Estonian partners participate in meeting on seed legislation in Latvia, 30.05.2019

Annika Michelson participated in the discussion on seed legislation in Latvia 30th May 2019. The meeting was arrange by the Growing Seed Saver project at the Latvian Open Air Museum in Riga. The meeting gave a lot of new information on how differently authorities in different countries have intepreted the same regulations and directives. The Latvian project partners had arranged a nice small exhibition of different kinds of seeds at the meeting. We got information about how conservation varieties has been recogniced in Latvia. If we compare Estonia and Latvia then the Latvian approach is much more reserarch based. If was stunning to get to know that out of several tens of beans and peas only one each was chosen for conservation. Ther rest did not pass the criterias set by the researchers, even if they all represented heritage varieties of Latvia.  There is a tendency that researchers only choose plants with outstanding features instead of taking them all as conservation varieties. In most countries there are not found that much peas and beans left as is still found in Latvia. There seem to be a lack of understanding among researchers that heritage plant genetic materials are valuable for Latvians, even if they not all are of value for the plant breeders and researchers. The workshop gave a lot of valuable information that will help us in Estonia to arrange a similar workshop.