Page 247 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Summary

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 governance of

their seed sector in relation to the state’s regulatory role. In the EU 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. 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 cultivar

assortments in each crop group in order to compose categories of crops with

suicient quantity and diversity of seed available.

Chapter 4 sought to determine if present commercial broccoli cultivars met

the diverse needs of organic management systems such as adaptation to low

nitrogen input, mechanical weed management and no chemical pesticide use,

and to propose the selection environments for crop improvement for cultivars

best adapted to organic production. To achieve this, we compared horticultural

trait performance of 23 broccoli (Brassica oleraceaL. ssp. italica) cultivars (G)

under two management (M) systems (organic and conventional) in two regions

of the USA (Oregon and Maine), including spring and fall trials. In our trials,

location and season had the largest efect on broccoli head weight with Oregon

outperforming Maine and fall trials outperforming spring trials. M main efects

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