Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
It is important that the crop ideotypes have been designed with participation of farmers to
include all practical experience as much as possible.
Variety testing
In many countries, especially in Europe, trading of seeds of varieties of arable crops is regu-
lated, which means that varieties should be registered on a national variety list, a European list,
or a list of another country. To become listed, the variety should be tested using the so-called
VCU protocol by a designated institution and shown to outperform existing varieties. Such a
conventional protocol is designed for testing varieties under conventional farming conditions
and could, therefore, impede the introduction of new varieties with specific low-input traits
that are not included in such a protocol. Another critical aspect is that some traits required for
organic farming systems are not expressed under conventional conditions, such as nutrient
efficient use of organic fertilisers.
Research organisations in some countries, for instance Austria, Germany, Switzerland and
the Netherlands, have recently been successful in inf luencing the protocol for testing cereal
varieties for the organic sector by including traits important for evaluation for organic farming
systems and criteria to select research sites (Bonthuis
et al
. 2004; SUSVAR 2004). Official
authorities have adopted such a protocol, and they are engaged in a process to allow VCU
testing for cereal varieties under organic conditions. As most of this VCU testing is being
financed as a research project that aims to compare the results with those gained under con-
ventional testing, the future of this testing is uncertain.
Seed production
Organic seed production is still largely a missing link in the organic food production chain.
Establishing organic seed production is also part of the process of developing new selection
criteria for new varieties, from plant breeding, via maintenance to release and propagation of
varieties. Although there have been many small-scale farmer initiatives to propagate varieties
organically, large-scale use and production of organic seed production is still in its infancy.
Some commercial companies have entered this market, but still not all existing or desired vari-
eties are or can be propagated organically for technical or economic reasons (Van der Zeijden
2003). The two questions associated with organic seed production are:
1 which varieties should be propagated; and
2 how should it be done?
The first question is largely answered in the former paragraph, the second one will be addressed
by discussing diversity, technical aspects and seed quality standards.
Diersity of arieties
In Europe and the USA, regulations no longer allow derogation for the use of conventionally
propagated seeds of crops for which a sufficient assortment of organically propagated varieties
and seed is already available. As this seed assortment usually consists of a minimum number
of varieties, it has immediate consequences for the diversity of varieties that can be used in the
organic sector and creates tension between short and long-term goals in the organic sector.
There is the need not only to close the organic food supply chain as soon as possible to increase
accountability for consumers, but also to have a diversity of varieties to meet the requirements
of different market sectors and farming conditions.
There are roughly two groups of farmers involved in this difficult area. The first is those
small-scale farmers who focus on the local market with the use of local and old varieties, the
