In voting on Tuesday, the European Parlaiment's Agriculture committee rejected deeply controversial new seed regulations proposed by the EU Commission.

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The regulations, proposed by the Commission's consumer affairs bureau, DG Sanco, in May 2013 have come under fire from environmentalists, small farmers and seed banks, who claim they were drafted under severe lobbying pressure, in the interests of a few large agribusinesses, and risk compounding a decline in Europe's agricultural biodiversity.

The initial proposals failed to gain the support of the two EU directorates closest to the issue (DG AGRI – agricultural affairs, and DG ENVI – environmental affairs) over fears that their introduction would benefit large seed houses at the expense of smaller growers and other seed users.

Industry groups including the NFU have been more supportive of the draft measures, claiming they amount to a simplification of the current rules and would provide better "traceability and product authenticity." However, the European Greens, leading the campaign against DG Sanco's proposals in the European Parliament, maintain "The proposed regulation as it stands now is not favourable to genetic diversity, farmers' rights, and the interests of small and organic breeders."

Greens said the proposals would not just cover commercial seed use, but also have implications for the exchange of material between farmers and other 'professional operators' engaged in production or breeding.

Ag Committee rejects contested seed regulations

On Tuesday, The Parliament's Agriculture Committee rejected the proposals by 37 votes to two, citing concerns that the regulations would give the Commission excessively wide powers and leave member states no room to adapt the rules to their needs. MEPs also said that the proposal failed to meet the core objectives of simplifying the rules on seeds and breeding materials, promoting innovation, or dealing with plants viewed as generic resources.

Committee chair Paolo De Castro said, "We have sent a strong signal to the Commission today that the Agriculture Committee is not happy with the proposal as tabled, which prompted many concerns among MEPs. We are worried that merging 12 directives into one [directly applicable] regulation would offer member states no room for manoeuvre to adapt the proposed rules to their needs, while the high number of delegated acts would give the Commission excessively wide powers, especially over heterogeneous material and niche markets."

De Castro added that the Commission's proposal arrived too late to allow the Parliament enough time to tackle the far-reaching issue properly. The parliamentary Committee requested that the Commission withdraw its package and submit "a new, improved draft to the newly elected European Parliament."

The draft as it stands will go before the full Parliament in an upcoming plenary session; if the Parliament as a whole agrees to the agriculture Committee's recommendation to reject the draft regulations the President will ask Commission to withdraw the package.

Agricultural biodiversity falling

The European Seed Association claims the European seed sector is healthy, and it does not believe agricultural biodiversity is under threat – the group argues that new varieties of seed released every year must be different otherwise they would not be allowed under current EU law. However, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that over the course of the last century agricultural biodiversity fell by 75 percent worldwide. FAO suggests that not only does this figure disguise much higher levels of biodiversity loss for certain crop plants, but that the trend of homogenisation will continue, which could affect food producers' abilities to provide nutritional varieties, combat pests or deal with a changing climate.

Last month, The EU Greens presented a report in Parliament which showed that just five companies control around 95 percent of the vegetable seed market and a similarly high percentage of field crops; 86 percent of sugar beet seed is in the hands of four companies and five companies own 75 percent of maize seed.  

The findings of the report, which was produced by transparency organisation Corporate Observatory Europe and farming group CSM, jar with claims from the Commission and seed industry that the market is made up of around 7,000 mainly small and medium-sized seed businesses, working under the few larger companies. The industry groups claim that the sector is not, therefore, an oligarchy as has been claimed by environment and food security groups.   

Presenting the report in January, Green MEP Bart Staes said, "This is simply not true. The EU seed market is not healthy. It is not diversified."

On Tuesday, Greens agriculture spokesperson Martin Häusling said, "MEPs have voted to put the interests of farmers, long term food security and agro-biodiversity first. We hope today's vote will be confirmed when Parliament votes as a whole and that the Commission will be sent back to the drawing board."

He continued, "The uniformity and stability that the EU seed catalogue insists on are simply not natural characteristics of living things. Only seeds produced and sold for commercial use should be covered by any future legislation and this implies a narrower scope than what is now on the table. Most importantly, the legislation needs to truly accommodate high diversity seeds, like wind-pollinated and heterogeneous varieties and other locally-adapted seeds."  

Häusling, himself a former farm manager, added, "The global and European decline in genetic diversity in crops is totally at odds with long-term food security. We need a broad range of genetic diversity in our crop populations to enable us to adapt to the tougher environmental conditions that climate change is already bringing. EU seed policies must be based on the principle of diversity, not corporate uniformity and agro-chemical inputs."