BCPs and Boundary Work in Madagascar 255
within the community and has had a dramatic impact on non-members of the
cooperative. As one of these farmers told us: “Andrizareo kôperativa io!” (all this
belongs to the cooperative!).
Certainly, this string of equivocations, misunderstandings and disruptions
can be accounted for by the proliferation of competing scripts that hinder the
implementation of boundary work, to such an extent that the facilitator himself
evokes a protocol developed “in a vacuum”.
30 Yet, we would also like to add a
layer of political reading, if only to underline the power games at play: it is the
emergence of the hidden script of the Ministry of Agriculture, made possible by
the competition between the public scripts, that enabled SPG members to weave
their way into the Darwin project and to bring to life a cooperative project that
they had seemingly been maturing for a long time.
On the surface, everything occurred as though the members of the cooperative were aligning themselves with the Ministry’s script. After all, the model of
the cooperative was looked upon favourably by the administration (Ministère
de l’Agriculture et de l’Élevage, 2002), and when the Fa.M.A. cooperative has
taken over the commune’s SPGs, it will be able to provide for the multiplication
of R1-certified seeds produced from the basic seeds developed by FOFIFA (Bioversity International, 2017). And yet, behind this apparent convergence of views,
there is also an ongoing process of subversion whereby the Fa.M.A. cooperative
is dramatically altering the function of the seed bank: henceforth, the cooperative will be able to use the premises as a retail outlet for the distribution of
fertilisers, a valuable source of additional income that will help to fill the hunger
gap (particularly tough at the start of the school year). No less important is the
transfer of part of the decision-making power regarding resources to the members of the cooperative, a point that cannot be discussed here, but which is quite
apparent upon reading the Analavory BCP to which we now turn.
A Glance at the BCP’s Content: Lost in In-scription
That the boundary work fell short of its goal in Analavory is clearly reflected
in the content of the BCP itself. Out of respect for the facilitator and the community members who continue to object to the dissemination of this 31-page
document (in its second version), written in Malagasy and translated into French,
we reproduce here only the outlines of the protocol (see Figure 10.3, Annex).
However, this is probably enough to discern an intriguing paradox: while Bioversity International aimed to develop a BCP revolving around PGRFA and
geared towards farming communities as beneficiaries of germplasm (the “institutional incentives” script), only three pages out of the 31 that make up the
document deal with PGRFA and the MLS.
31 The bulk of the BCP revolves
around bioprospection, bilateral negotiations and benefit sharing (the “economic
incentives” script).
At this point in the chapter, the explanation for this is straightforward. While
necessarily aware of Bioversity International’s goal, the facilitator invested almost
all the resources and energy supporting the boundary work in laying down rules
within the community and has had a dramatic impact on non-members of the
cooperative. As one of these farmers told us: “Andrizareo kôperativa io!” (all this
belongs to the cooperative!).
Certainly, this string of equivocations, misunderstandings and disruptions
can be accounted for by the proliferation of competing scripts that hinder the
implementation of boundary work, to such an extent that the facilitator himself
evokes a protocol developed “in a vacuum”.
30 Yet, we would also like to add a
layer of political reading, if only to underline the power games at play: it is the
emergence of the hidden script of the Ministry of Agriculture, made possible by
the competition between the public scripts, that enabled SPG members to weave
their way into the Darwin project and to bring to life a cooperative project that
they had seemingly been maturing for a long time.
On the surface, everything occurred as though the members of the cooperative were aligning themselves with the Ministry’s script. After all, the model of
the cooperative was looked upon favourably by the administration (Ministère
de l’Agriculture et de l’Élevage, 2002), and when the Fa.M.A. cooperative has
taken over the commune’s SPGs, it will be able to provide for the multiplication
of R1-certified seeds produced from the basic seeds developed by FOFIFA (Bioversity International, 2017). And yet, behind this apparent convergence of views,
there is also an ongoing process of subversion whereby the Fa.M.A. cooperative
is dramatically altering the function of the seed bank: henceforth, the cooperative will be able to use the premises as a retail outlet for the distribution of
fertilisers, a valuable source of additional income that will help to fill the hunger
gap (particularly tough at the start of the school year). No less important is the
transfer of part of the decision-making power regarding resources to the members of the cooperative, a point that cannot be discussed here, but which is quite
apparent upon reading the Analavory BCP to which we now turn.
A Glance at the BCP’s Content: Lost in In-scription
That the boundary work fell short of its goal in Analavory is clearly reflected
in the content of the BCP itself. Out of respect for the facilitator and the community members who continue to object to the dissemination of this 31-page
document (in its second version), written in Malagasy and translated into French,
we reproduce here only the outlines of the protocol (see Figure 10.3, Annex).
However, this is probably enough to discern an intriguing paradox: while Bioversity International aimed to develop a BCP revolving around PGRFA and
geared towards farming communities as beneficiaries of germplasm (the “institutional incentives” script), only three pages out of the 31 that make up the
document deal with PGRFA and the MLS.
31 The bulk of the BCP revolves
around bioprospection, bilateral negotiations and benefit sharing (the “economic
incentives” script).
At this point in the chapter, the explanation for this is straightforward. While
necessarily aware of Bioversity International’s goal, the facilitator invested almost
all the resources and energy supporting the boundary work in laying down rules