Page 84 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Chapter 3

organic seed regulations between the US and EU is signiicant due to on-going

trade negotiations between the regions. The three cases that are compared

and contrasted are the US, EU and Mexico building on the work of Thommen

et al., (2007) and Lammerts van Bueren et al., (2008) for the EU, and Renaud et

al., (2014) for the US.

The reasons why these three regions have been selected are irst because

demand for organic products in the US and the EU together account for 97%

of the global revenue in organic products. The agricultural area under organic

production is 2.0 million hectares in the US, 9.3 million hectares in the EU (Willer

and Kilcher, 2013), and approximately 500,000 hectares in Mexico (Guzman

Contro, 2009, Salcido, 2011). Mexico is included for three main reasons: (1) it

depends to a large extent on import of organic seed from these two regions, (2)

over 80% of Mexican organic exports are destined for the US market (Salcido,

2011), where consumer demand for organic products is growing at a rate of 9%

annually (OTA, 2013), and (3) because Mexico might beneit from the experience

of others while in the process of developing its own federal organic regulation.

The US formalized its national organic standard in 2002, the EU in 1991, and

Mexico in 2006 (USDA AMS, 2002, EU, 1991, 2007, SAGARPA, 2006). The EU irst

sought to achieve harmonization at member state level in a 2007 regulatory

revision (Michelson, 2009). The US and the EU harmonized their general organic

standards in 2012 in order to enhance transatlantic trade and align practices

(Haumann, 2012), while Mexico is still in the process of formalizing its domestic

regulations (SAGARPA, 2013). The current organic regulations in the three cases

each include a clause that requires organic seed usage in certiied organic

farming systems but they have not (yet) been able to establish a level playing

ield. An international task force on harmonization and equivalence in organic

agriculture (UNCTAD et al., 2009) has examined select technical components

of domestic regulatory and trade regimes. Other researchers have carried out

cross-country comparison of organic farming policies among EU member state

(e.g. Michelson, 2009, Moschitz and Stolze, 2009), and of the trade impacts of

non-harmonization (e.g. De Frahan and Vancouteren, 2006, Disdier et al., 2008).

However, these studies do not provide insight into the regulatory processes at

work or address the diferences in regulatory regimes governing organic seed.

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