The transformative potential of Seed Commons : Applying the social-ecological transformation framework to agri-food systems

This paper applies the social-ecological transformation framework to assess the contribution of Seed Commons initiatives in Germany and the Philippines to agri-food systems transformations. At the macro level, the analysis shows that the incumbent, unsustainable paradigms of ‘materialistic culture and growth’; ‘control and autonomy of humans over nature’ and ‘expert knowledge and specialization’ are deeply embedded in the dominant agri-food system. Seed Commons challenge them by promoting alternative narratives such as agroecology, food sovereignty, farmers’ rights and resilience. At the micro and meso level, we apply a set of evaluation principles that reveal their transformative character and partial transformative impact. The framework is well suited to bring together and synthesize different approaches to (evaluating) transformations. It contributes to research on agri-food transformations by a) bringing an enhanced theoretical understanding of dynamics of change into the agri-food transformation discourse, b) linking small-scale initiatives to wider processes of transformations, and c) providing a systematic research approach to enhance comparability across case studies