Yesterday the AGRI (Agriculture and Rural Development) committee of the EU Parliament held a meeting and announced their assuming responsibility for the new EU seed legislation. Together with this announcement was a presentation by the EU Commission on their entire package of legislation, of which the seed law is a part. After a very long presentation, there were some comments from the other Parliamentarians who were given 3 minutes each to give comments on a very complex topic. They discussed it for an hour and a half, and the file is 407Mb, which you can download and watch here.
Lots of Problems!
Many of the problems of the legislation were visible in the discussion. The first is complexity, and using this to create confusion and distract from the real issues. If you want to see confusion already intentionally created, have a look at the Google search result for criminalized seeds. While you’re at it, have a look at some of the websites that are sources of that confusion, and think about their connections with the larger seed companies.
After creating all that confusion, they gave others participating in that meeting 3 minutes each to respond. There were a couple of good responses too.
The EU Commission is just playing the same game. Making the comparison with horse meat. What does seed purity have to do with horse meat? Nothing, but it’s on the minds of the European public, and so it’s a good way to provoke an emotional response. Then comes everything they are doing for the benefit for micro-enterprises, reducing red tape and preserving old varieties.
The reality is there’s nothing in their presentation of the plant reproductive material (PRM) that has any value for consumer safety. The most helpful thing they could do for micro-enterprises and preserving old varieties would be to completely scrap the legislation.
The entire purpose of the legislation is to create a marketing advantage for larger seed companies, then export that advantage via trade agreements the EU has with other countries. It doesn’t matter if there are a few small exceptions for older varieties or micro-enterprises, the entire piece of legislation is flawed. Even if these exceptions are written into the legislation, ‘delegated acts’ mean large parts of the legislation could be completely rewritten later, and local governments could impose new restrictions. If any sort of official system of registration exists, it will always be tempting for governments to create an advantage for those varieties.
If you buy a car or a house, do you expect them to all be distinct, uniform and stable (DUS)? EU seed marketing is virtually the only economic sector, anywhere in the world, that has pre-marketing controls requiring consumers be given as restricted a choice as possible.
Red Tape
Supposedly the purpose of this regulation is to reduce red tape. There are likely hundreds or even thousands of people working full time across Europe administering the current seed laws. These are very talented and skilled people, who have something very valuable to offer to the people of Europe. Why not let them work on biodiversity or local agriculture projects?
