ABSTRACT
The European community implemented a regulation in 1966 that made it obligatory to register varieties in an official variety list before their seed could be commercialized. Before being accepted in the variety list, varieties had to meet criteria of distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS). Cereal species also had to meet the specific criteria set for value for cultivation and use (VCU). These requirements resulted in the spread of just a few varieties that performed well in uniform growing conditions. Practices that had commonly been used in more traditional farming systems were replaced with those of adapting the production environment to varieties, and of encouraging the intensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as well as an increasingly disproportionate amount of mechanization and, in some cases, irrigation. This process further encouraged the use of an ever-decreasing range of crops and varieties (i.e. farmers were encouraged or required to cultivate only those few varieties or crops as required or demanded by the food industry and major retailers). In this way, the requirement for registration in the variety list can be considered part of a larger process to create uniformity and promote the industrialization of agriculture, which as we now know caused the massive erosion of plant genetic resources (PGR). In each member state of the European Union (EU), a dramatically lower number of uniform and stable, and commonly used modern varieties has replaced a diversity of local varieties.
