Modernisierte Naturbeherrschung

Agrobiodiversität, Biotechnologie und die Krise der industriellen Landwirtschaft

Abstract

Having been a subject mainly of north-south relations, biodiversity now is increasingly discussed in the context of northern agriculture. There is an increasing discursive dominance of the standpoint of molecular biology, materialising itself in research institutions and in the policy of the federal ministry of research. As a consequence the contradictions within industrial agriculture are accentuated: The access to genetic resources is increasingly monopolized, and farmers become more and more dependent on the high-tech products of the seed industry. Thereby traditional methods of conserving and developing biodiversity, which the seed industry has always built on, are devaluated. Furthermore the traditional alliance between agriculture and seed industry becomes fragile. This creates new possibilities for small farmers' associations to change societal relationships with nature in modern agriculture.