EU online seed sale restrictions ahead

General Discussions
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Call for help for EU customers!
I hope this message finds you well. As we gear up for another exciting season of tomato cultivation, I must bring to your attention a pressing matter that could impact our community and our store!

The European Union is in the process of implementing new laws that could have adverse effects on our ability to continue sharing our passion for tomatoes. These regulations, if enacted as proposed, threaten to hinder our access to sale of seeds and impose unnecessary restrictions on our beloved hobby.
I firmly believe that our voices can make a difference in shaping these regulations for the better. That’s why I’m reaching out to ask for your support. We have an opportunity to influence EU decision-makers by signing a petition advocating for fair and sensible regulations that uphold our rights as not only tomato enthusiasts, but as every farmer.
Your signature on this petition could be instrumental in demonstrating the importance of preserving our freedom to cultivate and exchange tomato seeds. Together, we can make our voices heard and ensure that the regulations ultimately support rather than stifle our community.
Please visit page below to leave your vote and make sure, that EU farmers will be able to deliver seeds to you!

https://mitmachen.arche-noah.at/de/hoch-die-gabeln/

You can choose english language in top-right corner! All you have to do is to write your name , email and country you are from, accept the terms and press “SIGN THE PETITION!”

I hope together, we can trully fight for our future and right to share the seeds among each other, with no restrictions!
Also, you can join to action Send the seeds to a member of EU Parliament ( until end of February)
https://www.arche-noah.at/media/hm_2_2024_saatgukampagne_gabel_a4_flyer_eng_09_150dpi_1.pdf

That is not my call for signing a petition, it is a signal for those who get in which direction we are heading that we probably won’t be able to access that much varieties in a few years time, due to new laws enforcement (“phytosanitary requirements” and so on…). So what we do now is important. Personally I organise myself not to have to buy any seed in future years, so to only share and seed swap from summer 2024 on… So right now I am completing my different grexes and, as I forecasted, intend to produce seeds for a lot of people. Not just for me. Interestingly seed production is exponential !

That is a complicated topic, and taking a deep dive into it prior to say anything about it could be a good idea, but here you see one webshop which already decided to stop selling seeds online, due to already existing laws. Here is what they write:

"Dear Sir or Madam,

thank you for visiting our site.

We would like to kindly inform you that in accordance with the regulations governing the online sale of seeds of amateur vegetable varieties, we do not sell seeds through distance contracts, i.e. via the Internet.

The site is for information purposes only, where you can get descriptions of interesting varieties."

As you can see here they were selling many seeds… for amateurs!
Thomas

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A seed shop saying goodbye to international clients, they’re voluntarily turning their seed shop into an online museum. The nightmare is real. Who’s idea was this? Why do they do it?
@JesseI what do you think? And you @polarca , @malterod , @Richard , @marcela_v

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Very sad :sob:

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Somebody has taken too much stuff, IDK how, what, and why. That’s how.

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Nuances:
Laws passed a few years ago now apply, reagarding online sales, but not international sales.

And the Polish websites stopped its online salesdue to these.

Lawyers told me at the main French seed network (Réseaux Semences Paysannes) a few months ago: nearly 100% of online seed sellers are already mostly illegal now, until law enforcement authorities come they continue, knowing or not that legislations have been passed. So yes, as the media said: since 2020 you can sell nearly any seed to anyone, regardless of it being a landrace, a diversified mix, a “not registered” variety or what… (so “that” is true… so “freeeeedom!!!” :upside_down_face: )… BUT: all seeds sold on the internet must now comply with phytosanitary requirements, which no small seller can afford. That is why some of them now write explicitly that they sell only to “amateurs” or that kind of verbiage to cover their a… you know what:

(see Meraki Seeds page for example, where they write in black and white *"Due to the new EU law on seed regulations with a very complicated approval process, we are obliged to provide the following information:

Note on all my seeds: My seeds are sold expressly to private users as ornamental plant seeds and collector’s items. All information regarding taste, use and ingredients is based on traditional experience and is for general information only. Tomatoes are only considered ornamental fruits and are not officially intended for consumption."*)

So to say: legally, if a judge comes in, they are borderline at least, should have to show phytosanitary passports for each variety, on top of other conditions. By saying “ornemental tomatoes” they hope that they will go through without problems. Someone said “borderline”?
In french it is written in this document of the seed network RĂ©seau Semences Paysannes :
2022-04_Fiche_sanitaire_V3.pdf (6.0 MB)
In summary: if you do not have phytosanitary passport, you can sell in person. No online trade is authorized without this document.

