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Interview with Manny Shemin

What are your main concerns regarding the enforcement of the new laws?

The main concern I have is how the non-availability of varieties will be handled, the whole question of equivalence: variety equivalence, quality equivalence and value equivalence.

The European law does not allow for substitution with treated seed. I have spoken with people who are close to the European law and they say that, after 2004, they may provide for a substitution for a short time to similar species but not to a specific variety. The American law should provide for something similar.

We should never allow substitution of the variety because that would lead to uncontrolled chaos and defeat the spirit and intent of the law. At the present time, the certifiers have no instructions on how to handle this issue. This should be addressed by USDA [the United States Department of Agriculture] so there is one uniform way to handle this issue.

 

 

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