262 Fabien Girard and Manohisoa Rakotondrabe
cannot play an active role “in conserving, using, and improving crop diversity” as
long as they cannot access the greatest crop genetic diversity available. This is a fairly
expansive understanding of underuse that draws attention away from the much more
problematic underuse resulting from the disruption of farmer seed networks (Girard
& Frison, 2018).
20 For the main food crops, Madagascar’s level of dependence on genetic resources from
other primary regions of diversity is extremely high (94%–100%) (Palacios, 1998,
p. 13).
21 In a recent study conducted on this BCP by the contract holder, the focus is almost
exclusively on access to and use of crop genetic diversity, and there is only a brief
mention of “standards for access to genetic resources managed by the communities,
including crop genetic resources” (Halewood et al., 2021, p. 9).
22 Interview, Natural Justice, Facilitator, 5 March 2019 (in French).
23 Interview, Bioversity International, project holder, 23 May 2019 (in English).
24 Comprising the National Focal Points (NFPs) of ITPGRFA and the Nagoya P rotocol
both in Madagascar and in Benin, the representatives of Secretariats of the Plant
Treaty and of the CDB, ABS Initiative, and Bioversity International in its capacity
as a project holder. In Madagascar, the project also involved two main Ministries:
the MAEP for the implementation of the ITPGRFA and the MEDD for the Nagoya
Protocol.
25 SPGs are groups of farmers who specialise in the production of seeds for marketing.
To be able to multiply and sell seeds, farmers have to follow training courses provided
by the FOFIFA. There are about ten SPGs at the rural commune level.
26 A further reason is that brokers operate in complex and unstable settings. There are
no pre-existing arrangements for development. As “assortment of interests, expertise,
technologies and disciplines” (Sharma, 2016, p. 10), development projects are “always
unforeseeable” and “become real through the work of generating and translating
interests, creating context by tying in supporters and so sustaining interpretations”.
As a result, “heterogeneous actors in development are constantly engaged in creating order through political acts of composition” (Lewis & Mosse, 2006, p. 13; Latour,
2004).
27 Building climate-resilient seed systems was clearly at the core of the project in
Madagascar and Benin (Halewood et al., 2021).
28 As James Scott himself stressed, the forms of domination he was studying contained
a “strong element of personal rule”. He deemed therefore its analysis less relevant
to forms of “impersonal domination” ( J. C. Scott, 2009, p. 21), i.e. “technologies
of self ” and “intimate government”, what Arun Agrawal called “environmentality”
(Agrawal, 2005) (or eco-governmentality).
29 Originally patrilineal and patriarchal, the Fokon’olona used to bind together, in the
same territory (Fokontany), “the descendants of the same ancestor whose tomb constitutes the mystical pole where the group comes to find its cohesion” (Condominas,
1961, p. 25). Subsequently, the family dimension of the Fokon’olona faded away. It
is now the territorial attachment which is decisive and makes it possible to consider as being related to all those who obey common rules (Delteil, 1931, p. V-VI).
Furthermore, the Fokon’olona, once an autonomous administrative unit, lost most of
its prerogatives in 1994 with the advent of the Third Republic. The new decree n°
2004-299 of 3 March 2004 on the Fokontany no longer recognises the Fokon’olona as
anything other than the inhabitants of the Fokontany. It is the Fokontany alone that
has legal personality and is considered as “a basic administrative subdivision at the
commune level”.
30 Interview, Natural Justice, Facilitator, 20 February 2020 (in French).
31 As the contract holder told us most clearly, “one of the objectives of the project was to
sign six or eight agreements for exchange of germplasms to get down to the communities in response to…, and that happened” (interview, Bioversity International, project holder, 23 May 2019 (in English)). As a matter of fact, several Material Transfer
cannot play an active role “in conserving, using, and improving crop diversity” as
long as they cannot access the greatest crop genetic diversity available. This is a fairly
expansive understanding of underuse that draws attention away from the much more
problematic underuse resulting from the disruption of farmer seed networks (Girard
& Frison, 2018).
20 For the main food crops, Madagascar’s level of dependence on genetic resources from
other primary regions of diversity is extremely high (94%–100%) (Palacios, 1998,
p. 13).
21 In a recent study conducted on this BCP by the contract holder, the focus is almost
exclusively on access to and use of crop genetic diversity, and there is only a brief
mention of “standards for access to genetic resources managed by the communities,
including crop genetic resources” (Halewood et al., 2021, p. 9).
22 Interview, Natural Justice, Facilitator, 5 March 2019 (in French).
23 Interview, Bioversity International, project holder, 23 May 2019 (in English).
24 Comprising the National Focal Points (NFPs) of ITPGRFA and the Nagoya P rotocol
both in Madagascar and in Benin, the representatives of Secretariats of the Plant
Treaty and of the CDB, ABS Initiative, and Bioversity International in its capacity
as a project holder. In Madagascar, the project also involved two main Ministries:
the MAEP for the implementation of the ITPGRFA and the MEDD for the Nagoya
Protocol.
25 SPGs are groups of farmers who specialise in the production of seeds for marketing.
To be able to multiply and sell seeds, farmers have to follow training courses provided
by the FOFIFA. There are about ten SPGs at the rural commune level.
26 A further reason is that brokers operate in complex and unstable settings. There are
no pre-existing arrangements for development. As “assortment of interests, expertise,
technologies and disciplines” (Sharma, 2016, p. 10), development projects are “always
unforeseeable” and “become real through the work of generating and translating
interests, creating context by tying in supporters and so sustaining interpretations”.
As a result, “heterogeneous actors in development are constantly engaged in creating order through political acts of composition” (Lewis & Mosse, 2006, p. 13; Latour,
2004).
27 Building climate-resilient seed systems was clearly at the core of the project in
Madagascar and Benin (Halewood et al., 2021).
28 As James Scott himself stressed, the forms of domination he was studying contained
a “strong element of personal rule”. He deemed therefore its analysis less relevant
to forms of “impersonal domination” ( J. C. Scott, 2009, p. 21), i.e. “technologies
of self ” and “intimate government”, what Arun Agrawal called “environmentality”
(Agrawal, 2005) (or eco-governmentality).
29 Originally patrilineal and patriarchal, the Fokon’olona used to bind together, in the
same territory (Fokontany), “the descendants of the same ancestor whose tomb constitutes the mystical pole where the group comes to find its cohesion” (Condominas,
1961, p. 25). Subsequently, the family dimension of the Fokon’olona faded away. It
is now the territorial attachment which is decisive and makes it possible to consider as being related to all those who obey common rules (Delteil, 1931, p. V-VI).
Furthermore, the Fokon’olona, once an autonomous administrative unit, lost most of
its prerogatives in 1994 with the advent of the Third Republic. The new decree n°
2004-299 of 3 March 2004 on the Fokontany no longer recognises the Fokon’olona as
anything other than the inhabitants of the Fokontany. It is the Fokontany alone that
has legal personality and is considered as “a basic administrative subdivision at the
commune level”.
30 Interview, Natural Justice, Facilitator, 20 February 2020 (in French).
31 As the contract holder told us most clearly, “one of the objectives of the project was to
sign six or eight agreements for exchange of germplasms to get down to the communities in response to…, and that happened” (interview, Bioversity International, project holder, 23 May 2019 (in English)). As a matter of fact, several Material Transfer