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There is a catalog of varieties allowed for sale, all others are banned. It takes a lot of money and lobbying to have a variety on the allowed list. So farmer
by nickserv 7y ago
There is a catalog of varieties allowed for sale, all others are banned.
It takes a lot of money and lobbying to have a variety on the allowed list.
So farmers are forced to use certain varieties if they want to sell them, not because those varieties are inherently superior.
In fact some ancient varieties are better adapted to the local climate than modern one size fits all varieties, but because farmers are not allowed to sell them have almost disappeared (noncommercial growers and associations have kept some going).
- deogeo 7y ago> There is a catalog of varieties allowed for sale, all others are banned. Is this for the US or EU? And it's the first I heard of this, do you have a source? I recall there was some awful EU seed initiative that imposed a heavy regulatory burden on all seeds, effectively making sure only those with large capital backing them could be marketed. But then some exemptions were made for 'small' sellers or somesuch, and the media promptly forgot all about it..
- nickserv 7y agoIt's law in the EU for sure: https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/plant_propagation_material/plant_variety_catalogues_databases_en https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/plant_propagation_material/p... I'm not sure if the USDA has similar rules.
- benj111 7y agoIts the EU. I believe seed clubs are exempt: "Our Seed Club:Due to really daft seed laws, many of our fantastic vegetable seeds can only be supplied to members of our Seed Club, because they are not on the 'approved list' of permitted vegetable varieties! But membership costs just one penny." http://www.realseeds.co.uk/about.html http://www.realseeds.co.uk/about.html Just realised they're part of the OSSI too.