Introduction

The introduction sketches the regulation and governance of international seed management and the challenges humanity currently faces in food and agriculture. It explains the divergent stakes and numerous concepts, such as food security, loss of biodiversity, biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, facilitated access to seeds, innovation in seed technology and development, market monopoly in the agro-food production chain, etc. This description sets the overall context wherein the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is rooted and operates. It points to the theory of the commons as a founding theoretical framework to analyse the Treaty from a collective action perspective. Expanding on the theory of the commons, this book aims at proposing solutions to the Treaty’s identified dysfunction.