Seeds and the Knowledge They Embody

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Seeds and the KnowledgeThey EmbodyHugh LaceyPublished online: 19 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Hugh Lacey (2000) Seeds and the Knowledge TheyEmbody, Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 12:4, 563-569, DOI:10.1080/10402650020014654

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Peace Review 12:4 (2000), 563–569

Seeds and the Knowledge They Embody

Hugh Lacey

In modern consciousness the achievements and promise of science loom large.So too do the expanded human powers to exercise control (in technology) thathave been unleashed by scienti� c developments. While, for some, science andnew technologies induce fear and apprehension, for the most part in thecontemporary world their value has been deeply internalized. Thus widespreadlegitimacy has been accorded to research and developments into novel techno-logical possibilities, and it tends to be taken for granted—though not withoutopposition—that the future will, even must, be shaped largely in response tothem. Transgenic (TG) seeds and other biotechnological “breakthroughs” areamong the latest and most visible of these developments.

Clearly to their proponents TG seeds are the way of the future in agriculture;they also testify to the remarkable ingenuity and providence of science. A widelyused textbook is entitled DNA Technology: The Awesome Skill. That sums it upnicely. To criticize biotechnology seems to be on the verge of blasphemy, to beposed against the unfolding future and against science itself. The legitimation ofthe development and deployment of TG seeds is often sought in the authorityand prestige of science; and this is supposed to silence all critics. Against this, Iwill argue that science authorizes no such legitimation, and poses no barrier toexploring alternative forms of agriculture that may better accord with thestruggle for social justice.

TG seeds contain genes, taken from organisms of different species, that havebeen directly inserted into their own genetic materials in order to grow

plants having speci� ed “desired” qualities, such as the capability to resistinsecticides. To their developers, TG seeds embody scienti� c knowledge; theybear the imprint of science. They also bear the imprint of the political economyof “globalization,” since developing them has been seen as both an objective ofthe neoliberal global economy and a means towards entrenching its structures.The twin imprints lend an aura of inevitability to the agricultural “revolution”promised with the advent of TG seeds: science has set the course; the globaleconomy provides the structures for its effective implementation. Little wonder,then, that plantings of TG seeds (corn, soybean and other crops) have explodedin the past few years. There is no other way to go, the proponents insist, no otherway to provide the food that will be needed to feed the world’s expandingpopulation over coming decades. Ought the critics be silenced?

The critics are a various lot. Some harbor apprehensions towards the“intrusion into nature” that producing TG seeds exempli� es. Others urge special

ISSN 1040-2659 print; ISSN 1469-9982 online/00/040563-07 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080/1040265002001465 4

564 Hugh Lacey

precautionary measures in the light of potential environmental and health risksand the inadequacy of current risk-assessment procedures, issues of consumerchoice and labeling of TG products, threats to biodiversity, dangers of corporatecontrol of the food supply, and potential undermining of the conditions fororganic farming. Some criticize current TG seed deployments, seeing them asmainly for corporate pro� t, while supporting research and development aimed atserving the peoples of impoverished countries, for example, producing vitamin-enhanced rice. Others think that the risks involved add up to a case for droppingthe whole approach. Still others challenge the project of globalization, and areengaged in a struggle to render alternative methods of agriculture viable.

The proponents concede little. They acknowledge risks, of course, whilemaintaining that demonstrated risks can be managed and regulated. Backed bythe U.S. Food and Drug Administration, they also claim that there is no actualscienti� c evidence that TG products currently on the market pose greater risksthan products of conventional agriculture. Con� dent in the products andpromise of science and emboldened by its past successes, they are unmoved bythe appeals to proceed with special caution. Moreover, they do not concede themoral high ground to the critics. Quite the contrary, they counter that using TGseeds permits high productivity combined with friendliness towards the environ-ment and, as already mentioned, they insist that it is necessary to feed the world.From this perspective any risks occasioned by the use of TG seeds fade intoinsigni� cance compared with the consequences of not using them; it is theircritics who lack proper moral concern.

Much rests on the claim that “there is no other way” to feed the world. Thelegitimacy of going ahead rapidly and immediately with deployments of TGseeds, without taking special precautionary measures, presupposes that it is true.Is it true? If not, what are the alternatives? Is it supported by scienti� c evidence?Is it just a re� ex of those securely in the grip of the modern consciousness aboutscience? Or, perhaps, is it code for “this is the way to go within the structuresof globalization,” and a recognition that these structures, through mechanismssuch as selectively apportioning intellectual property rights (IPR), tend toundermine alternatives?

