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Paper short abstract

Whether agroecology and CRISPR can mix remains contested on epistemic and ontological grounds,. Yet little empirical evidence exists on practical feasibility. We address this gap by systematically mapping key infrastructural elements needed for CRISPR across 163 Neglected and Underutilised Species.

Paper long abstract

Whether and how agroecology and CRISPR could mix remains contested (Montenegro de Wit, 2022). While some proponents argue that CRISPR can support transitions to agroecology by enabling low-input, locally adapted crops, critics contend that it is incompatible with agroecology across ontological, epistemic, and ownership dimensions. Yet little research has examined whether such integration is feasible in practice.

We contribute to this debate by showing that research infrastructures for CRISPR fundamentally constrain its application in agroecology. Specifically, we investigate the availability of knowledge resources for Neglected and Underutilised Species (NUS), which play a central role in agroecological diversification.

Building on STS and infrastructure studies, we introduce the concept of knowledge resources—codified scientific resources such as genome assemblies, trait annotations, datasets, and laboratory protocols—as an analytical lens to understand how research infrastructures enable and constrain innovation.

We apply this framework to a comprehensive set of 163 NUS in the African context. Through desk research and expert workshops, we systematically identified and collected available knowledge resources for each crop to assess their availability. We find that although NUS are frequently highlighted as central to resilient and locally adapted farming systems, they often lack the genomic data and supporting knowledge resources required to make genome editing feasible. We thus show how CRISPR’s enabling infrastructures actively constrain its application in diverse crops.