Treasure in the vault: The guardianship of ‘heritage’ seeds, fruit and vegetables

Crop heritage is a growing global phenomenon whereby people conceive of change to agriculture in terms of loss, issuing calls to safeguard what remains for future generations. This article seeks to understand what it means to think about food and the politics of its production and consumption through the frame of ‘heritage’ by interrogating a prevalent metaphor of plants and seeds as ‘treasure’. It argues the metaphor is more than decorative; it is strategic in producing certain conceptualizations of heritage value. While crop diversity is held to be important, and the great range of food plants a ‘common heritage of humankind’, the treasure metaphor is used in ways that impede the maintenance of that diversity, establishing seeds, plants and genes as precious materials best looked after by expert guardians in secure ‘vaults’, ‘banks’ and walled gardens. Thus this particular conception of ‘treasure’ as a universal good actually plays an important role in legitimizing and normalizing the privatization of crops heritage resources.