University of Georgia graduate student Susannah Chapman, with the guidance of Dr. Virginia Nazarea, will undertake research on how traditional subsistence farmers conceive of property in seeds and plants. Over the past two decades, the privatization of crop varieties through intellectual property rights law under the World Trade Organization has sparked a number of debates concerning Farmers' Rights, access to plant resources, benefit sharing, and cross-cultural concepts of property in plants and associated knowledge. To investigate how farmers conceptualize property rights in plants, Chapman will undertake research in the Lower River Division of The Gambia, where farmers cultivate rice and millet for household subsistence and commercial sale.
The study draws on a wide range of historic and ethnographic methods including archival research, semi-structured and life history interviews, seed network analysis, and focus groups to determine how farmers conceive of property in seeds and how farmers access different crop varieties. In particular, this research explores the concepts of value, exchange and access as they relate to farmers' management of crop resources in The Gambia. These three concepts are central to studies in property theory and common resource management research. Understanding how these concepts relate to seed systems will enable a more nuanced investigation of ideas such as private ownership, public goods, and open access concerning seeds and associated knowledge.
This study will contribute to social science theory on traditional legal processes that are not articulated through conflict resolution. In this sense, the project enables greater understanding of the relationships between customary and codified legal systems common in many parts of the world today. A better understanding of farmers' own systems for owning, accessing, valuing and exchanging crop varieties will also contribute to improving state and international law for intellectual property rights. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.
