Actually we do have odd laws. You can circumvent them, as some sellers do, but they exist nonetheless.
Real seeds is a British company that sells exclusively non hybrid heirloom seeds. Good stuff and loads of weird crosses. However, they're not allowed to sell them to the public because they're not on an approved list of varieties. s
So you pay a penny to join their seed club and essentially agree that you won't start a business selling crops.
> In the EU, there is actually a list of 'official' vegetable varieties. And a law governing seed sellers, which states that if a variety isn’t on the official list, then seed companies cannot ‘market’ the seed to anyone. In an immediate sense, this law only affects us, not you - because there are no laws at all governing the buying of seed or what vegetables anyone can grow. Selling unlisted seed? - that’s against the law. Buying unlisted seed? - that’s completely fine! So we should stress that for you it’s perfectly legal to buy any seed you like, plant it, grow it, and do whatever you want with it.
Do you know the history of the "allowed seeds" law? I assume greed is in there somewhere, but there's usually some other bizarre or novel justification for that sort of law.
Some of the justification I can see is environmental/economical. As per my sibling post - it's there to make sure that a rogue seller doesn't accidentally or intentionally cripple national food production by introducing a crop that is prone to disease and infects/crosses with everything.
However there is also "breeder's right" which is more debatable.
I'm not sure what actually happened (IANAL), the original proposal came under a lot of fire from retailers and gardeners: http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedlaw2.html
Note that there's no restriction on the buyer, you can buy whatever you like. But in order to sell seeds to the public you can only sell registered varieties.
I would guess this is to prevent crops which are disease prone or invasive from spreading. For agricultural crops the fee includes mandatory testing. You wouldn't want the country's cereal crop to get decimated because someone started selling dodgy seeds. Having read a bit of the legislation it also looks like it's been heavily lobbied by businesses.
It's not particularly hard to get stuff added to the list, but it's pretty expensive. An amateur heritage variety costs £100-175 to register. So someone like Fothergill's or Thomson and Morgan don't have any trouble, but a small retailer might struggle.
Real seeds is a British company that sells exclusively non hybrid heirloom seeds. Good stuff and loads of weird crosses. However, they're not allowed to sell them to the public because they're not on an approved list of varieties. s So you pay a penny to join their seed club and essentially agree that you won't start a business selling crops.
http://www.realseeds.co.uk/terms.html
> In the EU, there is actually a list of 'official' vegetable varieties. And a law governing seed sellers, which states that if a variety isn’t on the official list, then seed companies cannot ‘market’ the seed to anyone. In an immediate sense, this law only affects us, not you - because there are no laws at all governing the buying of seed or what vegetables anyone can grow. Selling unlisted seed? - that’s against the law. Buying unlisted seed? - that’s completely fine! So we should stress that for you it’s perfectly legal to buy any seed you like, plant it, grow it, and do whatever you want with it.