According to LIVESEED’s survey on organic seed use (LIVESEED booklet "The State of Organic Seed in Europe"),organic farming still relies on farm saved seed (FSS) as a means to obtain organic seed for the next sowing.
However, the rules on FSS are not always clear. May farmers reproduce their own seeds? For which crops? Do
they have to pay royalties on FSS?
Solution
Farm Saved Seed (FSS) is regulated by Council Regulation n. 2100/94 (art. 14 and 15) and Commission Regulation 1768/95 with regards to the definition of the "farmers’ exemption" (see Fig. 1). In practice, farmers are allowed to save and
re-sow protected varieties of only certain species, but then they have to pay the so-called "equitable remuneration" that could be on an individual basis or derived by a contract between farmers’ and rights holders’ organizations.
Description
Practical recommendations
When you are re-sowing your own seeds please be aware that:
• Conservation varieties, landraces, heritage varieties, heterogeneous materials are in public domain, so no royalties are due;
• Not all modern varieties that are listed in the EU common variety catalogue are protected by Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBR), please check out on the CPVO database;
• Farmers, like breeders, can use protected varieties for on farm breeding;
• If you are a small farm, according to art. 7 reg. 1768/95, you are exempted to pay the royalties (see Figure).
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In order to use the comment function, you must register with the third-party provider "Disqus".
When you activate this function, your browser establishes a direct connection with the servers of the third-party provider. We would like to point out that data is transmitted to the third-party provider after activation, and the latter may set cookies that can also be used for analysis and marketing purposes. For more information, please refer to our privacy policy.
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