Page 31 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

General introduction

1.4.1 Research hypotheses

Hypothesis 1. An organic seed regulation is a necessary step toward an

optimized organic seed sector.

Hypothesis 2. Cultivars bred for high input conventional growing conditions

may not be optimal for organic farming systems.

Hypothesis 3. Organic production systems produce crops of higher nutritional

value.

1.4.2 Research questions (RQs)

Research Question 1. How do current and evolving organic seed regulations afect

the organic seed and crop improvement system?

This study traces how the evolution of organic seed regulation in the US,

and in the EU and Mexico compared, has been guided by both formal policy

development and by the informal interpretations, behaviours, actions and

choices of the various stakeholders. Speciically, the main issues addressed are:

(1) How do proposals for the wording and implementation of the US regulation

constrain seed choices and give rise to unintended consequences?, (2) How

have emergent organizations and procedures in the US responded to the

tension between, on the one hand, sustaining seed diferentiation to match

the characteristics of local markets, organic production and agro-ecologies,

and on the other, the narrowing of varietal choice in catalogued seed so as

to expand commercial organic seed markets and encourage organic seed

breeding?, (3) Why consensus on the content of formal organic seed policy has

failed to develop in the US despite a high level of stakeholder engagement?

How and why have the varying capacities of an increasing number of private

and public stakeholders in the organic seed sector, each with specialized tasks

and competencies, led to fragmentation rather than convergence of efort in

the US?, (4) What are the implications of a lack of international organic seed

regulatory harmonization for trade relations?, (5) What can diferent jurisdictions

(US, EU and Mexico) learn from one another about each other’s normalization

experience in developing domestic organic seed regulatory processes?, and (6)

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