Urgent Call For Action - New EU Seed Law

The Real Seed Catalogue -

Going before council on May 6th
to ban all
traditional vegetable varieties unless registered and licenced!

Hello everyone who cares about our seeds and our freedom to use, exchange and sell them.

There is urgent action needed against the upcoming EU seed marketing law. The new regulation will de facto ban old and rare varieties and farmers varieties and stop the exchange and selling of traditional seeds.

DG SANCO (the Directorate General of the EU for Sanitary and Consumer affairs) has been working on a proposal for a new regulation for years, driven by lobbying of the globalised agricultural seed industry .The seed industry is pushing the legislation hard, and they’ve spent a lot of money on it.

However, two other EU directorates, DG AGRI (agricultural affairs) and DG ENVI (environmental affairs) both oppose the proposal because it is so bad for agriculture and biodiversity! So DG SANCO is pushing ahead with the new law anyways by putting it directly to a vote by the Commission on May 6th.

There is only a little chance to get a majority of commissioners to vote against the current proposal, but we still should try.

Each country of the EU has one commissioner in Brussels, so we need 14 votes against the proposal. The commissioners of DG AGRI and DG ENVI should vote against, so we need 12 more.

Please write to at least the commissioner of your country and convince him/her to vote “NO” on the proposal of DG SANCO on 6th of May.

Try to make a link from his/her department to the seed issue, and try to make clear to him/her that the proposal for a new EU seed legislation will affect the cultural and biodiversity heritage of your country and the freedom of farmers to use the seeds and the varieties they want to.

SAY NO TO PROHIBITION OF SEEDS OF DIVERSITY!

By forcing registration of all varieties of all crop species , the new law will prohibit old, rare and traditional public-domain farm varieties. This will guarantee huge profits for the seed industry but will be a terrible loss to the people of Europe as our agricultural heritage is outlawed overnight!

Please write to your commissioner in Brussels. He/she has to make a statement on the proposal from 24th of April on, the sooner, the better. On the 6th of May, we must obtain at least 14 objections, otherwise this proposal will become the official proposal.

For background, here are the objections of the european seed-soverignty movement to this stupid new law: http://saatgutpolitik.arche-noah.at/files/openletter_lettreouverte_offenerbrief.pdf

Read More: realseeds.co.uk