The CRISPR Question: Trajectories in Democratizing, Relocalizing, and Restructuring the Food System

• In Event: Interrupting Innovation: Pausing to Examine New Biotechnologies - I

Abstract

Gene editing, gene silencing, and various synthetic biology techniques promise unprecedented precision, speed, and cost-efficiency. CRISPR-Cas9, in particular, is touted as the scientific breakthrough of the century, with rapid uptake in basic and applied biological research around the world. CRISPR-edited crops and foods have yet to be commercialized on a wide scale, but the coming barnstorm can be glimpsed in surging publication rates and research funding, new patent applications, and expanded framework for regulation and trade. With CRISPR, as with any ‘disruptive innovation,’ comes a spectrum of possibilities, the material and epistemic trajectories of which my research project is designed to trace. In this talk, I focus on gene editing in agriculture with specific attention to projects underway at the University of California. Will CRISPR become a tool that reinforces existing sociotechnical ‘lock-ins’ characteristic of the industrial agri-food system? Could it provide an opportunity to counter such trends by decentralizing science, diversifying crop development, and re-distributing the loci of ownership and control? How does the intellectual property system in which CRISPR-Cas9 is embedded shape the landscape of possibilities? Who owns this technology, who has access to it, and who is making decisions about its development and use?

Author

• Maywa Montenegro