With this briefing, ACT Alliance EU intends to share insights on the forthcoming reform in 2021 of EU seed legislation with partners in the global South. The new EU Organic Regulation and the recent adoption of the European Green Deal are expected to have far reaching impacts on EU seed legislation. In 2019, the Council requested the European Commission to submit a study on the EU’s options to update existing seed legislation. In May 2020, the Commission adopted ambitious targets in the European Green Deal, the Farm to Fork and the EU Biodiversity Strategy. For example, the Farm to Fork Strategy aims at turning 25 percent of the farming land in the EU into organic. This means that in the future the EU Organic Regulation3 and its new special regime for ‘organic heterogeneous material’ will guide a quarter of the operations in the European domestic seed market. With an EU seed market currently valued at 8 billion euros, a new market worth about 2 billion euro is emerging that will offer a potential to introduce seed laws that are more respectful of farmers rights.

The Organic Regulation will also impact organic food importers who are required to comply with the same set of rules as those producing in the EU.4 Further information on the implications for organic food exporting countries in the global South is needed.

A study carried out by independent consultants for the Commission should include and cover these new developments in the options listed and considered under the EU seeds marketing reform. The study will be published and opened for public consultation in April 2021, followed by an impact assessment in December 2021, according to current expected timelines. ACT Alliance EU argues that to meet the objectives of building resilience of poor communities and safeguarding agrobiodiversity, the upcoming EU seed reform should lead to more policy space for local and diversified seed systems, in the EU as well as abroad in countries of the global South. Therefore, ACT EU considers it strategic to identify flexibilities in European seed laws and to advocate for (at least) the same degree of flexibility to be granted to third countries.