2018/01/01 by Nathalia Hernández Vidal · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development #CRISPR and Genetic Engineering #Genetically Modified Organisms Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/25729861.2018.1493180
openalex publication_date 2018/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/19
In this article I examine current discussions about the governance of agro-biotechnology in Latin America, Europe, and the USA, based on a comparative reading of critical scholarship about the topic (Bravo, Toro, and Vélez 2014; Parthasarathy 2017; Oliveira and Hecht 2018). In the first section I explain how agro-biotechnology has become a salient issue for international agencies, nation-states, corporations, and communities. I then show that, for the authors, intellectual property regimes are a key part of the process of governance and should be understood as much more than mere techno-legal tools. In the second section I focus on the critical approach to biosecurity taken by Latin American scholars. In the third section I explore how soy expansion has radically transformed South American territories. I close with a reflection on how the STS community can expand and sharpen its intellectual insights and practical value by pairing up with critical community-based studies that decentralize the discussion about public governance of agro-biotechnology from the nation-state and move it to more locally situated spaces.