Confederation adopts new strategy
Interview with Peter Latus, Federal Office for Agriculture, responsible for varieties and seeds
What are the most important tasks of the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOA) regarding seeds?
Seeds and seedlings are a prerequisite for crop production. Regulating the registration of varieties and seed is our remit within the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Training and Research (RFLD).
In Switzerland, we have only limited plant breeding and seed production. However, the bilateral agreement with the EU guarantees to producers simple access to seeds and allows easy access to the EU market for the seeds of our breeders.
What are the requirements for seed?
Under Switzerland’s growing conditions, varieties must give a good and secure yield, guarantee efficient use of nutrients, be healthy, and meet the yield standards required of crop plants. A new variety must be better in the totality of its qualities than varieties currently grown. This applies to all registered varieties, whether they are from a multinational company or Peter Kunz’s cereal selection team (Getreidezüchtung), where they practice biodynamic selection.
The requirements for seed quality are also high: farmers should have no problems during cultivation. The seed should germinate properly, not contain weed seeds, or deliver seed-borne diseases. The FOA only regulates the seeds for commercial crop plants.
What legal protection is available to the breeder?
Breeders may obtain protection for their varieties for 25 years, and grant licenses during this period. Variety protection also includes the privilege of the breeder: a protected variety can be used by breeders for breeding.
Unlike in Germany, Swiss farmers do not pay a license when breeders produce their own seeds.
The world’s main commercial plant breeding companies concentrate on the selection of the 5-7 most important species in the world, such as cotton, maize, soybeans and rice. The huge acreage in the world planted to these crops ensures the major seed producers a high revenue through licenses and therefore high profits.
What is the policy direction of the Federal Strategy for seeds and seed selection?
Our strategy on seeds and varieties must fit into the overall goals of agricultural policy. That is to say, to ensure sustainable, resource-efficient and economically viable production of healthy food, over the long term. That is why we need continually to progress in the field of selection in order to achieve the ambitious goal of ecological intensification.
We are working on a plant breeding strategy which inter alia derives from Maya Graf’s postulates, in essence:
1. Of 60 plant species constantly available, three to six must be robust native varieties.
2. They must be produced by the farmers themselves.
3. Swiss private breeders should be included as far as possible.
4. The varieties will be selected according to ecological criteria.
The strategy should be ready in 2015. The working group formed for this purpose includes biodynamic breeder Peter Kunz and Monika Messmer, from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL).
Today, in its Agroscope Centre the Federal Government selects varieties of 20 different species, at an annual cost of about 4 million CHF. The additional cost for the selection of 60 species would be approximately 10 million CHF (without production or marketing).
For organic farming, the reproducibility of seeds is a major concern. How important is this for the FOA?
For the FOA, this is not a direct goal. As already discussed, the objectives of the Confederation are to provide agriculture with high quality seed of appropriate varieties from appropriate species in order to lay the foundations for sustainable agriculture. Whether the varieties are hybrids or reproducible, for FOA that’s a secondary issue.
One last personal question. From your perspective, what are the major challenges facing Switzerland in regard to seeds and seed selection?
Through its strong animal husbandry, Swiss agriculture creates high added value. Two-thirds of agricultural land is used for livestock production, but my concern is with the high level of soybean imports this entails. In the future I think we should be moving towards more production for direct human consumption, and less via the indirect route of animal production. To this end, we need as many as possible modern species that are currently neglected or varieties that we have stopped growing.
