b'BY: GARLICH VON ESSENWHY DOES EUROPE STRUGGLE TO GET A NEW SEED LAW THAT STILL WORKS FOR BREEDERS AND FARMERS?HOW IT STARTED (AGAIN) mance of new agricultural seed products asrules for specific materials, markets and The Commission published its new proposalto their value for cultivation and use; seedfor specific groups of users. All these were for an overhaul of the EUs variety author- quality certification and quality standards,supposed to address an alleged shortage of isation and seed marketing legislation independing on species, that guarantee a highpolicy instruments that support sustainable June 2023. Main focus, next to improvinglevel of quality to farmers and growers. Alluse and further development of alternative clarity and avoiding ambiguity, was to (re-) in line with the views of both the EU seedgenetic resources, to the benefit of (agro-)establish a true common seed market withsector and EU farmers during the consul- biodiversity. To keep these derogations uniform rules and quality assurances, whiletations. in balance with the overall objective of a maintaining the crop-specific technical ele- But there were also several new ele- high-quality seed market, the COM pro-ments of the species-related standards. Toments: it was proposed to extend the estab- posed to increase information and reporting achieve that, the Commission essentiallylished VCU system not only to all species,obligations and to bring all PRM under the confirmed the usefulness and applicabilityi.e. to vegetables, fruit crops and wine, butsupervision of official controls at EU level. of the well-known pillars of Europes seedalso to re-calibrate it to better address (andThese elements received a much more criti-legislation: proper identification throughreward) sustainability-related improve- cal reception by the seed industry. Vegetable DUS testing and protocols that are used forments in the variety evaluation system. Thebreeders criticised the potential costs for the both variety registration and variety protec- Commission also proposed several signif- building up of a VSCU system; suppliers tion; variety trials to establish the perfor- icant derogations from the harmonisedof garden centres and the amateur market 10ISEED WORLD EUROPEISEEDWORLD.COM/EUROPE'