Save seed biodiversity

Elegran I guess the democratic route is via our MEPs. Bit of a pain that they are multiple these days. But the good news is that on the wonderful site:
www.writetothem.com

You can email all your MEPs simultaneously with one email.

There's a Twitter campaign about this ( @AcryliCloche ) and quite a few people/organisations in the horticulture industry are on board.

Can anyone explain to me why this is being proposed. I know it's probably about money for seed merchants, but is the EU law-making body really so stupid that they haven't come up with some scientific 'reasons' for doing it?

I suppose I'd better go and investigate.

Right now, my feeling is that if this becomes law then the moral thing to do will be to break the law. I wonder if what my investigations uncover will convince me otherwise.

There is an interesting fact on the webpage about a possible conflict of interest.

Just had a look at the aims of EU rules about food plant propagation. Looks reasonable to me. It seems to be about quality standards and the identifiability of species and sub species.

Going to search specifically about seeds now.

Another page by those who oppose the new proposals. It seems the fear is that the EU directive, if adopted, will restrict seed diversity.

Here is a link to the actual EU draft. No, I haven't waded through all 98 pages of it, but the first couple of pages do not raise any alarms bells with me.

Aims such as traceability of plant material seem like a good idea. Environmental protection where possible seems like a good idea. And so on.

And as far as I can envisage, my digging up a plant in my garden, dividing it and handing some to a pal for her garden won't be a problem, unless we were talking about notifiable invasive weeds such as Japanese knotweed. I used to collect my own lettuce seed from plants I'd deliberately allowed to run to seed and re-sow. Can't see that being a problem either.

I have signed the petition. An interesting blog on the subject here: bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2013/04/important-eu-seed-law-vote-6-may/

Thanks for the link, ga. This sentence jumped out at me: "One of the more troublesome aspects of this legislation are the ‘delegated acts’, effectively meaning many of the most important aspects of it will be decided later in committee, immune to democratic process."

Worth signing if that is true.

Bags I wondered about this too. Although most people like a good moan about the EU, I quite often find myself in agreement with some of the policies they've introduced.

I need to read the links and other stuff before forming an opinion.

I have, however, decided that Monsanto is a very dangerous organisation and becomes more so as each day passes.