It was great to see so many people at Brighton’s Seedy Sunday event at the weekend – it’s the UK's biggest and longest-running community seed swap event and apparently 3000 people came along and about 10,000 packs of seed crossed the seed swap table. Given its popularity  it’s understandable that so many of the people I spoke to expressed  such deep levels of concerns about a proposed new EU law that threatens swapping seed, growing heritage varieties and even saving your own seed from year to year.

I raised this with the Environment, Food and Farming Minister several months ago, asking him to oppose the obligatory registration of seed varieties and to support voluntary rather than compulsory registration and testing for all seeds that are not GM, patented or hybrid. Since then the EU’s proposals have been amended – but not for the better. In fact they now represent an even greater threat to biodiversity, consumer choice and sustainable agriculture.

In particular the plans further concentrate the EU’s seed market into the hands of a few large companies, whilst exemptions from the regulations for small scale seed swaps wouldn’t protect Brighton’s Seedy Sunday. That’s why I’ve written again to DEFRA to stand up for gardeners and farmers that want to exchange seeds and grow heritage varieties. If you want to take action too, there are lots of great ideas for how to get involved here.