Conference | Holding Land and Resources. Food Security and Legal Pluralism

On 2–3 October 2025, the Centre Lascaux sur les transitions (CELT) and the Centre de Documentation et de Recherches Européennes (CDRE) hosted the conference “Tenir la terre et les ressources. Sécurité alimentaire et pluralisme juridique” (“Holding Land and Resources. Food Security and Legal Pluralism”) at the University of Pau and the Adour Region.

Supported by the French State under the France 2030 investment plan (ref. ANR-16-IDEX-0002), the event brought together legal scholars as well as practitioners around a central question: how can we rethink the regulation of essential resources — land, seeds, water — in a world marked by ecological urgency, unequal access, and a transformation of the role of the State?

I had the pleasure of speaking on the first day, in the session devoted to seeds, alongside Fabien Girard (Université Grenoble Alpes), with whom I share a longstanding research interest in seed systems, the legal recognition of peasant practices, and questions of food justice.

My talk, entitled “Seed systems in the era of multi-scalar governance: an attempt at theorisation based on two case studies in West Africa,” drew on my doctoral work, carried out as part of an interdisciplinary project funded by the Agropolis Foundation and based on extended field research with farmers in two villages, one in Burkina Faso and one in Senegal.

I would like to thank the organising team — the Centre Lascaux sur les transitions, the CDRE, and Professor Fabrice Riem — for the invitation and their confidence. It was an honour to take part in these discussions and to bring seeds, peasant practices, and food security into a broader conversation on legal pluralism.