TG seeds cannot be produced without modifying farmer-selected (FS) seeds orseeds, originally derived from FS seeds, that have been selected for use in

conventional farming. Their very existence requires the prior development of thelatter. Yet IPR protections may be granted to TG seeds but not to FS seeds.Lacking these protections, FS seeds are considered to be part of the commonpatrimony of humankind, and they may legally (under in� uential prevailing lawsand international agreements) be appropriated at will without consultation withor compensation for the farmers who selected them. When FS seeds are soappropriated, critics speak of “biopiracy” and diagnose inequity: the developerof TG seeds freely appropriates FS seeds but the farmer does not have free accessto TG seeds. Not only agribusiness (through its research scientists), but alsogenerations of farmers, contribute to the production of TG seeds but, thanks toIPR, mainly agribusiness and its clients pro� t. Any such pro� ts presuppose thefree appropriation of FS seeds. Moreover, the conditions in which they aregained tend to facilitate the displacement of FS by TG seeds. Biopiracy involves

Seeds and the Knowledge They Embody 565

not only exploitation of the farmers who produced the seeds without which TGseeds could not exist but also, in the end, taking away from them the very useof these seeds. Biopiracy and the regime of IPR are deeply interconnected. Thedevelopment and deployment of TG seeds depend on them both.

What are the differences between TG and FS seeds that can make sense of theformer, but not the latter, being granted the protections of IPR? One allegeddifference is that TG but not FS seeds embody scienti� c knowledge. In virtue ofthis they may satisfy the standard criteria for gaining a patent—novelty, inven-tiveness, utility/industrial application, and provision of suf� cient instructions tomeet the “suf� ciency of disclosure” condition—and thus become intellectualproperty. From this perspective it is sheer demagoguery and sentimentalism tocall the free appropriation and eventual displacement of FS seeds “biopiracy.”The prestige of science is thus cast against using such a morally loaded term.Only property may be pirated, and FS seeds are not intellectual property.Moreover, according to its proponents, the development of TG seeds is for thegood of all—for “there is no other way to feed the world.”

Is it true, � rst, that TG but not FS seeds embody scienti� c knowledge; and,second, that FS seeds cannot provide the basis (or an important part of it) forproviding the food needed to feed the world? Af� rmative answers to bothquestions would go a long way towards legitimating not only the transformationof farming to accommodate TG seeds, but also “biopiracy” and the privilegedIPR protection granted to TG seeds.

What constitutes science will be at issue in addressing these questions. I takescience to include any systematic, empirical form of inquiry that aims to

understand phenomena of the world, that is, that aims to grasp the causes andpossibilities of things and phenomena. What forms of scienti� c inquiry must beengaged in if we are to address systematically and empirically the possibilities offeeding the world’s population in the future, and to test the claim that TG cropsare necessary, and FS crops insuf� cient, to achieve this? Keep in mind thepersistence of hunger today; that producing food suf� cient to feed everyone doesnot mean that everyone will be fed. Everyone being fed depends not only on theproduction of suf� cient food but also on people being able to gain access to it;and, for people who are not participants in productive farming communities, thatmeans being able to buy it. Keep in mind also that continuing to gain high cropyields over the long term depends on maintaining biodiversity, environmentaland human health, and lack of violent social con� ict. Keeping these in mind, onemay become skeptical that developments of TG crops will lead to the world’spopulation being fed. After all, they are inserted into the same structures andrepresent the same interests that have permitted hunger and malnutrition topersist despite suf� cient food being produced to feed everyone.

Certainly there is nothing about the way biotechnological science is conductedtoday to allay skepticism, for it attends primarily to the molecular structures ofgenes, the chemistry of their expressions, and how these may be modi� ed toproduce “desired” traits in plants, with little attention to the long-term ecologicalimpact of the crops and virtually none to the social impact. But without inquiringinto long-term ecological and social impact in a systematic and empiricalway, and into what the possibilities of alternatives may be, how could

566 Hugh Lacey

scienti� c inquiry support the view that developing TG crops is the only way togo, or even that it is itself a viable way to go? Of course this question would havelittle bite if in fact there were no alternatives.

In order to get at what is involved, consider two more questions:

(Maximizing) How can we maximize production of a crop under conditions—use offertilizers, pest and weed management, water, machinery, strains of seeds, etc.—that canbe widely replicated?(Local enhancement) How can we produce crops so that all the people in the region of theproduction will gain access to a well balanced diet in a context that enhances localagency and well-being, nourishes biodiversity, sustains the environment, and supportssocial justice?

