Marketing Farmers’ Varieties in Europe: Encouraging Pathways with Missing Links for the Recognition and Support of Farmer Seed Systems
1
Kybele Consultancy, 10, av. des Constellations, 1200 Brussels, Belgium
2
Rete Semi Rurali, 25 Via Di Casignagno, 50018 Scandicci, Italy
3
Pro Specie Rara, 6, Unter Brüglingen, 4052 Basel, Switzerland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Niels P. Louwaars and Bram de Jonge
Agronomy 2021, 11(11), 2159; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11112159
Received: 15 September 2021
/
Revised: 22 October 2021
/
Accepted: 25 October 2021
/
Published: 27 October 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of Policies in Plant Breeding—Rights and Obligations)
Farmer seed systems come in many shades: Conserving, producing, and using diverse plant material for different motives and purposes, whether the conservation or selection of locally adapted plant varieties and populations, or the safeguard of social bonds to secure economic stability and integration into rural communities. In Europe, strict seed marketing rules, by viewing any exchange of seeds as commercial exploitation, have first outlawed these farmer seed systems and the varieties conserved and developed in these systems, before carving out limited space for them as derogations to the main regime that remains based on mandatory variety registration and certified seed production. Examining these spaces in the legislation of the European Union (‘EU’) and Switzerland, along with their practical implications on the ground, the article shows the conceptual shortcomings of the EU legislation to fully address all the characteristics of farmer seed systems, especially to recognize farmers’ innovation. It exposes the need to carefully define, assess and adjust the underlying objectives of the future EU legislative effort to register farmers’ varieties or allow for their exchange, to fully represent and address the complex socio-economic values and diversity of farmer seed systems. The success of these endeavors will lie in the truthful representation, but also the engagement of farmers and social actors that not only conserve, but also dynamically manage agrobiodiversity.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
agrobiodiversity conservation; sustainable use; seed systems; farmer innovation; seed marketing laws
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Batur, F.; Bocci, R.; Bartha, B. Marketing Farmers’ Varieties in Europe: Encouraging Pathways with Missing Links for the Recognition and Support of Farmer Seed Systems. Agronomy 2021, 11, 2159. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11112159
AMA Style
Batur F, Bocci R, Bartha B. Marketing Farmers’ Varieties in Europe: Encouraging Pathways with Missing Links for the Recognition and Support of Farmer Seed Systems. Agronomy. 2021; 11(11):2159. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11112159
Chicago/Turabian StyleBatur, Fulya, Riccardo Bocci, and Béla Bartha. 2021. "Marketing Farmers’ Varieties in Europe: Encouraging Pathways with Missing Links for the Recognition and Support of Farmer Seed Systems" Agronomy 11, no. 11: 2159. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11112159
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
