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Chapter 3
Table 3.1 Summary of key events in the evolution US organic seed regulation 1990-present
Timeline
Regulatory Position Change
Outcome
November 28, 1990 OFPA signed into law as Title 21of the 1990 US Organic Agriculture
Farm Bill
Law
December 22, 2000 USDA NOP standard published in the Federal Proposed US Organic
Register
Agriculture Rule
March 7, 2001 Commercial Availability: Docket Number TMD- Deinition of Commercial
00-02-FR
Availability
October 22, 2002 USDA NOP standard approved
Approved US Organic
Agriculture Standard
August 17, 2005 NOSB to NOP Recommendation: Organic Seed Guidance
Commercial Availability of Organic Seed
Document Version 1
November 30, 2007
NOSB to NOP Recommendation: Further Organic Seed Guidance
Guidance on the Establishment of Commercial Document Version 2
Availability Criteria
April 3, 2008
NOSB JC & CAC Committee Recommendation: Organic Seed Guidance
Further Guidance on Commercial Availability of Document Version 3
Organic Seed
September 22, 2008
NOSB JC & CAC Committee Recommendation: Organic Seed Guidance
Further Guidance on Commercial Availability of Document Version 4
Organic Seed
November 19, 2008
Formal Recommendation by the NOSB to the Submitted Organic Seed
NOP:
Guidance Document
Commercial Availability of Organic Seeds
Version 5
June 13, 2011 NOP Guidance released for public comment
NOP Guidance proposal
March 4, 2013
NOP Guidance: Seeds, Annual Seedlings, and NOP Final Organic Seed
Planting Stock in Organic Crop Production
Guidance
Source: Adapted from Renaud et al., 2014.
The NOP’s standard and NOSB’s guidelines assign primary responsibility for
enforcement of the organic seed clause to organic certiiers (NOSB, 2008 a
b c). The certiiers are required to ensure growers have attempted a rigorous
organic seed sourcing process, and that growers increase their organic seed
usage year-on-year. Growers for their part are assigned responsibility for
demonstrating clearly the steps that they have taken to source organic seed,
through on-farm variety trials, and by documenting why they might not have
used organic seed. Growers’ principal concerns relate to the availability of
quality seed and of suicient quantities of a diverse assortment of organic seed
varieties. Growers are concerned also that in general certiied organic seed
costs more than conventional seed. Price, however, is not taken into account
in the exemptions permitted by the regulation (USDA AMS, 2002). If growers
use conventional instead of organic seed, they must justify in their Organic
Systems Plan that the seed traits and characteristics of the conventional seed
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