Innovation and Reiteration. Agrobiodiversity in Margaret Atwood’s Trilogy: Conservation or Innovation?

The scientific and international communities have adopted the Agenda 2023 Sustainable Development Goals, which impose social and environmental imperatives to make all food systems sustainable. This is necessary to address climate change, biodiversity loss and the food crisis. The Rome 2021 Manifesto recognised current agricultural practices as a significant contributor to biodiversity loss and proposed agrobiodiversity as a strategic asset to address these global challenges. The scientific community links agrobiodiversity to environmental crises. This is an area of growing interest in the context of the Anthropocene, the relationship between humans and nature. The role of literature in this discourse is debated. Indian writer Amitav Ghosh addresses the issue in The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, denouncing the absence of fiction in the discourse on the climate crisis, which is also relevant to agrobiodiversity. In the light of Eric Hobsbawm's concept of 'invented traditions' as a means of instilling values, Ghosh's condemnation implies that environmental issues are invisible and promotes the idea that they are fantasies. This study shows how Atwood's trilogy presents a compelling counterpoint to this argument. From the eco-dystopian and postapocalyptic setting of the Trilogy, or, to use Atwood’s words, from this ustopia, she proffers her counter-provocation through the genre of speculative fiction, which "invents nothing we haven't already invented or started to invent”, proposing new approaches and visions in literature and thereby reconsidering the concepts of genre and hierarchies in literature. The scientific relevance of agrobiodiversity in the context of environmental crises is explored through an examination of its four pillar strategies: two conservation strategies, in situ and ex situ, and two biofortification strategies, namely evolutionary breeding and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Despite differing views among scientists, these areas are represented in critical studies of sustainability and ecological impact. Atwood's trilogy focuses on the decline of agrobiodiversity and the loss of biodiversity, reflecting the imperative of the 2030 Agenda. The concept of agrobiodiversity emerged in the 1980s, while critical studies of biodiversity and environmental issues did not establish it as a discipline in its own right until the end of the 20th century. Accordingly, no bibliography on agrobiodiversity could be found. Nevertheless, the continuing relevance of issues related to nature, agriculture and agrobiodiversity can be demonstrated by drawing on the extensive literature and critical studies that have identified ecocriticism and environmentalism as two major movements. One of the most prominent scholars in literary environmental studies, Lawrence Buell, posited that celebrating nature for its own sake strengthens readers' environmental beliefs. This reaffirms literature's role in articulating issues and catalysing change, building on Amitav Ghosh's thought-provoking claim. This study revealed the synthesis proposed by Margaret Atwood in the Trilogy, emphasising the relationship between humans and nature and the recurring theme of the garden. The relationship between humans and nature also marks the concept of otherness, which has undergone significant 20th-century critique. Otherness has become identity. In 2020, Jean-François Staszak proposed replacing the concept of otherness with the promotion of alternative identities. This approach lends itself to an analysis of the relationship between humans and nature in Canadian literature. The Trilogy's narrative is conveyed through a polyphonic array of voices. Margaret Atwood allows her characters to present their relationship with otherness in a dual opposition, and the narrative reconstructs hybridised identities.