Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52EUROPEAN-SEED.COM I EUROPEAN SEED I 37 With a warmer climate the plant pathogens will also extend their infec- tion ranges further north. This will be true for rust, mildew and other fungal pathogens, and also insect transmitted viruses. Autumn infection with aphid transmitted viruses on newly drilled cereal crops has not been an issue in the past, but will be something to mon- itor closely from now on. Another point also to be included in the equation is the Swedish authorities’ very strict policy for the approval and use of plant pesticides. As a consequence, all new varieties introduced on the market have to express good and broad disease resistance, not only to pass the European Integrated Pest Management requirements (IPM leg- islation), but also have to produce good yields of good quality without the aid of several pesticides not approved for use in Sweden. ROYALTY COLLECTION To maintain an interest from plant breed- ers to continue making investments in plant breeding and variety develop- ment for the different market segments and with relative limited acreage per segment, the companies must have the possibility to make assessments and a somewhat reliable calculation on the return on investment of projects targeting the Swedish seed market. The ‘insurance policy’ for these investments is that Sweden has royalty collection systems that work well. First of all, the use of certified seed by the farmers is — for cereal varieties — in the range of 70 per cent. The production of this certified seed is done based on con- tracts and close collaboration between the seed company and the seed producing farm entities, thereby securing the roy- alty return on certified seed to the vari- ety owner. The remaining 30 per cent of seed used for drilling consists of limited quantities of old varieties without plant breeders’ right protection, but the main part is the use of farm saved seed (FSS). A well working system for the col- lection of information from farmers on their usage of seed for drilling has been in operation in Sweden for several years. According to EU as well as Swedish legislation, the farmers are obliged to declare if they exclusively use certified seed for drilling on their holding or if they are using farm saved seed as well for drilling. In cases where FSS is used, information on varieties and drilled quan- tities have to be declared. In cases of FSS for potatoes, the planted acreage is the information to be included in the report. The administration and collection of information and invoicing of FSS remu- neration fees is organised and managed by the Swedish Seed Trade Association (SVUF). The SVUF was established by Swedish plant breeders and seed indus- try members in 1997 as a response to the Community Plant Variety Rights regulation 2100/94 and the implementa- tion of the legal text regulating the use of FSS. Instead of each variety owner asking all farmers to report their seed use, the association has been given the mandate to ask for information on behalf of all the member companies of the association. Thereby the farmers will need to report the use of seed for drilling in only one report per harvest year. Several key actions have been taken by the association to establish this well working seed declaration practice. First of all, SVUF has established a very good dialogue and collaboration with the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF) as well as the Swedish Cereal Growers Association (SpmO). The vast major- ity of Swedish farmers are members of these organisations which gives them a broad mandate to be the voice of the farming community. One of the first things to establish was which part of the farming community is obliged to declare their seed use. In the EU regulation it is stated that ‘small’ farmers are excused from the obligation to report their seed use. After discussions with the farmers’ organisations as well as the Ministry, an agreement was made to ‘translate’ the production capacity of a total of 92 tons as a limit to be considered to be a small farmer, as stated in the EU regulation. Instead, in Sweden, the measure- ment of production capacity has been converted to a total arable acreage threshold of 23.7 hectares as a limit value to be considered as a small farming unit. If the total acreage of a farm is below this threshold, the farmer is excused from reporting their seed use. Sweden still has quite a large share of farm holdings below this threshold, particularly in the northern part of the country, but holdings obliged to report seed used for drilling will, nevertheless, include close to 80 per cent of the arable acreage in Sweden. Annually, a meeting is arranged between representatives from the seed trade association and from the farmer Photo Lantmännen