16% French DNA, I gotta keep it real for my distant cousins across the water.
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Hi Ya all,
In Ireland it has been explained to us that Heterozygous populations are being encouraged by the E.U in the direction of Organic growers only, of course you have to register and there are conditions,there always is!
The game is up folks the F.A.O of the U.N has for decades now been on the edge of panic about the loss of Agricultural Diversity and I believe that this could be one of the things that is triggering this allowance of heterozygous as opposed to photo copy Homogeneous varieties.
Nature will always win when crops no longer grow in constant changing conditions,add to this the loss of the soil biology that the plant needs to connect to the outside world and HGT and not even disaster capitalism will make hay from this foolery!
Still,the sun is out and like the generations before us we are getting excited at the prospect of another year on the land and the mistakes and successes that it will bring.
Enjoy,beautiful communityā¦Kevin D
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Oh yeah, the octopus has many arms moving in different directions at will.
Cutting down forest to safe the environment, is just one of many examples i can give. But letās not get into that.
We will just have to ride the waves and be confident our soulpower of circumventing measures is infinitely bigger than the willpower of corrupted EU bureaucrats.
So you have information itās going in the other direction. We only have to register, but thatās ok, because itās alwaysā¦ I beg to differ. We are free people that have the right to grow whatever plants we see fit.
But i would like to know more about this information you have anyways, could you provide a link?
Happy growingseason.
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Once again effectively the vise tightens against free seedsā¦
There are two ways to approach these new draft legislation:
- either fight against windmills and expend his energy in the political, legislative, militant fight, risking to lose his soul
- or invest its energy in more cultivation, distribution, seed exchange keeping its free and independent mind to ignore and bypass all this
My Latin pirate blood, suggests me to do everything possible to circulate the seeds āeasilyā while it is still possible, and after we will find an alternativeā¦
The legislator who will prevent me from sharing seeds isnāt to be born, thatās a certainty! Men have always made seeds travel intentionally through pockets or accidentally on their shoe sole, this cannot be prohibited. How to control a migratory bird that has seeds stuck in its feathers or intestine? How to control the wind that moves the seeds? the vegetation create the seed to travelā¦ it is not the human who will prevent it
A small anecdote that says a lot about the utopia of legislators to imagine controlling everything : I already ordered seeds of True Potatoes Seeds from an American shop and with 2 cunning minds together it was a breezeā¦ For my part, I order a few days before Christmas when the postal and customs networks are saturated with parcels, when the administrative staff in charge of controls are understaffed because of holidays. On the other hand, the seller had considered it unnecessary to make a merchandise declaration to his administration, and put the envelope in anonymous fold with the small packets of seeds taped inside a greeting card illustrated with a big Santa claus! 
So if we have to replay the period of prohibition in seed mode, may doubt that some of us will become illegal seed dealers.
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Hey Hugo, I couldnāt agree with you more, I have little to do with the E.U or any nonsense that stops me and my community from growing the type of food our locality can express. Especially Locally Adaptive Populations!
It is all woven into profit, control and greed.
The booklet I got was from 2022 called Organic Heterogeneous Material and was either from Arc 2020 orSeeds4All.
Anyway I have nothing more to say about that nonsense!
One thing I just found on Permies web site was Alan Booker talking about āEpigenics and Seed Savingā which I thought was excellent for me to understand better Horizontal Gene Transfer and things like Corum Sensing. I googled it and ended up getting it from the U.S for about $18 well worth it!
All the best Kevin D
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I have an update on this topic:
I was recently in a meeting in one NGO which is involved in activities around EU laws and regulations about seeds. The new laws were going in a really terrible direction, and people in the parliament didnāt really know what they were voting for.
Apparently, Arche Noahās legal team (from France) did a great job with explaining why certain proposals are damaging, and wrote many explanations to be presented to EU representatives who were voting for the law. There was a quite strong involvement of French and Croatian activists and seed savers, including our Ministry. They were able to reach many representatives in the parliament, and explain to them what they were expected to vote on.
Then, there was one representative from Croatia who was not reached by organizations, but he followed the topic through social media, and he had a great speech about the topic in the parliament which had a great impact on the voting process.
Now it seems that the common EU laws are going in a good direction, more supportive to small seed producers and savers, although there are still some restrictions. But we can work around them. Spain wanted to push the law with the seed restrictions and new āgeneticā techniques to be legalized, which would allow them to patent everything and restrict everyone else. Luckily, Hungary will be residing for the upcoming 6 months, and it seems that they will not allow this law or anything similar to be passed.
Also, good news is that I successfully got seeds from the USA (to Croatia) without any phytosanitary certificate. It came from the Experimental Farm Network. I paid 11 euro of taxes and fees on 33 euro order. It is more than 30%, but I am happy that I was able to get diverse genetics, and I think I will order again. Not a lot at the same time, but small amounts seem to go through without any issuses. It was also written on the envelope that it contains seeds inside, so it was not hidden.
I hope it helps someone 
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Good news then! Thanks seedsavers and Hungary! Fuck Spain.
I was in doubt to order at EFN. Happy it came through for you.
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great for this good news 
! Iām glad I didnāt refer you to EFN for nothing.
On the other hand you did not have the same luck as me who passes all the time without customs tax.
Maybe itās not just luck. Can you see on your envelope with the customs coupon where your mail arrived in Europe? my 3 orders are all entered by France and never customs taxes.
Because if there are more lax countries like ours it may be worth organizing to send back orders to other countries.
It would be even better to find an American who regularly makes visits in Europe to whom could be delivered and who would mail the envelopes once on the continent. 
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My shipment entered through Belgium, but I would say it is maybe more about Croatian legislation. Could be that France has different taxes on things like this.
Maybe someone else can give it a try who lives in France, and then we can make some more magic happen.
