Policy Briefs

Policy brief: Systems-based Plant Breeding

In order to reach the goals set out for organic farming in the EU, the most important organic input – organic seed – must be made widely available. To create new varieties for organic farming in a sustainable way, the organic plant breeding sector must be further developed. New breeding models, such as the systems-based breeding, rethink the relationships around organic plant breeding and embed the sector into the wider sustainability context. In this new concept “system” is defined as the space that encompasses the civil society, policy, nature, agriculture and value chains as interrelated and mutually dependent components.

The systems-based breeding approach was developed as part of the work on innovative breeding strategies for organic agriculture (WP3). This brief is aiming to inform policy-makers and provide recommendations to policy-makers based on integrating the model in different policies and instruments.

Policy brief: Boosting organic seed production and use: An integrated analysis of policy impacts for three crop-country cases

In view of the plans in new EU Organic Regulation to phase out the use of non-organic seed by 2036 in organic farming, the effects of policy and financial interventions in the organic storage carrot seed sector in Germany, in organic durum wheat in Italy, and in perennial ryegrass seed in the UK were modelled.

This brief provides recommendations based on research results. The modelling exercise was carried out as part of the work on Socio-Economic Aspects of Organic Breeding and Seed Production (WP4).

Policy brief: A national roadmap towards 100% organic seed by 2036

Seed companies need reliable data on the actual demand for organic seed in the different EU countries and intermediate deadlines for derogations for the different crops in order to invest in time in scaling up organic seed production. For the competent authorities (advised by seed expert groups) this means setting clear targets and deadlines for derogations. LIVESEED recommends that seed expert groups jointly develop a national roadmap to achieve 100% organic seed use for the main crops. A flowchart was developed as a tool to help national expert groups decide on actions to include in their roadmap to reach eventually 100% organic seed use (defining the year of non-derogation) for a specific crop.

This brief is part of a series aiming to inform policy-makers on the key results of the LIVESEED project, and provide recommendations based on research results. The flowchart and the recommendations were developed as part of the work on Regulation & policy framework regarding production, use, and transparency of organic seed (WP1).