This is a CTP of initiative: Red de Semillas (Spain)
This critical turning point consists of the reactions of the organization to the new European Union directive related to conservation varieties. In 1998, the European Union adopted a new directive (98/95/CE) opening legal framework to the registration of local varieties in order to produce and trade seeds coming from local varieties. "For those networks, organizations that try to promote local varieties, it was very important to have a legal framework to work with." This was the first time in the European law when local varieties were recognised as a different thing from the commercial varieties. "This was the first time when we had a concrete legal framework. The directive helped the organization start thinking how we could use this law to legalize the producing and selling of seeds of local varieties." Seeds of local varieties have to be registered in a national catalogue in order to make them tradeable. Referring to this new EU directive the Spanish Minister of Agriculture was approached and requested by the organization to open the catalogue to register local varieties.
The co-creator of this CTP was the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture. RdS attempted to persuade the Ministry to adopt the directive in a more serious and effective way. Ministry of Agriculture was requested by RdS to register 15 local varieties in the proposed catalogue. "You can trade with the seeds of local varieties if they are registered in a national catalogue so we started to negotiate with the Ministry of Agriculture in order to open this catalogue for local varieties. We referred to this directive. The Ministry were surprised because we were completely unknown as an organization at that time." In 1999 there was no official discussion about local varieties in Spain. On the other hand the national legislation entered into force in 1971 under the Franco regime related to the green revolution so local varieties were not recognised as different as the industrial ones. Although from all of the proposed 15 varieties only three or four were registered in the end as conservation varieties. Even though the EU adopted the directive, in Spain the directive itself was not able to generate visible results. "It was (and it is) not easy to work with local varieties even with this new directive."
Red de Semillas attempt to connect to the different stakeholders also to inform them about the work of the organization. They have been organizing seminars to politicians, local seed networks, the ecologist and food sovereignty movement and Farmers’ Union for several years in Madrid. The members of the organization considered these seminars as turning points for the future. "This year a quite important responsible of the minister in terms of plant genetic resources participated and that was the first time when I saw that things might change in the future." However the politicians often show negative attitude towards the initiatives represented by the organization and do not consider the representatives of these networks equal partners in the discussion. Moreover politicians have doubts regarding the quality of local seeds and they are often rejective against the local varieties. "During these years the politicians say that we are not representatives, the seeds that we are working with are not good for what they call the productive agriculture. We talk about real agriculture, but the politicians say that they need other seeds, not local varieties."
Important arguments were never occurred, there were consensus in most of the cases. "We never had important arguments in the organization, everything is quite nice." The reason for this could be that they operate on a voluntary basis; their work is added value for the success. Without this volunteer activity the national level probably would not work. People are either paid by the local networks or volunteers of the local networks. It has to be noted, that nobody is paid by national level. All the work is done by the coordination of the representatives of each local seed network. The Spanish national coalition is consists of 20-25 local networks. Some of them receive funding from Europe, the Spanish or regional Governments or private foundations, but all in all the national level is volunteering. For example Maria Carrascosa, the president of Red de Semillas is a member of the coordination of the national network and also the member of the network of Andalusia. Red de Semillas does not receive a stable financial support from the Spanish Government.
This CTP was also understood as a turning point at the time when it happened as that was the first time when local seed issues appeared on the government political agenda until that point "nobody talked about local varieties." For the members of the organization it was clear that the interests of politicians regarding the issue of local varieties was very low. Spain is a so-called "garden" of Europe, it produces quite a lot of vegetables to the North European market. "We export a lot, that put us in a weaker position." Moreover there is a huge governmental support for genetically modified food production. In contrary Red de Semillas aims deeper changes and wants to move forward to the local markets and local productions and ban GMO. "The Spanish Government is not progressive enough in this field." – she added.
The CTP presented important lessons for the organisation. They comprehended that communication with the Government and lobby work is crucial. Sometimes political changes can have a positive influence on the progress, but the result of these political changes is unpredictable. The EU directives became more restrictive after transformation into Spanish law. In other countries, for instance Denmark the directives has been transformed and interpreted in a more open way.
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