Understanding the diversity of seed saving practices in contemporary Japan
Creators: name: Kawai, Ayako
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2020

description: The ascendance of agricultural industrialisation and global markets has meant that seed saving practices, once the domain of many traditional farmers, are now largely conducted by a limited number of commercial breeders. This has caused a massive loss of food plant diversity. The importance of on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity is widely recognised, but few studies have focused on socio-cultural conditions that enable or impede on-farm conservation activities, particularly in the context of industrialised countries. This thesis explores the diverse forms of seed saving practised in Japan. My thesis proposition is that the conservation of crop diversity requires dynamic, local, diverse, and complex socio-ecological interactions with crops. This study asks whether such interactions between farmers and vegetable crops, represented as seed saving practices, can persist in a highly industrialised country, taking Japan as a case study. This research applied a qualitative case study method involving two stages: firstly, to identify a typology of seed saving actors; and, secondly, to characterise the activities, values and motivations of each type. In total, I conducted 62 semi-structured interviews and 44 days of participant observations in 14 prefectures. Four types of seed saving actors were identified: local (traditional and non-traditional), organic, lifestyle, and commercial. Local actors mainly dealt with local variety seeds with restrictive seed sharing within family or community. Seed saving provided a sense of connection to local culture, place, and sometimes to family roots. Organic actors were full-time farmers, and they preferred local varieties but also dealt with non-local varieties due to limited access and the need to produce crops year-round. They displayed a professional craftsman mentality and were strongly attached to their crops, only sharing their seeds to those who they trusted. Lifestyle actors farmed as a form of lifestyle and were not concerned about seed pedigree, and they dealt with a wide range of varieties. They enjoyed the mutual flourishing of human and non-human lives and actively shared their seeds. Commercial actors were seed companies and mainly bred non-local hybrid varieties. Commercial breeding was strongly influenced by markets, while some of them simultaneously tried to maintain traditional varieties and customs. The volume of seeds produced by the actors other than commercial breeders was small. It seems, however, that all actor types contributed to the conservation of varietal and genetic diversity of vegetable crops. Seed saving practices of lifestyle and commercial actors' are most likely to be sustained into the future because lifestyle farmers did not rely on incomes made through farming, and commercial actors have established their own market niche. Among local actors, while traditional farmers face the challenge of inducing the next generation to take up seed-saving, non-traditional savers tend to receive seeds and knowledge from traditional farmers, and by doing so, ameliorate the challenge of within-family transmission among traditional farmers. Organic actors faced enormous challenges, especially to make their business economically viable, which may limit the entrance of new farmers in the future. This study showed that all the seed saving practices were embedded within complex socio-ecological systems. The four actor types carried out different seed saving practices, but all of them had an intimate relationship with their plants based on the traditional Japanese value of coexistence with nature. My thesis demonstrates the fundamental role of culture when understanding and managing agrobiodiversity. The maintenance of diverse social practices is essential for the on-farm conservation of crop diversity.