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 5238 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM SPOTLIGHT: SWEDISH SEED TRADE ASSOCIATION organisations to discuss the results of the returned seed declarations and statistics from the past growing season and report- ing round. At this meeting, the remuner- ation levels on farm saved seed in relation to royalty levels on certified seed appli- cable for the coming season will also be discussed and an agreement will be signed covering the following growing season. For harvest year 2016, the remuneration rate for FSS of a variety was agreed to be 70 per cent, compared with the roy- alty level on certified seed. Discussions are underway to address future farming practices, where plant breeding efforts are maintained to select new and improved varieties suitable for Swedish growing conditions — as well an emphasis on the fact that royalties and the remuneration fee on FSS is a very low ‘insurance pre- mium’ to secure a steady flow of improved varieties in the future. The organisations LRF and SpmO are strong supporters of communication initiatives and are actively relaying information through their inter- nal media and information channels with valid information to their members. Another important link to make this information gathering ‘apparatus’ work smoothly is to have access to the correct contact details of the farmers, as well as the arable acreage of each farming unit. As farming units are changing ownership quite frequently in Sweden, it would be difficult to keep an up-to-date registry in-house. When SVUF was established, the association — backed by the farmers’ organisations — approached the ministry and its administrative unit, the Swedish Board of Agriculture, for support. The Board of Agriculture has the responsibility for the administration of the single payment system in Sweden and a request was put forward by SVUF to get access to up-to-date information from the single payment register. After detailed scrutiny of the legal text by lawyers at the ministry, the association was granted access to one annual data-extract with contact details of farmers applying for single payment contributions for farming units exceeding the 23.7 hectares acreage threshold. The collection of information on seed has been in operation close to 20 years and is well accepted by the vast majority of farmers in Sweden. With the aid of one or two ‘reminder’ sendouts, SVUF is close to a 100 per cent return rate of seed reports from the farmers obliged to declare seed used during the harvest year. If the pro- vided declarations are correct, than the information from the farmer with informa- tion provided by seed cleaning companies can be compared. In Sweden, only a few of the larger farm holdings have invested in own seed cleaning and approved seed treat- ment machinery. Instead many farmers, intending to use their harvested seed for drilling, are buying seed cleaning and seed treatment services from dedicated seed cleaning companies. According to the Swedish regulations, these registered seed cleaning entities do not charge the farmer any remuneration fee on the pro- cessed FSS, but the companies are obliged to annually provide SVUF with a list of the names of their clients and the services they have provided during the season, including the name of the varieties and quantities of processed seed per variety. If there is a mismatch between the report from the farmer and information provided by a seed cleaning company, fur- ther actions will be initiated. SVUF will, in such cases, ask the farmer for a clarifi- cation of the difference in provided data and an option to adjust earlier provided information. This will, in almost all cases, lead to a satisfactory explanation by the farmer and if adjustments of drilled FSS quantities are made, a new invoice will be generated to cover potential additional remuneration fees. The invoiced remuneration capital on used FSS will be forwarded to the respec- tive variety owner at a few occasions during the collection period and with a final account at the end of each season. The income from the remuneration on FSS provide a welcome return to the variety owners and contributes significantly to make variety development for the Swedish seed market worthwhile. SWEDISH SEED TRADE ASSOCIATION (SVUF) The main task for the association is to admin- ister, monitor and maintain the well work- ing and successfully implemented model for reporting and invoice remuneration fees on farm saved seed in Sweden. An additional task for the association is to act as a link and contact point between the seed companies/ membersandcompetentauthoritiesandrele- vantministrieswiththeSwedishgovernment on all issues connected to plant varieties, seed production and trade. SVUF is member of the European Seed Association (ESA) as well as International Seed Federation (ISF). SVUF is thereby also responsible to act as a centre of knowledge and liaison on seed related international topics, in particular on European regulations on seed produc- tion and trade. The association tries to be member of, and take active part in, the work of many of ESA and ISF committees and working groups with relevance to the members of SVUF. SVUF has a total of 15 companies as members in the organisation, which includes the majority of companies trad- ing in seed of field crops for drilling and planting of potatoes. Companies with a focus on vegetable crops and ornamentals are currently not represented in SVUF, but the association is open to expand its scope to cover these production segments. SVUF is governed by a board of six members, each member representing a different member company. The board members, as well as representative from LRF and SpmO, are actively involved in the actions and activities organised by the association through several board meetings as well as informal meetings during the year. The association has one permanently employed staff member, the secretary general of the association. The association has the policy to acquire ser- vices based on contracts from third party providers for specific tasks, for example bookkeeping, printing and distributing information and seed declaration forms to the farmers, webpage design and other tasks requiring special competence. This strategy has worked very efficiently and well for the association with several of Peter Annas is Director of Seed and Commodities at Lantmännen as well as chairman/president of the Board at SVUF. (Photo Lantmännen)