Page 92 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Chapter 3

1Notes to Table 3.2: Stakeholder categorization (Jiggins and Collins, 2003)

Stakeholder Type
Deinition
Levels of Inluence

Primary Those who are directly afected, either positively or negatively
Low to High

Intermediate
The intermediaries in the delivery or execution of research, Low to Intermediate
resource lows, and activities

Key
Those with the power to inluence or ‘kill’ activity
High

The spread of compliance responsibilities among growers, certiiers, and buyers

remains contentious. The fact that the guidance recommendations have not

achieved suicient consensus and compliance to be endorsed by the NOP seems

indicative that the government still expects this emerging economic sector to

self-organize. The case study indings indicate that while an increasing number

of private actors have come to the negotiating table to represent their various

interests, the lack of a common agenda, and of policy instruments, such as an

endorsed national organic seed database that would encourage advancement

toward regulatory compliance at the national level, has allowed increasing

dissent and fragmentation. In the absence of a central coordinating body with

authority to drive toward compliance the diverse stakeholders in the organic

sector, the conventional seed sector, and in the government, the interested

parties continue to observe and act in response to each other (Renaud et al.,

2014).

3.3.1 The EU case

The development of the organic seed sector in the EU difers signiicantly

from the US experience. State actors have demarcated clearly stakeholders’

roles and responsibilities, set deadlines for compliance, and established

procedures for monitoring and for penalizing non-compliance. In 1991 the

European Commission (EC) established an EU-wide organic standard, followed

by revisions in 2009 (Council Regulation European Economic Community (EEC)

No 834/2007). In 1999, an amended regulation was adopted, specifying that

organic growers, with exceptions as outlined in Commission Regulation (No

1452/2003), by 31 December 2003 must use organic seed. The responsibility for

enforcement lies with the national governments of each of the 27 EU member

states, coordinated by government representatives of each member state

in the Standing Committee Organic Farming (SCOF). The regulation further

stipulates that governments must host an online database listing the available

organic varieties and their suppliers, including the identiication of exception

allowances, and that they are responsible for supplying the EC with an annual

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