Tuesday, 7 May 2013

EU to ban heritage seeds

Please, listen to this! They are trying to **outlaw** saving your own seed in Europe! The vote is tomorrow. There is no actual reason for this insanity other than a power play by Monsanto and the rest to enforce their monopoly and be completely rid of heirloom varieties. This is a desperate situation with ultra serious implications. 

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Bad Seed Law



6 May, 2013



Regulation on Marketing of Plant Reproductive Material , A New Seed Law went before the EU  commissioners  on May 6th 2013

We’ve been lobbying hard, and thanks to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been emailing and writing about this, there were some last-minute changes to the proposed law, even as late as Sunday night. While it is still a bad law, it is much less bad than the first, second or even third draft. We must remain vigilant to be sure it is not changed as it goes through the EU, and then is translated into UK laws.
The proposed law is here
We now have an opportunity to lobby for a law that actually improves biodiversity 
ARCHE NOAH and 240 other organisations from 40 European countries have initiated the “Open Letter”, addressing the decision makers in Brussels. 
and encourage organisations you are involved with to sign it too

The below information relates to the initial proposals which have largely been amended. The information is preserved here for historical interest.

The new regulation threatens rare varieties and farmers’ varieties. Non-commercial varieties are under particular threat of extinction, as the new regulation foresees that the exchange of seeds will become illegal for different kinds of actors. This would harm small-scale farmers and local producers. On the other hand, industrial seed companies would extend their dominance.
Directorate General of the EU for Sanitary and Consumer affairs (DG SANCO) has been working on this for years, driven by lobbying of the globalised agricultural seed industry.
However, two other EU directorates, DG AGRI (agricultural affairs) and DG ENVI (environmental affairs) oppose the proposal because it is so bad for agriculture and biodiversity! So DG SANCO is pushing ahead with the new law anyway by putting it directly to the Commission this week.
The inter-services consultations have come to a standstill at the EU Commission, because of the actions of one person, Madame Isabelle Clement-Nissou, a French ‘national expert’.  The reason for her opposing even the smallest provision for heritage and public domain varieties seems to be her continued relationship with former employer Groupement National Interprofessionnel des Semances et Plants(GNIS), a privately funded lobby organization that fiercely defends the interests of the French Seed Industry. Source


 Madame Clément-Nissou appears to be in a situation explicitly forbidden by rules on the secondment of national experts to the Commission which state: “in order to ensure that the Commission’s independence is not compromised by private interests, it should be stipulated that seconded national experts must come from a national, regional or local public administration or an IGO(public intergovernmental organization).” 1

Although Mrs. Clément-Nissou is supposed to be sent by the French Government, she was actually sent on behalf of GNIS (Groupement National Interprofessionnel des Semences), where she was Director of International Relations until September 2011 when she joined DG SANCO. The reason the French Agriculture Ministry sent her may have been because of the French administration’s highly unusual relationship with GNIS: although this organisation is a private and commercial organisation representing the seed sector, it has been entrusted (since 1941) with the public service of controlling and monitoring seed quality as well as levying a tax on sales of seeds throughout France. Despite its public role, GNIS is a privately funded lobby group run by and staunchly defending the interests of the seed industry Source

If you are a Twitter user please use #saveseed when tweeting on this. Please also share this page on your Facebook.
Petitions & letters
Sent your  emails? Great! Thanks!
This petition has the largest number of signatures,more than 203,000 but does not seem to be widely circulated in the UK: Please sign it (in English) here
You could also Sign the Avaaz petition that calls for the Law to be amended
This one is a more radical statement just affirming that you do not intend to comply with the law if it is passed:

We will not comply! 

Tweet the decision makers

 Politely asking them to vote against the seed law.
Example Tweet
@UserNameEU Please vote against DG SANCO draft for new Plant Reproductive Material Regulation: http://saatgutpolitik.arche-noah.at/files/openletter_lettreouverte_offenerbrief.pdf #saveseed

Example custom  Commissioner email 
If you tried the ‘send’ button above and it didn’t work it means you don’t have a email program configured.  Set one up for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer; Good luck
If you haven’t tried the send button yet  Click here
Or you will have to cut and paste the below into your usual email program.
Email to:
jose-manuel.barroso@ec.europa.eu, Catherine.Ashton@ec.europa.eu, Viviane.Reding@ec.europa.eu, joaquin.almunia@ec.europa.eu, Siim.Kallas@ec.europa.eu, Neelie.Kroes@ec.europa.eu, Antonio.Tajani@ec.europa.eu, Maros.sefcovic@ec.europa.eu, Olli.Rehn@ec.europa.eu, Janez.Potocnik@ec.europa.eu, Andris.Piebalgs@ec.europa.eu, Michel.Barnier@ec.europa.eu, Androulla.Vassiliou@ec.europa.eu, Algirdas.semeta@ec.europa.eu, karel.de-gucht@ec.europa.eu, Maire.Geoghegan-Quinn@ec.europa.eu, Janusz.Lewandowski@ec.europa.eu, Maria.Damanaki@ec.europa.eu, Kristalina.Georgieva@ec.europa.eu, Guenther.Oettinger@ec.europa.eu, Johannes.Hahn@ec.europa.eu, Connie.Hedegaard@ec.europa.eu, stefan.Fule@ec.europa.eu, Laszlo.Andor@ec.europa.eu, Cecilia.Malmstrom@ec.europa.eu, Dacian.Ciolos@ec.europa.eu, Tonio.Borg@ec.europa.eu
Their areas of individual responsibility can be found here
Dear Commissioner xxxx
I am writing to you to appeal to you to object to the SANCO-sponsored legislation on the licencing and sale of seeds.
I understand that you have had no part in drafting it, but these proposals would make it impossible to licence or to sell, cultivate or swap thousands of ancient and heritage varieties of seeds, a bank of genetic diversity that has been built up over many generations. Instead they would place seeds and cultivar-development irrevocably in the hands of a few multi-national companies. We would lose the knowledge, experience and diversity of our rich seed heritage in exchange for half-a-dozen bland varieties suited to agro-industrial production, and greater profits for multi-nationals.
As Commissioner for xxxx, I would imagine that you will be concerned about the erosion of rural and local knowledge, resources and genetic diversity that this regulation would represent. It would take away people’s ability to develop their own varieties suited to local conditions, climates, and culinary heritage, and put it in the hands of a few big companies. This would then erode the possibilities for people to work their way out of poverty. As a xxxx I am sure that you know of xxxx rich heritage of local seeds and varieties and the importance they have for xxxxx heritage, culture and identity.
I also draw your attention to the costs of policing the legislation. It seems likely that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of individual gardeners and small traders would defy such a ban. Enforcing it adequately would draw huge resources from European states that can ill afford it. If it is presumed that the legislation would not be vigorously enforced, it begs the question: Is it fit for purpose?
I appeal to you to reject these odious proposals when they are put forward on 6th May. I have enclosed a link for your further reading.

Yours sincerely xxxx
(email courtesy of featherstick)
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