work of genetic resources, of a need to show the effectiveness of the MLS.

‘Well I suppose at the, at the plant treaty sort of level, an understanding of the use of the SMTA, and trying to, probably, better demonstrate to critics of (…) the Treaty’s Multilateral System that it’s not actually creating benefits; actually demonstrate that the use of the SMTA and access in and of itself, is a benefit even if it doesn’t derive any financial benefits directly to the Treaty’s benefit sharing fund. So, the metrics that sort of have been put together certainly at European level (…) in which the European region has managed to sort of compile (…) collective data about, about demonstrating how much material has been used with the SMTA, is a demonstration of the value of the Multilateral System in itself- but I think there needs to be an extension to that. So what is the question? The question is, as this potentially goes into this breeding programme (…) and so on and so forth [hm hm], but there’s still more work to be done in terms of trying to balance the, that with the demand for sort of a, other benefit shared.’ (I7, UK, policy maker, lines 96-108)

Altogether, then, the value of the global gene pool is co-produced with the appropriate economic framework for the exploration of genetic resources. The contemporary activities of genebanks operate to construct a shared genepool, in the sense that they are common pool resources to which access should be facilitated. With it comes a germplasm economy that is arranged around the concept of multilateral access and sharing of germplasm,

grounded on the understanding that this is the way to make the most of the germplasm in the genebank, with all its promissory value. In this way, the establishment of the Seed Treaty and the MLS gives new expectations to the power – indeed, the value – of genebanking as a means to preserve genetic material whose value is much debated, but where the amount of material kept in storage outstrips the demand for it. However, I am not ascribing this push for greater recognition of the value of germplasm exclusively to the new rules on access; other factors such as warnings regarding the future

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Somewhat paradoxically, then, enabling the continuation of conservation into the future requires an increased attention to demonstrating the value of genetic resources in the here and now; and some quasi-reforms of the ex situ system, which will be the subject of chapter 6: making ex situ conservation efficient, sustainable, and so on could be read as a decision to create a ‘new, improved’ system that would encourage a greater uptake of genebank

material. The fact that there is such interest in demonstrating that it can be done is, in itself, interesting: it shows a moment of transition in this economy towards a novel way of doing things; one where the ‘currencies’ are

somewhat blurry. As we have seen, people talk about mutual access to germplasm as the great outcome of the MLS: the idea is that everyone ‘wins’ by sharing their own material. And it is this which makes the idea of sharing germplasm so appealing, or politically workable: by pooling resources in this way, countries are actually working in their own self-interest (as well as, potentially, altruistically). By opening their doors to other countries, they are taking out some kind of insurance.