Today, Herbert Dorfmann’s (EPP, IT) draft report on plant reproductive material (PRM) was adopted during the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development’s meeting with 25 votes in favour, 2 against and 17 abstentions.
The draft report puts at risks the EU market concerning high quality seeds, through an extension of the scope of derogations and voluntary sustainability testing.
On dynamic conservation, the maximum quantities of plant varieties per person and per year are in fact unlimited, this in turn creates incentives to develop a parallel uncontrolled seed market which Copa and Cogeca cannot support.
Furthermore, the draft report’s suggestion of voluntary testing for fruit and vegetables raises alarms within the agricultural community. With the effects of climate change increasingly felt by European farmers, there’s a growing demand for sustainability assessments of agricultural products. However, the lack of infrastructure and protocols for such assessments, particularly for fruit and vegetable breeders, necessitates a longer transition period. Copa and Cogeca emphasise the need for testing sustainability criteria, especially for conventional NGT 1 plants under the PRM legislation.
Copa and Cogeca call on the MEPs to return to a closer version of the initial Commission’s proposal. Copa and Cogeca support the current legislation on PRM and its pillars; Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS) and the Value for Cultivation and Use (VCU), official controls and registrations in national variety lists and the Union catalogue. These regulations provide EU farmers with assurance about the quality of plant varieties, thereby reducing the risk of crop failure.
The European Commission’s recent proposals for a regulation on New Genomic Technique (NGT) plants, coupled with revisions to the PRM’s marketing directives from 5th July 2023, are considered by Copa and Cogeca as a positive step forward. These proposals, presented after more than a decade of postponements, are seen as a promising starting point for delivering viable solutions, which should be considered in the inter-institutional upcoming negotiations.
Fonte: Copa Cogeca
