ABSTRACT
This chapter explores four examples coming from the grassroots, which could enrich the concept of fair and equitable benefit-sharing, offering ideas for institutional and legal innovation:
– the concept of participatory plant breeding, aiming at the re-involvement of farmers in plant breeding;
– open-source applications in agricultural research and development, with a focus on the Open Source Seed Initiative;
– the Peliti community in Greece, a network of local groups working on the conservation and exchange of traditional varieties; and
– the case of the Potato Park in the Peruvian Andes, which is an indigenous biocultural heritage area based on a sui generis legal system combining customary laws with concepts of international environmental law.
Far from being comprehensive, the discussion of the case studies marks the beginning of upcoming research on the legal context enabling or not such initiatives, legal tools used and conditions for their success. In this context, I identify trends and ask questions involving the role of law, community-building and enabling conditions and elements linking the local to the global and vice versa.
