Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the relationship between biosafety regulations and the commodification of genetically modified cotton-seeds in Colombia. It examines how the governing of these seeds, as potential risk carriers, becomes part of the production and reproduction of the seeds as a commodities.

Paper long abstract:

The international food regime has undergone major chances since the Conventional of Biological Diversity (CBD) agreement entered into force in 1993. The CBD converged multiple debates on biological conservation as well as intellectual property rights over biological resources and traditional knowledge. One of the major changes that were triggered by the CBD was the construction of a biosafety protocol that would protect human health and biodiversity from the potential risks of GMOs. This was in part a response to the anxieties generated by the introduction of a new technology in an increasingly liberalised world, and in part a response to the increasing mobility of biological organisms across borders since the end of the Cold War. Risk discourses on GMO safety were finally stabilised at the international level under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which served as basis for the design of national regulatory frameworks. This paper follows the social life of biosafety regulations from these spaces to the way in which they are translated and practiced in agricultural fields. Based on two case studies of GM cotton production in Colombia, the study analyses the ways in which biosafety regulations are part of the production and reproduction of GM cotton-seeds as a commodities. This has important implications for the way in which GM seeds are governed/produced by public and private actors through risk discourses and apparatus. The economic and political spheres are blurred in a network of risk discourses, biosafety regulations, crop management practices, and government and multinational company´s surveillance.