Page 246 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

has perpetuated a concern amongst the diverse stakeholder groups that

strict enforcement would limit the varietal assortment (genetic diversity and

farmers’ choice) available, increase grower costs and require seed companies

to invest in a market that they consider relatively small or that they do not have

the skills or resources to support (in regards to seed production or breeding).

Simultaneously, however, the dynamic relationships that have evolved in the

various networks that have emerged in response to the seed regulation have

shaped the unfolding process of regulatory governance. In spite of regulatory

ambiguity, the seed sector is developing, and a broader cultivar assortment and

larger quantities of higher quality seed have become available.

Chapter 3 analyses the evolution of organic seed regulation in the United States,

the European Union and Mexico as model cases of how challenges in global

agricultural trade are being addressed. This study wasalso conducted between

2007 and 2013. It highlights how growth of the organic sector is hindered

by regulatory imbalances and trade incompatibilities arising from divergent

stakeholder interests along the organic seed value chain, and the varying

capacity for self-organising governance of the seed sector in relation to the

state’s regulatory role. The main indings of the regulatory component were:

(1) New organizations, procedural arrangements and activities have emerged

in the US, EU and Mexico to support organic seed regulatory development, with

both positive and negative results; (2) Oicial guidance on the interpretation of

the regulation in the US has not been suiciently decisive to prevent divergent

interpretation and practice, and in consequence the needs of a rapidly growing

economic sector are not being met; and (3) Growth of the organic seed sector

is hindered by regulatory imbalances and trade incompatibilities within and

between global markets. Progress toward regulatory harmonisation in the

organic seed sector among the three cases has been slow. The chapter concludes

with an assessment of the regulatory processes described including what the

regions may learn from each other and lessons for key areas of regulatory policy

and practice.

In the second study, when the US organic seed regulatory environment was

compared to that of the EU and Mexico, delays in seed sector growth caused

by regulatory ambiguity was found with each jurisdiction studied. The analysis

identiied important risks of non-tarif trade barriers in the organic sector,

228