Both are scienti� c questions; both are open to investigation in systematic,empirical ways. They are different questions, and re� ect different moral andsocial concerns. The � rst highlights the quantities of food produced, the secondwho is actually fed and under what conditions. Answering one, and adopting themethods needed for answering it, does not suf� ce to answer the other.

The biological methods used to investigate what can be produced with TGseeds are appropriate for addressing maximizing. These methods attempt toidentify possibilities in terms of their ability to be generated from underlyingmolecular structures and lawful biochemical processes. They largely abstract therealization of such possibilities from their relations with social arrangements,human lives and experience, the social and material conditions of the research,and extensive and long-term ecological impact—thus, from any link with value.I call these methods “materialist.” Materialist methods separate the biology fromthe sociology and the economics (and the ecology), so that local enhancement isnot considered properly as belonging to the same domain of inquiry as maximiz-ing. If addressed at all, it is in the social sciences, after questions like maximizinghave been answered.

There are, however, other approaches to scienti� c inquiry, whose results mayinform alternative agricultural practices, speci� cally those of agroecology. Re-search in agroecology—while drawing in countless ways upon knowledge of theunderlying structures and chemistry of plants, soils and inputs into agriculturalproduction—locates farming integrally within its speci� c ecological and socialsituation, and poses questions that do not involve abstractions from it. Accordingto Miguel Altieri, it treats things in relationship to the whole agroecosystem(agricultural/ecological system) of which they are constituents, and it addressessimultaneously: “Maintenance of the productive capacity of the [agro]ecosystem,preservation of the natural resource base and functional biodiversity, socialorganization and reduction of poverty, [and] empowerment of local communi-ties, maintenance of tradition, and popular participation in the developmentprocess.” It does not, in any principled way, separate the biology from thesociology. Its primary focus turns it towards questions like local enhancement;and so its results vary with the variety of locales, (in many cases) it draws uponand develops the traditional knowledge that informs the practices of a culture,and it does not restrict roles in the generation of knowledge to “experts,” butincludes roles for the farmers themselves. FS seeds embody varieties of agroeco-logical knowledge.

Since local enhancement lies beyond the purview of those who restrict inquiryto deploying only materialist methods, their research cannot tell us that agroecol-ogy is unable to provide an important part of the necessary basis for feeding theworld. So, when they claim that “there is no other way,” they are not reportinga result of their scienti� c research, or even a hypothesis that they have the meansto investigate seriously. Apparently their claim derives either from the uncriticalhold of the promise of science conducted with materialist methods, or from theinterests of the agents and projects of the global economy.

Proponents of TG crops will not be swayed by this argument. Like manyothers who share the modern consciousness about science, they tend to

identify science with the virtual, exclusive deployment of materialist methods. Atone level, this is just a matter of terminology. The word “science” is, in fact,widely used to refer to “systematic empirical inquiry conducted with materialistmethods,” the kind of inquiry that readily leads to the expansion of ourcapabilities to exercise control over natural objects. I have no dispute at thislevel. Everything I have said can be re-phrased without loss by using “systematicempirical inquiry” in place of “science.”

At another level, however, the common terminology is often held to re� ectthat knowledge gained with materialist methods is more solidly grounded inempirical and experimental evidence, that it has superior epistemic credentials.This I dispute. Agroecological research builds upon knowledge that has beensoundly tested in practice in traditional cultures, for example, the knowledge thatis embodied in FS seeds, that which has provided the “raw material” fordevelopments of TG seeds. That it lacks the “universality” of materialistknowledge and (often) its neatly integrated theoretical form indicates not that itis empirically less well-grounded, but that it is the kind of knowledge that islargely speci� c to locale and available to provide answers to questions like localenhancement. Restricting the use of “science” to inquiry conducted with materi-alist methods, thus represents the granting of privilege to materialist inquiry—buta privilege not earned on epistemic grounds.

