Page 218 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Chapter 6

the organic sector, arising from incompatible regulatory frameworks and the

uneven progress in each case toward achieving 100% closure. Speciically,

as the EU moves at a more steady rate toward 100% closure, there are both

positive and negative implications for the US and Mexico. In the more mature

EU regulatory environment, there is increasing investment in the organic seed

sector with more cultivars produced and bred for the global organic market.

Each region was shown to demonstrate varying capacity for self-organising

governanceoftheirseedsectorinrelationtothestate’sregulatoryrole. IntheEU

context, the work of the non-proit organisation, ECO-PB, has been instrumental

in moving matters forward, combined with clear regulatory language and

speciication of the interpretive requirements (such as establishment of a

database of all approved cultivars and their availability). These measures can

be compared to the US, where the initiatives of non-proit organizations have

attempted to interpret the regulations in ways that lack oicial sanction. Mexico

is early in the process of outlining their organic seed regulation, and until now has

functioned in response to EU and US requirements. The additional complexity

of strict phytosanitary requirements that conlict with organic regulation has

delayed progress in the organic seed sector in Mexico.

This study demonstrated that progress toward regulatory harmonisation in

the organic seed sector among the three cases studied has been slow, uneven,

and motivated by varying levels of formal governance, corporate inluence and

stakeholder engagement. It is suggested that both the US and Mexico would

beneit from the policy instruments that the EU member states have put in place

to govern its organic seed sector, and from bringing to an end derogations

that allow use of conventional seed. The instruments include implementation of

national databases to provide an overview of available organic seed, and expert

groups to annually assess available variety assortments in each crop group in

order to compose categories of crops with suicient quantity and diversity of

seed available. All jurisdictions would beneit from analysing other aspects of

their agricultural policy (e.g. phytosanitary regulation in Mexico) and how these

measures potentially align or conlict with the evolving organic regulatory

environment, in order to avoid impeding further regulatory developments and

creating non-tarif barriers to market growth.

200