Quote:
Originally Posted by Fritz77
Hey Tomatovillians,
as I’m preparing next season’s growlist, I am wondering if I could have some problems by ordering seeds from the US or Canada. I did find some websites that ship to Europe but I also read the following on seedsavers.org:
“ Buyers will pay the actual costs of phytosanitary certificates, if required for delivery. The standard rate for an official phytosanitary certificate from the United States Department of Agriculture is $85.00 USD. Some shipments may require two certificates, if the shipment contains both seeds grown in the United States and seeds grown abroad. If this is the case, then the fees will be $170.00 USD.”
Now, considering that I have a small garden and that my nest order will likely be woth $ 20-25, I would like to avoid such a cost.
How do I know in advance if such certificates are required? Has anyone ever ordered or shipped seeds from/to Italy? Do you know if there are additional costs, besides the shipping ones described in each site, for a small international order (6-7 packs)?
Thank you
|
Back to the original post.
It's one thing if an individual wants to import,or have sent seeds to the US,but quite another when it comes to an organization such as SSE which has thousands of members.There are listed members,who list in the Yearbook what they have and they can be US members or now increasingly members from other countries.
Both listed and unlisted members can pay the price to listed members. So it makes sense to me why SSE posts what they do since they are a very public well known organization.
This all started many years ago when customs wanted to prevent importation of what they called noxious weed seeds to the US and yes, seeds sent to the US were confiscated but not that many.And then it was pointed out that not all states agreed with what they deemed to be noxious weeds,the example of tumbleweed was given over and over as was Devil's Claw.
Although I am no longer an SSE listed member, my choice,I give my latest and best varieties that I've sourced from many countries to my now 7 seed producers for seed production,they eventually appear in seed offers here, and several of those seed producers are SSE listed members,so they do get listed, which is important since the owners of many seed companies get their starter seeds from those listings.I also send trial amts to the owners of seed companies whom I've known well for many years.
I've also written extensively here at Tville about my thoughts of folks considering joining SSE and there are several threads already here about that.
Large commercial seed breeding companies outside the US do have to have phytos and they can well afford to do so,since seeds have to be lab tested to be sure they are pathogen free, which is very expensive. The Netherlands has many breeders as do Japan and IsraeL and India.
The only two places that ban importation of seeds are The Netherlands,b'c of all the breeding companies there and Australia,b/c of the presence of the Potato Spindle Viroid which also infects tomatoes and now that pathogen has been found in the US.
Of course some US folks have found ways around the restrictions to Holland and Australia,that's well known.When Sahin Seeds in Holland was still owned by Kees Sahin I sent him about 300 varieties,all had a green customs label and on that label he told me to write,for experimental purposes. Kees had ordered a huge amount of seed from Linda at TGS,she sent it to him,and it was returned to her,Kees told her to send the seeds to me and I repacked and sent all of them to him.
I'm not alone in getting seeds sent to me from many places and sending seeds to many places,and for me those would be the following countries.
Denmark,Belgium,France,Spain,Germany,Greece,Italy, Slovenia,Romania,Czech Republic, Belarus, England, Israel and several more I can't remember right now.
No phytos,no custom labels, just US stamps used by me,Global Forevers.
As far as I know phytos are used almost exclusively to send live plant material by US folks from other places such as between the US and Canada.I used to buy lots of stuff from Richters in Canada,but what they did was to get stuff across the border to the US, and then you can order live stuff without a phyto.
I know I probably forgot something,so if you have any questions,please just ask.
Carolyn