Granting privilege to scienti� c knowledge gained with materialist methodsdiverts attention away from considering whether there are alternative modes ofagriculture, informed by sound scienti� c (systematic empirical) knowledge, thatin principle may permit local enhancement to be answered in positive andeffective ways for many locales. It also insinuates that we can have only opinion,not sound knowledge, when we attempt to deal with the full and temporallyextended array of ecological, human and social variables and effects of farmingpractices. It, thus, illegitimately undercuts the force of critique made with rootsin agroecological inquiry. On the other hand, materialist methods are by andlarge adequate for addressing maximizing and they do lead to the identi� cationof genuine possibilities of TG crops. But they cannot identify the possibilitiesnecessary for addressing local enhancement, and we cannot address the bigquestion of the necessity of developments of TG seeds if we abstain from usingmethods that can address local empowerment. The big question can be ad-dressed scienti� cally, in the course of systematic empirical inquiry, but only if wepermit that science to include a multiplicity of methods, of which materialistmethods are just one (albeit very important) kind. Materialist and agroecological

568 Hugh Lacey

methods of inquiry are in principle epistemically on a par. Others, in� uenced bysocial constructionism, have drawn the same conclusion by casting doubt on the“objectivity” of well-established materialist knowledge; I draw it by pointing tothe “objectivity” of agroecological knowledge.

Both FS and TG seeds can be informed by scienti� c knowledge: the one byagroecological knowledge, the other also by materialist knowledge. Thus,

according the protections of IPR to TG but not FS seeds cannot be properlygrounded on the claim that the former embody knowledge with superiorepistemic credentials. More plausible, I suggest, is the converse: materialistknowledge is privileged (taken to have greater social value and perhaps, mis-takenly, greater epistemic value) because on application it can be embodied inproducts with market value, including some that may gain the protections ofIPR. The prestige of materialist methods and the commonplace narrowing of themeaning of “science” re� ect not superior epistemic credentials, but the greatersocial value of their applications among those for whom relations of control overnatural objects and the economic value of things are prioritized.

Granting the protections of IPR to TG seeds and the “pirating” of FS seedsare different moments of the same process. In the absence of science providinga ground that legitimates according the two kinds of seeds different legal statusanother ground might be appealed to: without the protections of IPR thedevelopment and deployment of TG seeds would meet probably insuperableobstacles. Within the logic of the neoliberal global economy this may be quitecompelling, especially since research linked with maximizing may well supportthat, within this logic, only the new methods can provide adequate food. But togain legitimation beyond the bounds of this logic it needs also to appeal to thepresupposition that “TG seeds are needed to feed the world.” Here, again,science provides no support at the present time.

The court of science remains open on the possibilities for producing food sothat everyone can be fed in coming decades. The issue may be submitted toscienti� c exploration but only, we have seen, if we recognize that science cancontain a multiplicity of different kinds of methods, including agroecological aswell as materialist ones. That exploration has not been seriously attempted and,if it were, it might vindicate the presupposition of the proponents of TG seeds;and it might not. Prior to the exploration, the critics are entitled to no greatercertitude than the proponents.

At the same time, the empirical record currently supports the view thatanswering maximizing is not suf� cient for answering local enhancement, andthat in numerous locales throughout the third world local enhancement has beeneffectively answered, drawing upon agroecological methods with little input fromattempts to answer maximizing. Creditable investigation of the presuppositionthat “there is no other way to feed the world” must take this record seriously. Itthus requires that investigations with agroecological methods be developed muchmore fully and with provision of appropriate resources; and they can only bepursued if actual agroecological farming practices are intensi� ed and expanded.The provision of the required resources, however, runs into con� ict with thethrust of the global economy itself, whose logic favors the rapid and immediatetransformation of farming towards the use of TG seeds on a large scale. This

thrust thus serves to undermine the conditions (the availability of productive andsustainable agroecosystems) needed for the scienti� c investigation of a presuppo-sition of its own legitimation.

Any authority that science may properly exercise derives from the results ofsystematic empirical investigation. That authority supports neither the legaldistinctions made between TG and FS seeds, nor that farming methods that useFS seeds should not have an integral role in producing food in coming decades.Perhaps the appeal to science made by the advocates of TG seeds masks the lackof a generally convincing moral foundation for globalization, or an effort tounnerve their critics, or a boundless faith in the powers of materialist methods.Whatever, the critics who draw from agroecology are not running againstestablished science. On the contrary, the strengthening of agroecology is necess-ary so that there can be scienti� c investigation of the possibilities for feedingeveryone in the immediate and foreseeable future.

In the con� ict over seeds two fundamentally incompatible ways of life are incon� ict. Science, given its multiplicity of methods, can inform both of them

but it serves to legitimate neither one nor the other. Opposition to thedevelopment and deployment of TG seeds can be most solidly rooted in thealternative practices of agroecology. That is where the energies of critics need tobe put—that is a matter of solidarity, agricultural practice, political economy, lifestyle, and the gaining of knowledge.

Seeds and the Knowledge They Embody

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