Page 49 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Seed Regulation in the US

2.1 Introduction

The increasingly global scale of agricultural trade poses special challenges

to new entrants into the commercial seed sector, with the 10 largest seed

suppliers controlling 65.4% of the global market (Howard, 2009). As a result,

breeders are focusing eforts on fewer crops and varieties. Organic producers’

seed needs are particularly poorly served by commercial breeders and seed

markets (Lammerts van Bueren et al., 2002). Climate change and other threats

to natural resources are bringing additional challenges to seed systems around

the world. Agricultural policy makers and related stakeholders are seeking to

create regulatory frameworks for seed which promote trade competitiveness

and sustain or increase yield while increasing the options for agro-biodiversity

and resilience in agricultural systems. The evolution of organic seed regulation

in the United States (US), the world’s largest organic market, may be taken as an

example of such eforts and is analysed here as a model case of how stakeholders

deine and protect their interests in the interpretation and implementation of

regulatory requirements.

In 2011, US organic sales reached $32 billion, growing at 8% over 2010 (OTA,

2012), while US organic production acreage reached 2 million hectares by

the same year (Willer and Kilcher, 2012). Although the organic seed sector

underlying this market growth is increasing, organic growers continue to

largely depend on conventionally produced seed (Dillon and Hubbard, 2011).

In 2002, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) developed a

domestic organic regulatory standard - the National Organic Program (NOP)

to govern the US organic sector. The regulation includes a clause governing

organic seed usage in certiied organic farming systems (Section 205.204(a))

which prescribes the use of organic seed in an organic production system

whenever such seed is commercially available (USDA AMS, 2002). According

to the standards of the International Federation for Organic Agriculture

Movements (IFOAM), ‘certiied organic seed’ is deined as seed from varieties

that may be derived from conventional breeding programs (excluding genetic

engineering) which are produced under organic farming conditions for one

growing season for annual crop species, and two growing seasons for perennial

and biannual crop species (IFOAM, 2012). This article traces how stakeholders

in the US have responded to eforts to govern the organic seed sector. Oicial

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