Page 103 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Seed Regulation in the US, EU and Mexico

in this study to be a realisable objective. It remains a shared goal although

diferences in legal languages, eco-climate zones, and agricultural and cultural

traditions continue to pose challenges. The emergent regulatory regime

combines a strong, clear, enforceable framework at the level of the EU with

lexibility in interpretation and implementation at the level of each member

state. Additional initiatives undertaken to enable and encourage greater

harmonization of interpretation are proving helpful. For instance, in 2004, the

EC funded an inventory and analysis of member states’organic seed policies The

report of this study (Thommen et al., 2007) highlighted variance in interpretation

of the term‘non availability of an appropriate variety’as a criterion for exception

to the organic seed rule. It further recommended the EU-wide use of a standard

check-list to deine the appropriateness of an assortment of varieties for a (sub)

species, and this has been adopted.

The European Consortium for Organic Plant Breeding (ECO-PB) has evolved

alongside the regulatory developments documented. Since 2003 it has

assumed responsibility for organizing joint meetings of stakeholders from

member states, approximately two times a year, to share experiences and

develop regulatory recommendations and practices (Wilbos, 2006, Lammerts

van Bueren et al., 2008, Rey et al., 2009). The authority of decisions made at ECO-

PB meetings has been recognized by member state governments, and several

SCOF members regularly attend, to better understand sector-wide problems

and to collaborate on inding ways forward. The meetings serve to reinforce

member states’ commitment to achieving zero exceptions, while highlighting

the lessons of experience, for example, that strict compliance with the seed

regulation can be a barrier to access to newly marketed crop varieties. Although

the EU regulation currently allows growers to use conventional seed to trial

new varieties on a small scale, if the crop is listed in the ‘no exception’ category

for annual crops, growers have to wait at least a year before the organic seed

of the desired variety is produced and on the market. In order to follow-up

new developments without delay, The Netherlands has introduced a ‘lexibility

rule’ that allows their growers to use conventionally produced but chemically

untreated seed of a new crop variety for one year for annual crops, or two years

for biannual crops, provided that a seed producer agrees to start organic seed

production of the requested variety (Lammerts van Bueren et al., 2008). The

ECO-PB joint meetings have identiied also the lack of interest of certain seed

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