So… that has not been applied yet, - but maybe in some countries or places - but new laws are coming, seeming to make things once again much harder, or borderline, or… just illegal. That is what I have heard of guys like Guy Kastler. So to him he said there was about 4 great battles about seeds head. He is a farmer, and of a combattant kind.

I would like to know more about these…

Please read the intervention of Marcela here: Directory of european seed sellers - #50 by marcela_v It is going the same way.

I believe that overall this topic could lead to a discussion on seed increase and share, networking, at different scales: from local to europe for example. But things similar may apply in other continent. Of that I don’t know.

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Same message on of the most diverse website ever: deaflora.de

"Petition “High the forks - for diversity”

The EU is planning a new seed law that threatens varieties of diversity. Maintaining and passing them on is made difficult or impossible.

This diversity is our cultural heritage and our cultural law! It has been us for millennia, the people who read and improve varieties.

"Many vegetables that existed long before the EU will disappear. Don’t be told what you can grow in your garden in the future, decide for yourself! Give your opinion a vote. Sign the Europe-wide petition:„ High the forks - for diversity! “! Click the link in orange and you will be redirected to a page by Arche Noah Austria with further information. Your Andrea Hellmich "

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Not living in the EU, I’m unsure how all this works, but I am interested in seeing what happens.

Would the law against sales apply to an organization like GtS, which gives away seeds for a suggested donation?

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Right now and to this day, I believe it is OK doing what you want with seeds sold online within the EU. For example yesterday I did buy seeds to complete my grexes from buyers from Denmark to Greece… And 95-99% of webshops are not ringing the alarm bell about those new laws, always quite unclear, or writen in very very specific language.

But more and more it sounds like crossing the street out of a pedestrian crossing: if there is no police officer around, like in 99% of the case you are… fine! but if not you may end up with a… fine! which possibly you cannot afford. The law says you must be afraid of cars, and at the end of the day you have problems with a police officer. Which is not always very pleasant.

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I see, that makes sense. This is very unfortunate. It looks like increasingly people will be stuck with only the genetic resources that are: 1. available within their country or political block and 2. made available for sale by large seed companies.

Living in the USA, this doesn’t worry me as much; there are tons of genetic resources available in the USA, and there is a large market for heirloom seeds and so lots of companies supply them. But for those elsewhere, things could become more difficult.

In an earlier thread on the dangers of international seed shipping, I mentioned some thoughts about ways to rectify this situation. It seems like a non-profit, whether a branch of GtS or otherwise, could be dedicated to helping people access genetics legally, whether by providing the institutional framework needed for accessing gene banks, or doing the tests needed to import seeds, or whatever. (Most seeds that people want to buy internationally may very well already be in the country in a gene bank somewhere!) I’m sure many small seed companies would be willing to chip in and help pay for such services to keep the non-profit running.

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The noose tightens slowly but surely as people don’t stand up for themselves. The few will oppress the many. If the many is ignorant or unaware, this oppression is easier. There has to be push back or rights will continue to be lost. You get what you accept.

Killing with kindness. It’s the safe thing for food security.

Companies use the government to create the conditions favorable to them, the same conditions unfavorable to their competition. Even if such a rule makes it more expensive for them to do business, they will support such a thing if they are better prepared and capable to manage that issue than their competitors.

The end game is total food control. You will have nothing and be happy, eating crickets.

The rift raft are too ignorant to keep their seeds clean. They can’t be trusted to grow food next to the field with the commercial seed.

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This might be a bit off topic, but I actually understand why they might want some regulations on imported seed; the Cultivariable blog has articles on some of the alarming viruses that could come in on TPS from the Andes, for instance.

But if there are going to be regulations, they should help people work with them to make sure the little guys don’t get frozen out. In this case, in the USA, if they just made it easier to access GRIN, it wouldn’t really matter if they banned all imports; there is more genetic resources in there than any of us could get through in our lifetime. Of course, the reason it is less easy to access GRIN is because some people started posting about how you could get “free seeds” for vegetable gardening!

