At the latest meeting of the Section for Seeds and Propagating Material for Agriculture and Horticulture within the EU Commission Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed, there was a scheduled review of the Ukraine's request for recognition of equivalence of the Ukrainian seed system to the European Union requirements, and introduction of our country to the list of non-EU states, who can export seeds to the EU member-states, with further export of seeds grown and produced in Ukraine.
Recently the European Commission published the results of this meeting, stating that: "The request of Ukraine is being treated; the internal adoption process is now ongoing and should be finalized during the Croatian Presidency" (that is by June 30, 2020).
According to Siuzana Grygorenko, Executive Director of Seed Association of Ukraine, such decision is a very positive sign, as earlier in the final overviews of such meetings of the seed section of the EU, the comments regarding our equivalence were more general, e.g. "the issue is being reviewed" or "an update was given", with no further, even small, details.
"I would like to remind that initially the request to recognize the Ukrainian seed certification system as a one complying with the EU requirements was filed back in 2011. Then, after in 2015 the European representatives conducted the audit of the system of certification and provided a report, during one year we were working on making all needed corrections highlighted by the report. And finally the EU adopted and published the positive assessment of our system. In the following years, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine backed by the European Seed Association Euroseeds sought information from the dedicated section of the EU Commission concerning the status of review of the Ukraine's dossier, which legislative movement had halted. Till now, the numerous inquiries sent by the representatives of the Minagropolicy, Euroseeds, and Seed Association of Ukraine to a number of authorized European institutions were answered by the EU officials in a pretty formal way, while the matter itself was often, even if in unofficial way, linked to the political context of other areas of the EU-Ukraine cooperation", S.Grygorenko recalled..
The head of the sector-specific association highlights that Ukraine has a potential to carry out production and supply to foreign markets, as it's represented by such stakeholders as Maisadour Semences Ukraine, KWS-Ukraine, Euralis Semences Ukraine, Syngenta, Agroindustrial Company Mais, LNZ Group, and others..
"Based on our calculations, once the EU market is open, for only one export earner - corn seeds - Ukraine can receive about 100 mln USD annually in monetary form. And in order to gain such profit, it would be necessary to export up to 1 million tons of seed material of this cereal crop, which is more profitable than the export of corn for grain", S.Grygorenko said.
This material was prepared by APK-Inform in the framework of information cooperation with Seed Association of Ukraine.
