Overcoming the obsolete opposition between formal and informal seed systems:toward the necessary coherence of West Africa seed legislations

International audience This project starts from the broadly shared view that preserving the biologic diversity is essential to maintain a diversified, balanced and healthy diet, as well as a global cultural food heritage. It also proceeds on the assumption that several threats hang over this diversity, and postulates that the variety of crop diversity management systems is not well protected. The project proposes to consider this difficulty as a consequence of the incoherence in the legal regimes applicable to seeds. West African legal pluralism related to seeds is proposed to be modelled to facilitate understanding of the rationale underpinning the reasoning. Secondly, the project aims at considering West African farmers customary practices as a legal regime to seeds that must be made consistent throughout the legal framework. To pursue this objective, the research adopts a methodology which links empiricism and a legal pluralism examination. The methodology supporting the analysis of the data will also be part of a bottom-up approach that will refresh the perspective on a politically charged issue.