EU Plant Passport Scheme

[el48tel]

Seems as though I made the decision to sell off my collection at the right time. It could be a complicated procedure in future. If I understand all this, selling or even donating a collection as part of a deceased person's estate could lead to paperwork and taxation, something the executor would not want to be involved in. If that is the case it would simply be skip wagon time.

Since I've just recently made my will, and stated my wishes as to where my small (but perfectly formed) collection should go, I'm now wondering if I've bequeathed a poison chalice to people who have recently become friends.

[MalcolmP2]

For small personal stuff, are we in danger of getting in a bit of a tizz ?

De minimis non curat lex.
Also Lord Denning and others, "a [reasonable] man on a Clapham omnibus"

[Stuart]

With no plant passport for direct sales, doesn't this defeat the object of the whole thing - ie. traceability. If the various professional bodies - HTA etc - do effective lobbying, might all this come to an end on Dec 31st. If it wasn't for the Forum I would be blissfully unaware of any of this.
Stuart

[KarlR]

What I don't understand in all of this is why private sellers are not exempt. Sure, charge the huge nurseries sending plants all over Europe with providing passports, but some random person selling a few plants on e-bay? Sounds like an extremely customer unfriendly practice. Also very unfriendly to small start-ups.

As far as I understand it not everyone can issue passports either, and according to the Danish Environment and Food Ministry it seems that anyone selling their own produced plants must create their own logo or format for the passport which must then be approved by the authorities.

Reading what the Danish write about this it seems the legislation is very much geared towards the big professional companies, but for some reason it seems that small scale amateurs and private persons selling a bit online have been lumped in with these big companies. Hopefully this will be revised and changed to a more sensible legislation.

By the way, the Danish authorities write that only some seeds will require a passport - hopefully succulent seeds will be exempt.

[Tony R]

By the way, the Danish authorities write that only some seeds will require a passport - hopefully succulent seeds will be exempt.

Yes, Karl, that is what we deduced from the list referred to much earlier in the post, item 5 covers seeds:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... oducts.pdf

[el48tel]

With no plant passport for direct sales, doesn't this defeat the object of the whole thing - ie. traceability. If the various professional bodies - HTA etc - do effective lobbying, might all this come to an end on Dec 31st. If it wasn't for the Forum I would be blissfully unaware of any of this.
Stuart

THAT is exactly my point in another thread .... traceability. Seen another few so called passports with the plants labelled as "Cactaceae" - that's really helpful

[Peter]

Malcolm mentions small personal stuff, but there are many of us who have built up collections of valuable plants over the years and seling overseas is one way to dispose of them when the time comes. I have sent a substantial money's worth of plants to France, Belgium and other countries over the past few months. Does that make me a commercial grower? Again, I don't fully understand the ins and outs of this forthcoming legislation, but I suppose it could.

Food for thought for us old fogies with thousands of nice plants.

[MalcolmP2]

Ah yes, good point by Peter, ie. how big is small ? !
I should have expanded on my theme earlier

I was meaning small in the manner of not _continuously_ producing seeds or plants for sale to supplement a pension or make a business !
Even in the case of supplementing a pension, or even offsetting hobby expenses, I come back to Lord Denning* et al., ie. is it worth the time of the law to come after one for a few little sales in pursuit of a hobby ? I think not, and that bit of Latin I quoted is a well established principle.

Also, in this age when the likes of The Mail (insert rag of hate/choice) love a persecution story, the agencies are very wary of doing so.
They are so overworked they have bigger fish to fry.
But if we want to make a hobby out of fine filleting the regs then why not

* I remember LordD and his Clapham omnibus from the '60s, , , I have been googling for the ref and find that he has fallen out of favour, it is no longer politically correct to quote him poor old fella LOL!

[ragamala]

With no plant passport for direct sales, doesn't this defeat the object of the whole thing - ie. traceability. If the various professional bodies - HTA etc - do effective lobbying, might all this come to an end on Dec 31st. If it wasn't for the Forum I would be blissfully unaware of any of this.
Stuart

Not really, I think Stuart, re point. The point is to track plant migration from wholesaler to retailer, the journey being significant in distances potentially involved in transmitting plant diseases across Europe and countries. The assumption reasonably being that eg local garden centre sales only involve movements of limited distance.

Do we really want to reduce our protection from plant disease by revoking EU rules at the end of this year?

[ragamala]

Malcolm mentions small personal stuff, but there are many of us who have built up collections of valuable plants over the years and seling overseas is one way to dispose of them when the time comes. I have sent a substantial money's worth of plants to France, Belgium and other countries over the past few months. Does that make me a commercial grower? Again, I don't fully understand the ins and outs of this forthcoming legislation, but I suppose it could.

Food for thought for us old fogies with thousands of nice plants.

Valuable? Is this how you value your collection - on financial terms? You want to maximise your financial return? Yep I'd go with that bring you under the scope.