EU seed soveriegnty insanity

[UndercoverElephant]

http://www.seed-sovereignty.org/EN/

There is urgent action needed to avoid damage by the upcoming new EU regulation of seed marketing. The new regulation will de facto ban old and rare varieties and farmers varieties and threaten the exchange and selling of seeds of diversity.

That's it. I have had enough of EU insanity. I am now fully on the side of UK withdrawal from the EU.

My reason: it is a completely dysfunctional waste of money, which does more harm than good.

[biffvernon]

Hang on. Could you just wait until after the EU Commission has, this Friday, got through it's restrictions on neonicotinoids that the UK is doing it's best to block.

The EU is made up of a bunch of, to a greater or lesser degree, dysfunctional national governments. The EU Commission does it's best to hold the ring and does a much better job that our own government would if left to it's own dysfunctional devices.

[UndercoverElephant]

I give up.

The whole damned world is mad.

[featherstick]

If we weren't in the EU, we wouldn't get the chance to influence this sort of thing and would be affected by it anyway.

[sam_uk]

Just read this: http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedlaw.html

Madness

[UndercoverElephant]

Yep. Completely f*****g bonkers. Right up there with banning curved cucumbers.

[emordnilap]

I'm going to email all the commissioners asking them to reject the proposal.

Edit: done.

[UndercoverElephant]

Next they'll try to make it illegal to sell the seeds of wild flowers and "edible weeds" (like alexanders, which is an ex-food-crop that forms a staple part of my diet at this time of year.)

[syberberg]

Not been around for a while, heard about this on the (ahem) grapevine, so came over to see if it had reached here yet. Should've known better

Anyway...

Looks like Monsanto et al at it again. I also wonder if this is linked (loosely) with the neonicotinides, especially if all we end up with are self-fertilising varieties of fruit and veg crops? (Yes, I know, tin foil hat time there).

Time to go and email the people who will be voting on this piece of utter stupidity.

How the hell are they going to enforce this? Seed police patrolling every allotment in the country??

[featherstick]

Done De Gucht, Geoghegan-Quinn, Potocnik, Tajani, and Almunia. Will try and pick the rest off tomorrow.

[Catweazle]

Absolute madness.

I really can't see the point in this. We need to buy up the stock from Realseeds and get them growing now.

[sam_uk]

I stuck up a list of the email addresses of the decision makers and a form letter here:

http://open-seeds.org/bad-seed-law/

[JavaScriptDonkey]

A couple of quotes from the actual proposal.

In order to adapt to the needs of producers and the requirements of flexibility, the Regulation continues not to apply to plant reproductive material intended for testing and scientific purposes and intended for breeding purposes. In addition, it should not apply to material intended to or maintained in gene banks, and networks of conservation of genetic resources or organisations associated with gene banks as well as material exchanged in kinds between two persons.

Plant reproductive material should only be produced and placed on the market as prebasic, basic, certified or standard material, in order to ensure transparency and informed choices with its users. Specific requirements should be adopted per genera and species for each of those categories. The requirements on identity, purity, health and other quality requirements, labelling, lots, packaging including small packages,
post-certification control tests, comparative tests and trial and mixtures will continue to be applied.

Concerning old varieties, such as conservation varieties (landraces, populations) or amateur varieties, less stringent requirements will be laid down. The varieties will continue to be registered, however, on the basis of an 'officially recognised description' which shall be recognised – but not produced – by the competent authorities. For that description no DUS testing is obligatory. It shall describe the specific characteristics of the plants and parts of plants which are representative for
the variety concerned and make the variety identifiable, including the region of origin. This description can be based on an old official description of the variety, description produced at the time by a scientific, academic body or organisation. The accuracy of its content could be supported by previous official inspections, unofficial examinations or knowledge gained from practical experience during cultivation, reproduction and use. The current quantitative restrictions are abolished. The users are informed about the material by a label indicating that this variety is identified by an officially recognised description and the region of origin.

So far as I can tell there is nothing that would stop anyone selling heirloom seed varieties at all. The thrust seems to be that if you label it as wheat then it must conform to whatever is expected when someone buys wheat across the whole EU.

[peaceful_life]

http://www.prwatch.org/node/12066

Bayer and Syngenta Lobby Furiously Against EU Efforts to Limit Pesticides and Save Bees.

[JohnB]

I stuck up a list of the email addresses of the decision makers and a form letter here:

http://open-seeds.org/bad-seed-law/

Thanks Sam. All my efforts are going into trying to do positive stuff at the moment, but there's so much that needs protesting about I can't keep up. I was wondering how I was going to get my head round this one in time, but you've made it easy .