Business idea: set up a company that would work with GRIN. Every time somebody without credential wanted a GRIN accession, you would grow it out, return half to GRIN, and send the other half to the requestor, or something like that. Maybe you’d just start carrying things that seemed like they could end up being popular. “Unlocking the resources of GRIN” or something like that. The company would act as the public face for GRIN, which isn’t set up well to handle public requests, etc.

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I am confused about why I can buy a 50 pound bag of deer corn for $10 and why the equivalent weight of food at the grocery store is that price multiplied by 2 and then a zero added.

I wonder if people from France can buy a melon at their grocery store that was grown from Spain. Also, I wonder if that same French guy can buy melon seeds from a supplier located in Spain. I also wonder what kind of poison is required to sterilize those melons bought at French supermarket to make sure no Spanish diseases are not present.

I think there is a double standard going on, and bad intentions under the surface.

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Yes it may becoming off topic, but as I read you, I fell you do not get the main problem : it is not about accessing diversity from abroad, or even from within a country, it is forbiding people to sell seed which don’t comply with “phytosanitary requirements”, even within those countries. Those (new) requirements have been progressively made compulsory. So clearly, as it is written in black and white in all seed network texts, if the current laws are enforced, it would be game over for all the small seed sellers. Game over for 95-99% of all those listed in the directory. Would stay those already bought by bigger fishes.
Then I let you read about the EU Commission, the EU itself, and how it works.

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No problem about that. And if it is not Spanish melons, it is Peruvian chestnuts or whatever.

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Still that is a worse case scenario. I cannot imagining it that drastically, but as you have seen, one webshop already closed the door in the name of those seed laws.

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A double standard is going on, the amount of exotic pests entering the bloc yearly is rising not decreasing, the ash tree is presently under threat of the Emerald Ash Borer and some fungus moving in from Russia which already hit Poland. Yet the EU is subsidizing the import of ground up American old growth forest to burn in incinerators to create green energy. We know larvae survive the trip, and bacteria and fungi will prepare to leave the chipped wood during transport. 3,7 million tons in 2021 was imported.

But those amateur gardener seeds from Poland, need a costly passport , they might carry a disease.

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Following this sentence I want to add that I went through a short 3 day training in one academic institution in Croatia which is also running an independent lab for testing germination rates for most of the seed companies who put their seeds on Croatian market.

The boss of the lab, who has 40+ years of working in the seed “business” plus the academic and lab work, clearly said that chances of seeds carrying some disease, viruses or bacteria is so small that it is irrelevant. And she was clearly saying that this argument is absolutely not valid for all the laws they are trying to pass based on it. Diseases and viruses is something people are afraid of, so they use it as a “marketing” tool to impose much stricter laws.

We had an issue 2 years ago in Croatia when they wanted to pass a new law which would do a lot of damage to small farms and vegetable producers who grow their own family and traditional heirlooms, and it was a huge campaign, involving people from the NGOs, academia and even people who were working in the ministry. And the law was changed in the end.

However, I don’t have a good feeling regarding the new laws EU is trying to implement with the new “genetic techniques” and some limitations. It is quite complex, I don’t even understand fully what it is about.

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As far as continents are concerned I fully agree with him. It is more of a real problem in islands. Sorry not to have references about that in English, but in this 2hour long conference of Jaques Tasssin (researcher, ecologist) he details it + the mentalities associated : 99% of “invasive” species do no harm on continents after the peak + you always have an ecological perturbation upstream + all"invasive" species fill an ecological role in their niche, just like the super-bad-japanese knotweed detoxifies the soil by chelating harmful chemical components. It is a bio indicator of these pollution. See the best french specialist of bio-indication talking about it here (french only, sorry…) As much as after clear cut you see robinia pseudoaccacia trees, which is a leguminous, who start balancing the soil: they bring nitrogen and a quick cover. If we let the ecological successions happen these trees accelerate the pioneering stage, then will be replaced by hornbeam, beech, linden, yew, etc. So the problem is upstream: not the pseudoaccacia, the clear cut. Same with seaweed in Brittany, etc. Nature knows what to do, how to take care of the problem, even by using imported species.

Here no real ecological problem: an economical progress for doing forestry.

On the other side, yes there are serious problem with islands, which have simplified ecosystems, with endemic species. Like the deers in Caledonia, etc.

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:laughing: ahah Austin you killed me… Ze Captain.
More to the point: one said there was a risk for french people becoming a majority in here, but in recent times there is an even bigger Picard trend… that must have been a diversion. ^^