BRUSSELS, 17 MARCH 2026 – As Trilogue negotiations on the Plant Reproductive Material (PRM) Regulation intensify, the European Consortium for Organic Plant Breeding (ECO-PB), Biodynamic Federation Demeter International, and IFOAM Organics Europe have written to EU Ministers of Agriculture calling for a final text that does not place unnecessary restrictions on conservation and local varieties.

“The restrictive Council’s position on conservation and local varieties would have serious consequences on the many organic farmers, breeders and seed companies that currently rely on them” said Eric Gall, Deputy Director of IFOAM Organics Europe. “In particular, restricting the production of these cultivars to their region of origin, and limiting newly bred varieties to only fruits and vegetables would significantly impact the activities of networks, breeders and seed companies that are developing and selling them”, he continued.

The organisations listed several concrete examples to illustrate the consequences of these restrictions, and the need for an intermediate category between heterogeneous Organic Heterogeneous Material (OHM) and uniform DUS varieties. In Italy, Rete Semi Rurali, together with an organic farmer in Veneto, attempted to notify a wheat OHM, which was rejected by competent authorities on the grounds of insufficient heterogeneity — precisely the kind of situation an intermediate category would resolve. In Denmark, Landsorten distributes landraces of arable crops which would fall under the local variety category and whose characteristics are of particular interest to organic farmers, because of their resistance to diseases and strong weed competitiveness.