Seed savers should not be compelled to register to ensure plant health in Europe!

09/27/2021, 12:05

Please see

www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/making-seed-savers-register-could-slash-the-saving-of-seeds


Neuer Petitionstext:

SomeThis of the seed savers in Europe have already given up their activity. They can‘t continue to make seeds or other plant reproductive material available in a legal way, and they do not want to do it illegally.However, the conservation of cultivated plant diversity in most European countries depends on such individuals. With its Plant Health Regulation, the EU intends to control the spread of plant pests by enabling Plant Health Offices to search everywhere for viruses, bacteria, fungi or insects, even in gardens and premises of seed savers who share rare plant propagation material with interested people via web shops. The EUpetition has putbeen inmoved force an elaborate control system a few years ago, parts of which are currently evaluated. Therefore, seed savers are ringing alarm bells.to

A control of hobby gardens in general is not intended. However, of all things, persons who are conserving in cultivated plant biodiversity and are using web shops to reach out to like-minded people, have to register. This is likely to cover the majority of seed savers in most EU countries. Registered persons and organisations have to fulfill obligations such as: Knowing the EU regulation, secure traceability, and allow eradication. They can also pay an authorized operator to do it for them. For some particularly susceptible host plants, among which tomato and bean, plant passports have to be issued for each web shop sale.www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/making-seed-savers-register-could-slash-the-saving-of-seeds

ThePlease seedsee saving community prevents rather than eradicates pests. They care for healthy soils without pesticide loads, mixed cultivation and suitable plant neighborhoods, crop rotation, an environment that strengthens naturally occurring predators and therefore also vitality and adaptability of the plants. With their broad genetic equipment, diversity varieties are able to react to stress. A good example is the German apple variety "Edelborsdorfer" which is since 600 years free of any damage from scab, the most important disease in European commercial apple cultivation. The fact that old varieties they lack modern “resistance genes”, is hardly a disadvantage, as monogenetic resistances tend to be broken by pests or diseases adapting to them. 

Diversity varieties often thrive well although a virus or other pest was proven. To eradicate these plants would be a wrong concept when aiming at better plant health, as does the EU Regulation.www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/making-seed-savers-register-could-slash-the-saving-of-seeds