Asked by: Mike Gapes (The Independent Group for Change - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to protect a diversity of older and heritage seed varieties.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Defra takes the lead for the UK's membership to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Convention on Biological Diversity. These require contracting parties to conserve the genetic diversity of agricultural varieties, including heritage varieties. Defra sponsors three genetic resource collections which maintain heritage varieties: the National Fruit Collection, the John Innes Pea Collection, and the vegetable collection at Warwick University. Defra is planning to follow up previous research assessing, conserving and encouraging the further cultivation of locally adapted fruit and vegetable varieties (landraces).
Defra took a leading role in developing simpler EU registration requirements, introduced in 2009, for heritage varieties of agricultural and vegetable species. These allow marketing on the basis of a simplified, low cost description, with proportionate controls to assure seed quality. Defra is now seeking further simplification in the proposed new Plant Reproductive Material legislation currently under discussion at European level.