Page 99 - Breeding and regulatory opportunities, Renaud

Seed Regulation in the US, EU and Mexico

We examine these points in more detail below, with reference to a particular

case.

The Mexican company Horticola Camarillos S.A. de C.V. was certiied as

complying with the organic certiication requirement of the US by producing

an Organic Farm Plan that stated the farm’s seed use. Upon review, the

company was found to have used treated seed for one crop, to have insuicient

documentation for another crop, and to have violated a USDA NOP rule for

seed treatment and phytosanitary requirements applicable in the US. Organic

grower Isidro Camarillo Zavallo, General Manager of Carmarillo, argued (in 2010

during his appeal against loss of certiication status) that compliance with US

regulations requires Mexican growers to break the laws of Mexico. He reported

that practices routinely include purposefully deceptive packaging, absent or

inaccurate labelling, and ambiguous responses to the diferent phytosanitary

requirements of trade partners. He further stated that it was the company’s

efort to comply with US regulations that had caused their certiication to come

into question. The organic certiier, the Organic Crop Improvement Association

(OCIA), denied the appeal and cancelled Camarillo’s certiication for three years,

on the grounds that evidence was lacking that chemical treatment of imported

seed is compulsory in Mexico, and that USDA NOP regulations may not be

circumvented to meet organic regulatory requirements outside the US (USDA

Marketing Service, APL-027-08).

The contradictions posed by difering phytosanitary requirements have been

an issue between Mexico and the US for some time. Before 2009 Mexico had

approved, on a restrictive basis, a limited number of alternative seed treatments

for phytosanitary purposes that were also approved under the NOP. These

included ‘Natural II’, an Agricoat product (approved in 2005), and importation

of untreated organic seed that was accompanied by phytosanitary certiication

based on seed testing and post-entry quarantine inspections (approved in

2008). The Natural II allowance was cancelled in 2008, because the product

had not been approved by the Mexican Federal Commission for the Protection

Against Sanitary Risk (COFEPRIS), and because any new treatment proposed

for use in organic agriculture requires prior COFEPRIS approval. US companies

seeking COFEPRIS approval of seed treatments subsequently reported that the

data submission requirements were unclear and that the approval process was

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