Page 25 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

General introduction

seed regulation was not as well described (EU, 2007). There was tension among

the multiple stakeholders concerned, including the formal seed sector and

organic producers, as to how and when the NOP organic seed regulation should

be enforced (NOSB, 2005, 2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c). Contention around

enforcement stemmed from the fact that there was only a limited number of

suitable and diverse cultivars available with suicient quantities of seed for

organic production. Organic farmers were concerned that 100% enforcement

of the organic seed regulation would limit their choice of cultivars and force

them into using cultivars not appropriate for its farming system or markets, and

potentially of lower quality or of higher price. The introduction of the organic

seed regulation in the US spurred a reaction from the global organic sector.

At the start of the study, the US and the EU had established domestic organic

standards and the seed clause sections of their respective regulations were

in process of interpretation and implementation. Mexico was just beginning

the process of developing its own federal organic standard (inclusive of a

seed clause) (SAGARPA, 2013; USDA FAS, 2013). By 2014 all jurisdictions were

challenged to determine how to implement organic seed policy, how they

chose to do so has implications that afect global trade (Sonnabend, 2010;

Dunkle, 2011). At present (March 2014), there were still no other studies that

have evaluated the various stakeholders’ interests and roles in the evolving

organic seed regulations, or assessed how the US process difers from the EU

process, or the implications for Mexico’s evolving organic sector. At the start of

the study, there also were no studies of the potential implications of the various

outcomes of an enforced, or unenforced, organic seed regulation in the US, and

the further scenarios that any outcome might entail.

1.3.2 Organic cultivar requirements for agronomic performance

The seed industry still inds it economically challenging to satisfy the needs of

organic agriculture, and often does not understand the special requirements of

organic agricultural systems with which they are unfamiliar. Organic farmers in

general want varieties that are adapted to their location and are reliable under

adverse conditions, rather than varieties that promise higher yields but may

lose that yield advantage in production because of disease susceptibility or an

inability to perform in an organic farming system. Lammerts van Bueren et al.

(2002) have indicated such desired traits as a general organic ‘crop ideotype’,

which needs to be speciied for diferent crops. More speciically, organic

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