New EU Seed Law

In what’s an obvious first step to clear the way for patents and GMOs, the European Union is preparing a new seed law to replace the existing one.  Several months ago the EU considered what to do with the current legislation and discussed 3 possibilities; maintain current legislation unchanged, modify current legislation, or drop current legislation.  In their wisdom, they decided seed legislation was necessary, but should be changed.  With this as a foregone conclusion, they have opened a period of public consultation on how best to change the current seed laws.

In their published documents they offer a number of scenarios, and while some are worse than others, none are completely acceptable.

There’s honestly little hope they’ll actually take public opinion into account, but it’s still very important to give them a run for their money.  Maybe, if they get a large response, and they can see people are very upset about their plans, it may have some impact.  Please try to submit a response if you can.  If you’re unable to read through all of their documents and submit a response using their form, please just send them an email stating your objections to seed laws in general and the registration of varieties.

I’ll try to put together as much information as I can together with arguments, before the deadline for submission.  If you have any ideas or suggestions, please give them here!  I’ll also post my response, so if nothing else, please consider replacing my name with your own and submitting it yourself.

The European seed laws affect everyone everywhere on the planet, and everyone everywhere should respond to this public consultation.  The EU is the largest economy in the world, and rules that become established here will be pushed onto other countries as well.  Above all else it’s vital to protect our rights to save and regrow our own seeds, no matter where in the world we live.

11 Replies to “New EU Seed Law”

  1. I almost deleted the previous comment by accident. I get lots of short spam comments like that. Then I Googled on it and found the Wikipedia page…

    Anyone care to expand on it?

  2. Thanks for this post. However,I’d be interested in knowing how scenario four which involves a far more liberalized regime than that currently in place (and which gained CGSANCO’s highest rating out of them all) is “an obvious first step to clear the way for patents and GMOs”?

    The seed laws aren’t directly related to patenting or GMOs but are in fact to do with certification and marketing. The proposed scenario 4 should surely be encouraged rather than just sending a juvenile “no to seed laws” message?

  3. Thanks for your comment Tom, and it’s a very good question. There is an argument to be made for supporting scenario 4, and it might be an improvement on what we have now. This was the whole reason for making this post, to get people’s opinions like yours.

    In my opinion this would make Europe ‘just like the US’, which is perhaps why there is a lot of support for it from within the EU, like CGSANCO that you mention. In many ways I think we benefit from incompatibilities between the US and EU systems, and perhaps for that reason alone it might be better to oppose scenario 4.

    The reality is, as long as there are any official lists, this will be of commercial varieties that get preferential treatment. This is in effect what exists in the US, where all seeds are legal, but you have patents, PVPs and so on. The reality is the situation in the US isn’t any better than here, and no one but large multinational corporations can benefit from any kind of intellectual property rights on seeds.

    Seed laws and seed lists are one of the things currently protecting us from GMOs in Europe. The very fact that all seeds have to register, and it’s been possible to delay or prevent the registration of varieties, has been very important in this whole process. If the law were suddenly changed to legalize all seeds, it would be much more difficult to effectively oppose GMOs.

    There’s also a argument to be made that because seed saving and trading of unlisted varieties is illegal here, there’s an emotional aspect to it. It’s much easier this way to gain attention to such a silly law and a silly situation. By allowing the EU to legalize unlisted varieties, you remove this emotional argument, and let the EU off the hook.

    Let’s face it Tom, we’re all screwed here. Like you say, if we send a ‘no to seed laws’ message, it will probably be ignored. None of the scenarios being discussed are really satisfactory, and by supporting or opposing any of them, your position can be twisted and manipulated by politicians to mean something else.

    If you think supporting scenario 4 is the best thing to do, you have my complete blessing.

    I think the most important thing here is for the EU to see a large and relatively hostile response to their public consultation. I think that’s probably the best we can do.

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