Early in the 20th century, a scramble for the world’s genetic resources was sparked by Nikolai Vavilov’s articulation of the geographic centers of origin for major cereals and other crops. European and American governments sent expeditions to remote corners of the world, all in an effort to catalogue and collect the planet’s genetic resources. Trekking through remote forests in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and supported financially by the state, expeditions collected samples that would be used to improve the genetic qualities of maize, soy, and countless other crops, adding millions of dollars in value to domestic agricultural production (Saraiva, 2013).

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Zerbe, N., (2025), "GRAB - Plant genetic resources in an age of global capitalism", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i2.117)

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1. intellectual property
2. plant genetic resources

Original publication: Zerbe, Noah. "GRAB - Plant genetic resources in an age of global capitalism." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 2, no. 2, 2015, pp. 194-200. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i2.117. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.