Cross-scale chronological analysis of Southeast Asia's seed regulations and emerging challenges for seed commons

Seed regulatory frameworks paradoxically often attempt to increase farmers' access to quality seed via restrictions on their production and exchange. Efforts to balance regulatory objectives lead to tensions between the legal situation of ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ seed systems. This is especially true for vegetatively propagated crops with decentralized, farmer-dominated seed systems. In Southeast Asia, cassava (Manihot esculenta) exemplifies an economically important crop with a seed system that seemingly operationalizes elements of a farmer-led transboundary seed commons. By compiling 137 seed-related regulations and organizational memberships of five countries of Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong Subregion, we document the emergence of increasingly complex multi-scalar seed regimes. International influences, especially related to seed property rights, produce layered, intersecting regulatory commitments and inconsistent recognition or support for farmer-managed systems. Intergovernmental cooperation emphasizes regulatory harmonization, but risks eroding local seed governance structures. Returning to cassava, we exemplify a clash between emerging regulatory regimes and commons-oriented governance.