Page 111 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Seed Regulation in the US, EU and Mexico

an efective form of meta-governance. In the EU, member state governments

under the overall guidance of the EC have assumed responsibility for deining,

enforcing, communicating and supporting a clearly-deined regulatory policy

that is achieving signiicant if not yet universal progress through an efective

form of meta-governance. A commitment to learning from experience and

incremental adoption of emergent best practice is helping stakeholders to

address the remaining challenges. In Mexico the net efect of disparate initiatives

by stakeholders has been to restrict access to organic seed, increase production

costs, encourage the illegal movement of potentially diseased seed, and increase

the risks of loss of certiication and the potential to trade with the US and the

EU. The lack of harmonization among regulatory standards and enforcement

in diferent jurisdictions is a problem that afects the organic agriculture sector

worldwide. In the absence of change in regulatory performance, there are

likely to be more violations of organic standards, increased underground trade

in potentially diseased seed, and an overall lack of appropriate varieties for

organic farmers.

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