Cultivated Seeds: Law on the Reconquest of Biodiversity

[Grelinette]

Hello everybody

Through a local network of gardeners, I have just received this information about a recent law article that opens, protects and promotes the legal exchange of seeds by other actors than multinationals.
It is only a small article of law but it seems to open a big important door towards the biodiversity.

Some of you will surely be interested in this legislative advance.

Our associations have fought for months to get this result.

"Green Intelligence", "Sol" (Solidarity) "Thousand Old Varieties" and "Comunidée" have taken their share of responsibility in the action brought to a successful conclusion, thanks to the perseverance and talent of Blanche MAGARINOS-REY, our lawyer specialist who wrote the press release below.

We thank all the associations and personalities who contributed to this victory for the release of traditional seeds from the public domain.

This first step is an encouragement for the work that remains to be done concerning the rehabilitation and preservation of the genetic heritage, a veritable masterpiece in danger, essential link of life on this planet.

Thank you for continuing to help us.

Kind regards.

Philippe Desbrosses.

Communicated :

The "Biodiversity" Law is a victory for the biodiversity of cultivated seeds
Varieties in the public domain finally freed from the shackles of the "official catalog"

On Wednesday, July 20, the National Assembly definitively voted the law "for the reconquest of biodiversity", after two years of legislative procedure and numerous changes in the content of legislative provisions.

In any case, the law gives a real breath of oxygen to the cultivated biodiversity, through an article 4 quater which has itself experienced many vicissitudes, and which finally became the article 11 of the law :

Article 11:
The rural code and sea fishing is thus modified:

1 ° Article L. 661-8 is completed by a paragraph as follows:

"The sale, supply or transfer, carried out free of charge or, if it is carried out by an association governed by the law of January 1, 1901 relating to the association contract, for payment of seeds or reproductive material of plants of cultivated species of varieties belonging to the public domain to non-professional end-users not aiming at commercial exploitation of the variety is not subject to the provisions of this article, with the exception of the sanitary rules relating to the selection and the production."

This means that all of the 1901 Law associations will now be able to donate, exchange and sell seeds of varieties in the public domain *, whether or not they are listed in the "official catalog", to amateur gardeners. Only the health requirements of the regulations on the seed trade will remain applicable.

Many associations will be able to benefit from these provisions and small businesses which could not benefit from this exemption will have to create associations to distribute varieties "out of catalog".
Gardeners will now have access to a very wide range of seeds, tastes, shapes and colors much more diverse than before. It is hoped that this biodiversity will spread very quickly in all vegetable gardens in France and elsewhere.

For the record, these new provisions come in a context of rampant erosion of agricultural biodiversity. In just one century, 90% of the varieties traditionally used by peasants worldwide have already disappeared from our fields and plates, according to the FAO.


For this remarkable step forward in our law, we must pay tribute to the courage and commitment of Ms. Geneviève Gaillard, Mrs. Barbara Pompili, Ms. Delphine Batho, Ms. Laurence Abeille, Mr. Jérôme Bignon, Ms. Evelyne Didier, Ms. Marie-Christine Blandin , Mr. Joel Labbe, Mr. Francois Grosdidier, without the political support of which nothing would have been possible in the National Assembly and the Senate.

Of course, work remains to be done, at European level this time, so that farmers can also have access to a great diversity of genetic resources - and we are working hard on this - but, with the French "biodiversity" law, this he is a first breach which has just opened up in the legislation on the trade in seeds, which should definitely be welcomed.

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* Varieties "belonging to the public domain" are all varieties of cultivated species that are not protected by an intellectual property regime (plant variety certificate or patent).

[izentrop]

What was voted definitively excludes the sale by the associations

23. Therefore, in 1 ° of the article 11, the words "or, if it is realized by an association governed by the law of 1er January 1901 relative to the contracts of association, for a consideration" are contrary to the Constitution.

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTe ... 0032982005

[Grelinette]

What was voted definitively excludes the sale by the associations

23. Therefore, in 1 ° of the article 11, the words "or, if it is realized by an association governed by the law of 1er January 1901 relative to the contracts of association, for a consideration" are contrary to the Constitution.

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTe ... 0032982005

Rhâlala, definitely money is the sinews of the war and it will not be easy to get out of the hands of large groups in all sectors.

That said, even if the sale of seeds by associations is prohibited, they can still give them away, exchange them or organize "grainotèques".
I wonder what are the consequences for the Kokopelli association which lives from the sale of seeds "not formatted industrially, nor genetically modified", and had already managed to hold out against the giants of the food industry who wanted the annihilate.

[Janic]

I wonder what are the consequences for the Kokopelli association which lives from the sale of seeds "not formatted industrially, nor genetically modified", and had already managed to hold out against the giants of the food industry who wanted the annihilate.

perhaps this is the purpose of this law! but moreover the movement is growing with the public gardener and farmers growing larger. So is it a (hypocritical?) Way to save goat and cabbage as it did for BIO!

[chatelot16]

this law is not enough but we must not spit in the soup, it is a little advance in the right direction ... but we must continue the fight

to limit natural seed to non-profit making is to prohibit making money with what is natural! and force professionals to work with industrial seed!

we must continue the fight ... biodiversity is not only wild animals, it is also the industrial culture that feeds men ... and it is not with the industrial seed too little diversified that get there

[izentrop]

It was before the law of August 4.

Why does Biocoop Network not denounce the new 11 article of the July 2016 biodiversity law?

the Biocoop Network can surely understand that any law legalizing unregistered public garden vegetable varieties, for the sole benefit of 1901 law associations, is, de facto, an almost mandatory imposition of the hybridization of professional gardening, market gardening bio. Why then, then, does Biocoop Network not itself attack the true promoters of plant hybridization - which it evokes at the end of its response to Kokopelli - by denouncing the new article 11 Biodiversity law of July 2016 - a liberticidal article in various aspects - which does not allow the market gardening bios to have access to varieties of the Public Domain not registered in the European Catalog?

https://blog.kokopelli-semences.fr/2016 ... llet-2016/

Kokpelli was already in the wrong ... maybe way around by monetizing otherwise ??

[Christophe]

The sale can be regulated and prohibited in plutocracy but not the gift or the barter ... except if this plutocracy becomes a real dictatorship in the human sense!

Because we are already doing well economic dictatorship of growth (or dictatorship of economic growth?) ... and it is very sad!

So let's save biodiversity through exchange and giving!