I also had an issue ordering from Kokoppeli, they wanted to charge me extra taxes plus expensive shippingā¦ order was about 60 euros, and my total was 96 euro with shipping, handling and taxes. So, I ordered to a friend who sent it to me via regular post, and I saved more than 30 euros. Could be that there are different tax policies within EU for seeds
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all these EFN envelopes make me vibrate ! very good choice, we love that you multiply them
I just looked for France the conditions are as follows, obviously it is normal that I never have customs fees:
As of July 1, 2021, all goods purchased online and from countries outside the European Union are subject to payment of VAT from the 1st euro. VAT must now be paid:
- when buying online
- on delivery of the package by the carrier if you buy on sites that sell without tax and do not apply VAT at the time of online sale. You may be charged by the carrier any additional fees that it may decide to apply to cover the completion of customs formalities.
For purchases on foreign sites, the franchise threshold is 150 ā¬. If the value of your order is higher than this amount, you must pay customs duties. In any case, you will have to pay VAT.
However, I didnāt understand anything on the site of the conditions legislator for the phytosanitary certificate. I understand that for seeds it is essential but not in what condition it applies, if there is a minimum value that makes me go through.
If this continues to be opaque I will hire an American from GTS to sneak at the airport seed envelopes in the suitcases of tourists who come to Europe! 
For those who want to read, these are the very recent recommandations of Live Seeding for the 24th April vote at the EU. I donāt have to time to read it personnally. Live Seeding is the EU organic lobby: so this is their suggestions. It is not the Commission or EU position.
Some experts (Isabelle Goldringer and others) say that this vote will be crucial for all plant-related maters in years to come. They ask to spread the message to avoid ābadā things from coming. And maybe help with ācultivated biodiversityā, as they say: meaning notably giving stronger protection for what they coined as āheterogenous materialsā, of which our āmodern landracesā definitely are. But anyway: that is really really short summary of their fears and hopesā¦ Content down there:
LS-Policy-Brief_April-2024_final-1.pdf (3.1 MB)
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With on-going discussion in this community about how to make our seed more publicly available as the seed laws in EU are changing, I want to bump this topic again.
I would like to ask someone who has a better overview of the state of affairs to give a summary for those of us who are less well oriented. Which proposals are currently on the table and what are the immediate consequences for exchanging seed?
@marcela_v, you seemed to well oriented. Do you mind giving us the three or four most important takeaways as it stands now?
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I will investigate in more details current status. I didnāt have time to go deeper into it. I know the general overview of the situation, but I donāt know the main conclusions of the discussion that took part in December on the level of EU about the upcoming changes. I guess it was not something unusual because I would already hear about it. Leadership of EU changed with New Year with Poland in charge now, so I guess we will hear more in the months to come, as Poland has been nicely bribed by corporations in many food-related industries.
At the moment selling seeds online without a plant passport is illegal. I donāt know about specific countries inside of the EU, but this is the current regulation. Thatās why many sellers are declaring their seeds āornamentalā.
But the new law would forbid small gardeners and market farmers to exchange seeds or even to plant their own seeds.
And additionally, corporations are lobbying to be allowed to patent all kinds of things around seeds. So for example, if my neighbor plants some kind of patented corn, and I plant some heirloom or landraceā¦ and pollen from my field pollinates his corn, he could sue me for lowering his yields of his āperfectā and patented corn.
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Being that i have chosen to call Poland my home, im feeling like this is going to end up being thrown on my shoulders to take on more responsibility and fight back. But how?
This is some tyrannical stuff you are bringing to light, Marcela.
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I think this is much bigger than one person. Maybe you can get involved in some national organizations that are activists in this field to be informed.
Also one of the way is to learn who are Polish representatives in EU parliament, and investigate if all of them are in favor of corporations or there is some who are independent - and get in touch with them, to explain the terrible consequences of a law like this.
In Croatia we have several NGOs, professionals from the Faculty of Agronomy and some people who work in the Ministry who are all involved and actively participating meetings with the Ministry, and EU representatives to clarify to them what they are voting about because most are not experts on the topic.
I am not worried about my region because we always find creative solutions how to bend all laws, especially those that make it obvious who wrote them for whom. It will just limit exchange and create an impact on further decreasing genetic diversity in EU.
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Iām especially curious to learn more about this part if anyone can find documentation for it:
But the new law would forbid small gardeners and market farmers to exchange seeds or even to plant their own seeds.
Does someone know where the law proposals says this?
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You know very much about this subject Marcela please have a little talk next Zoom, so most people will be aware of the most up-to-date info. Not everyone will read this.
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Here is a link where you can investigate more: EU Seed Law / Arche Noah
There are many more links on this page you can open to read more.
Arche Noah has a great legal team which is monitoring the process, analyzing all the points of each proposal and giving out recommendations.
The same was introduced in many African countries for example and resulted in farmers ending up in prison for planting own seeds or trying to exchange with neighbors.
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I forgot to comment this. In the law there is no specific provisions about small gardeners and seed keepers. They are trying to pass it for absolutely everyone, and put everyone in the same basket without any exceptions. So, you will not find it written that small gardeners or independent seed banks will not be allowed specific things. The law will simply apply to all seeds if it gets through.
Arche Noah and other NGOs and activists are lobbying to include exceptions in the law, and saying that rules for big corporations cannot be the same like for small growers, etc.
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It has been very difficult since the beginning of these negotiations to find sources of information on the subject.
These are in any case the demands of these militant organizations that leave us to think about the danger of new European laws under discussion.
If legislators fight against variety diversityā¦can a genetic population be considered a variety ? what about genetic mutation? plant chimeras? ā¦
As any law adopted, omissions or flaws will be thereā¦ I hope we will show freedom, intelligence and not fear !
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