4th Industrial Revolution technologies that blur the lines across physical, digital and biological domains have entered seed systems. The digitalisation of seeds’ DNA is generating the unstoppable growth of big data on digital sequence information (DSI).
A new paper titled “From land enclosures to lab enclosures: digital sequence information, cultivated biodiversity and the movement for open source seed systems” analyses the lack of definition and the ongoing legal vacuum for DSI, which aggravates the dematerialisation and fragmentation of seed and other plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, rendering them easier to control under legal, technological, social and logistical enclosures.
The article discusses the different sides of the DSI debate, which involves a wide variety of interwoven arguments ranging from the conception of DSI as human-made, to digital biopiracy and open science. Current DSI developments are identified as part of a wider set of appropriationism and substitutionism trends in an increasingly digitalised food system. The potential of open-source seed as a social movement and governance mechanism across physical and digital spheres is analysed. The article concludes DSI is emerging as a critical juncture for seed movements, revealing how the construction of seed and food sovereignty has inextricably become a digital and technological affair.
