Across Canada and the United States, public universities were founded with a mission to contribute to broadsocietal well-being. Yet, the capacity of public research institutions to develop and disseminate flexible andaccessible tools for resilient agriculture has been challenged in recent decades. The role of universities inadvancing extractive, rather than regenerative, economies has been amplified by the privatization of publicagricultural research and extension of knowledge to farmers, particularly in plant breeding and plantgenetics. In this article, we examine the history of public research for seed systems in North Americathrough a “seed regimes” framework, arguing that a narrow focus on commercialization of public researchhas exacerbated inequalities inherent in the founding structure of public agricultural research, including thedisplacement of Indigenous land and seed relations. We then discuss how community organizations arechallenging the enclosure of seed through seed sovereignty organizing and freelance plant breeding, insome cases through the development of community–university partnerships based on the principles of thecocreation of knowledge. We conclude by offering a reimagined public seed research agenda that focuses onstrengthening links between public research and grassroots seed movements, as an opportunity to build moreresilient seed and food systems.
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