Should Canada continue to have a national variety registration system? Should it continue to have one national body establishing and determining the seed crop varietal purity standards to issue a seed crop certificate? Should the purity standards for No.1 and No.2 grades be the same?
All these questions and more are put forward to seed industry stakeholders in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) Seed Regulatory Modernization (SRM) survey that’s part of the Winter 2023 Seed Regulatory Modernization Consultation. The survey is open until May 1.
Wendy Jahn says the survey has one main purpose: to create a seed system that is adaptable and future-proof.
Jahn, National Manager of the Seed Section at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), believes that adding flexibility to the system is one of the best ways to achieve this goal, and the survey is designed to help facilitate that.
The goal of this survey is to gather input from broad-based stakeholders on the recommendations made by the SRM task teams.
Jahn emphasizes that the survey is designed to “provide an update on the progress of the first three task teams and to ask stakeholders for their input on recommendations that would have a significant impact, significant changes or areas where there wasn’t task team agreement, that would be helpful.”
Jahn explains that the survey is based on the recommendations of the first three task teams, which are focused on registration, seed certification, and seed standards and grade tables. Two additional task teams have completed their work, and two more will be launched this month, focused on import and export of seed.
An additional task team, to focus on information, including records and labelling, is set to begin its work soon.
Jahn notes that there will be another survey before the CFIA publishes its intentions in Canada Gazette, Canada’s government newspaper, which will be more comprehensive and cover the recommendations of all task teams, as well as feedback from organizations and individuals.
The CFIA is currently seeking comments from businesses and other organizations in the farming and grain industries, as well as farmers, producers, seed growers, seed analysts, seed developers, seed conditioners, the general public and others who have an interest in the following aspects of the seed regulatory lifecycle:
- variety registration
- Seed crop certification, including crop inspection and crop certificates
- Harvesting, cleaning and conditioning of seed and
- Sampling, testing and grading of seed
Incorporation by reference is one way to help achieve this for all life stages, Jahn says. Jahn notes that for variety registration there is a recommendation that could have an even bigger impact — a recommendation to create a system to add new crop types to the list of registered varieties and remove crop types from that list.
“Currently, this is not possible; crop value chains are in the driver seat to decide the level of variety registration requirements they need, but are not able to be added or removed from the list of crops subject to registration,” she notes.
Jahn says if this recommendation were to come to fruition, it would provide stakeholders with the opportunity to exit from variety registration as long as there was a good reason to do so and a reasonable amount of stakeholder consensus. It would also provide a way for crop industries to approach the CFIA and ask to be part of variety registration, which is not currently possible.
Jahn emphasizes that the CFIA is open to input on all the recommendations and that the survey is just one way to gather input. For individuals and organizations who want to give more detailed or specific input, Jahn notes that the CFIA has made available a lot of material, including the full Task Team reports and executive summaries, which are available on the CFIA website.
The survey is open until May 1 and can be accessed here.
