The Brazilian native seed sector debates technological innovations and quality control procedures for ecosystem restoration — INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR SEED-BASED RESTORATION

By Danilo Urzedo, CSIRO

The XXI Brazilian Seed Congress, the largest national event of the seed sector in Brazil, took place between 12 and 15 September 2022 in Paraná state. More than one thousand participants joined the conference, organized by the Brazilian Association of Seed Technology (ABRATES). The event approached a wide range of cutting-edge seed practices, techniques, and standards through several symposia, training courses, and working groups.

Poster presentation session during the Brazilian Seed Congress (Photo: ABRATES)

As part of this national conference, the 11th edition of the Brazilian Symposium on Forest Seed Technology facilitated discussions on how applied seed science and technologies can expand ecosystem restoration throughout Brazil. The event debated diverse regional seed supply arrangements and the importance of enhancing regulations and testing protocols. “While there is an increasing seed demand for ecosystem restoration, it is necessary to organize the native seed sector, seeking to solve technical and legal bottlenecks to meet this demand," explains Juliana Freire, researcher at EMBRAPA and coordinator of Brazil's Forest Seed Committee. The symposium demonstrated a new phase of the Brazilian native seed sector, where advanced technologies work together with seed partitioners’ experiences to enable traceability and accurate quality testing. These socio-technical innovations have been developed, adopted, and adapted by different seed organizations to improve transparency and increase seed availability at local and regional scales.

Speakers debate how social and technological innovations influence native seed supply chains during the Brazilian Symposium on Forest Seed Technology

Since its creation, this symposium has been a important space for formulating and transforming domestic seed regulations. The 2022 edition facilitated discussions to question the drastic gap between the current domestic infrastructure and the mandatory seed quality control required by the national seed regulatory system. “Native seed regulations and policies for restoration must be differentiated from the approaches adopted by the agricultural and forestry industry. Beyond production, native seed supply systems are deeply associated with complex social and environmental conditions,” says Professor Fatima Piña-Rodrigues, co-founder and member of Brazil's Forest Seed Committee. Aligned with government bodies, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, researchers and practitioners indicated ways to adapt legal approaches to emphasise specific requirements of native plant materials to implement high-quality restoration initiatives.

Professor Fatima Piña-Rodrigues presents a national assessment on native seed quality testing at the 11th Brazilian Symposium on Forest Seed Technology

The international session on systems native seed production and conservation presented experiences from Southeast Asia, Australia, and Hawaii delivered by Simone Pedrini, Riina Jalonen, Marian Chau, and Paul Gibson-Roy. These researchers highlighted the need to overcome critical seed quality control issues to enable resilient restoration actions across the world. According to Barbara Dantas, researcher at EMBRAPA and the panel moderator, these international cases reveal similar bottlenecks experienced in Brazil. “Learning from these international cases reveals that we are on the same boat while allowing us to build a supportive network,” Barbara says.