The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has released a report on the latest recommendations and feedback relating to modernizing the seed regulations in Canada.
The process began in 2021 and covers several areas from import to export, seed conditioning, storage, testing and labeling to seed sales.
The National Manager for the Seed Section of the CFIA, Wendy Jahn says a number of the regulations, policies and programs interact with each other and rather than making changes one at a time it makes more sense to take a holistic approach to modernizing the system.
"It gives us the opportunity to step back, look at the regs and say what is working, and what isn't. Where does government need to be? Where doesn't it ? This is a great opportunity to make a number of changes all at once. "
Jahn notes the proposed recommendations came out of a co-development process with the grain industry involving farmers, the seed industry, public breeders, commodity groups and the grain industry and value chain all having an active role in the discussions.
"We wanted to make sure that the farmer customer and the downstream grain industry was part of this process. So we as part of co-development did a lot of stakeholder engagement. We made sure that we had balanced representation from the farmer/producer side, and grain were for those customers and we're balancing that with the seed industry. So that the seed industry who's most impacted directly because they're regulated parties was at the table, and then the consumer of seeds had a voice and they were also at the table. We wanted farmers and the grain industry to have a say."
The actual recommendations or ideas put forward come from the co-development process and consultations with stakeholders and industry working group members. As a result, the ideas are somewhat already vetted by the different parts of the seed value chain, before it was released to the broader stakeholder base.
Recommendations and other proposals that were supported - more than 60% of the 412 respondents supported the following statements.
- CFIA should take over the responsibility of determining variety certification eligibility for crops not subject to variety registration;
- Maintain the current system where sellers of common seed are not subject to additional requirements but must continue to meet the standards and requirements for common seed sold in Canada and be monitored by the CFIA;
- An advisory committee should not be involved in standard setting and the organization responsible for the standard should also be responsible for amending that standard For example, seed grade standards be set and amended by the CFIA, seed crop varietal purity standards be set and amended by the Canadian Seed Growers Association).
The advisory committee would be able to provide their advice that a particular standard should be reviewed, or provide advice on such things as prioritization of standards for review;
- SeedCert should be expanded to include collecting information currently contained in the pedigreed seed declaration, seed grading reports and quantity of seed certified;
- The seed certification system would be improved if the Canadian Seed Growers Association took on additional seed certification tasks currently being done by CFIA.
Recommendations and other proposals with mixed reactions - Respondents were split on the following statements. In each case, support for or against the statement was less than 60%. In one case respondents were split between support and "I don't know".
- Require all seed types to be tested by officially recognized, accredited or supervised labs only (or in the case of purity testing for crop kinds listed in Grade Tables I-VI, by an accredited grader)
- Only allow individuals to apply a common seed grade name if they are an accredited grader
- Continue to allow imported seed to either be pre-cleared or post-cleared by an authorized importer but require all other seed imported into Canada to be pre-cleared only
- Establishment of an advisory committee with balanced representation from across the value chain for the purpose of making recommendations and providing input and advice targeted towards the continuous improvement of Canada's seed system
- Require purity testing of small lots of seed for personal use to verify that seed purity standards are met prior to import
Recommendations and other proposals that were not supported - more than 60% of respondents did not support the following statement.
Registrants should be able to cancel varieties at their own request when there are no safety concerns with the variety
The CFIA received feedback from a total of 412 respondents which included Seed growers, Seed conditioners, seed companies, seed testing labs, Farmers/producers, farmer/producer organizations, general farm organizations, private and public plant breeders, non-government organizations, general public commodity associations (national and provincial), seed industry organizations, governments (federal, provincial, municipal), grain industry, food processors, academia.
Respondents were able to select the life cycle stage(s) they wanted to submit feedback on to the CFIA. Feedback received on each life cycle stage included:
382 respondents on variety registration, 356 respondents on sampling, testing and grading of seed, 341 respondents on sale, import and export of seed, 355 respondents on other proposals.
As part of the responses, the CFIA received feedback from 30 different organizations and associations on behalf of their membership.
To review the "What we heard report" in detail click here.
To hear Glenda-Lee's chat with the National Manager for the Seed Section of the CFIA, Wendy Jahn click on the link below.