Farmers' seeds systems in industrial agricultures: new research object, renewed approaches in Ethnobotany

This paper explores the revival of farmers' seed systems in industrial agricultures. This dynamic raises a paradox: in a context of an industrialised agriculture, buying ready-made seeds from cooperative farms appears to be the easiest way to get seeds. Conversely, multiplying one's seeds, getting samples of forgotten landraces, learning how to cultivate them and how to breed them on-farm requires a great personal investment in time and energy. As a case study, we have looked into a network of French farmers-bakers who have started some years ago to develop on-farm seed production from wheat heirloom landraces. Our ethnographic approach enriched with a cartographic work of seed exchanges explores the reasons why these farmers have decided to revive farm seeds instead of using commercial improved varieties. The pioneers of this movement first argue that landraces are more adapted to their farming systems. They are also led by political motives, as their re-appropriation of agro-biodiversity is a way to question and challenge the growing dependence of farmers towards the seed industries. Lastly, it emerges that identity and social aspects underlie their breeding activities: exchanging seeds and knowledge participates in forming a community of breeding practice and in reviving the pride of being a peasant. This research on a topic at the margins of ethnobotany, questions the methodology of the discipline, as here it's no longer about characterizing the emic perspective of the plant world of a given community, but understanding the dynamics of creation of knowledge and know-how in a transient and heterogeneous network made of people and plants. This paper advocates a fertilization of ethnobotany and more generally environmental anthropology with current trends in sociology such as actor-network theory.