The reform of EU seed legislation has made waves across Europe. Although in recent months, the debate over seed laws has abated somewhat, renewed discussion of the proposals in the European Parliament has served to rekindle interest in the controversial subject in past weeks.

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The EU Commission is seeking to streamline its seed regulations, currently a series of laws which legislators in DG Sanco – the Commission's consumer affairs bureau – hope to replace with one single regulatory package. In May, discussion of the proposals in the European Commission led small companies, seed banks, heritage growers and those in the organic sector to rally in opposition to measures they maintain were drafted under severe lobbying pressure and in the interests of large agribusinesses, at the expense of smaller growers and those invested in maintaining agricultural biodiversity.

The proposals as they stood were also contested by the two EU directorates closest to the issue (DG AGRI – agricultural affairs, and DG ENVI – environmental affairs). In the event, small farmers and heritage breeders were exempted from the new blanket regulation, and legislators promised a 'lighter touch' for organic producers. The reforms were due to be discussed in the Parliament Agriculture Committee meeting on Monday (30th September) ahead of voting in the wider parliament later this year.

Although industry groups including the NFU believe new, broadly applicable regulation is needed in light of "The ever increasing emphasis and public demand for traceability and product authenticity" and that the new laws would strengthen consumer protection, environmentalists and small farm advocates have rejected these claims.

The European Greens, leading the campaign against DG Sanco's proposals, believe the new regulations are "being shaped by a handful of corporations, privileging uniformity, monocultures and privatisation without any basis in science or respect of natural cycles." The party maintains that only a respect for seed diversity in new legislation will ensure long term food security.

Commenting on the political landscape ahead of debating on the controversial reforms in May, Ben Raskin, Head of Horticulture for the Soil Association, said, "The [Commission] proposed regulation goes even further than the current European seed law which favours the production of uniform varieties (protected by plant breeder's rights) and discriminates against less homogenous open pollinated varieties and populations. This has already resulted in a non-reversible loss of agro-biodiversity."

Late last month, at the invitation of the EU Greens, prominent philosopher and agriculturalist Vandana Shiva visited the parliament to discuss the food sovereignty implications of EU seed law reform. She said the package advocated by DG Sanco would drive Europe further down the route of homogenisation and corporate control. Speaking during her visit, Professor Shiva said, "Over the last few years, cropping systems have been reduced to corn and soya and cotton and canola, when we have cultivated and eaten thousands of crop varieties and species."

According to Vandana Shiva, 90 percent of the food produced worldwide today comes from 120 different species, and within the more ubiquitous of these species, genetic variety has suffered as a result of the current agricultural paradigm, wherein higher yield and greater uniformity are valued above nutritional or cultural value.

In her latest book, the Law of the Seed, Professor Shiva said the Commission's proposed reform "continues to put the global seed industry and corporations above the interests and rights of farmers and breeders." She is seeking to establish a paradigm that "[puts] at its centre farmers' and citizens' freedom to use seeds in a way that respects biodiversity, farmers' rights and democratic systems" and has been an influential opponent of patenting laws and proprietary technologies which limit growers' access to seeds.

Speaking in the European Parliament on 18th September, Shiva said 72 percent of food provided around the world comes from small farms - most of them in developing countries – and therefore an attack on small farms would have a significant impact on agricultural biodiversity. The Greens believe that, as the EU accounts for at least 60 percent of the global seed export market, restrictive production and marketing laws, which favour a handful of large seed houses, would have massive repercussions around the globe.

Respected agriculturalist Shiva recommended a range of methods to achieve sustainable food production, including making production systems more locally responsive all over the world, almost an antithesis of the new EU-wide seed laws, which are being reformed partly in a bid to end the local interpretation of seed laws in each of the 28 member states. She also advocates processes such as Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) and agroecology (applying the latest crop science alongside social sciences to crop production to build socially just, environmentally benign 'agroecosystems').

After the proposed reforms have been discussed in the full parliament, they will pass on to Member state ministers in the European Council. The European Green Party last week announced it will launch a 'referendum on Seed and Food Freedom' on Wednesday 2nd October to provide EU citizens with a tool to voice their opinion on the food system in which they want to play a part, and share thoughts on the EU's future seed law.