New digital tool for breeders, seed producers & traders

LiveSeeding is an EU-funded project promoting growth of organic seed and plant breeding to transition to more sustainable food systems. To realise this, project partner AEDIT srl is developing a new digital tool, “OHMTrack”. This will assist breeders, seed producers, traders and authorities to keep track and ensure traceability of Organic Heterogeneous Material (OHM).

OHMTrack is more than just a tool. It will work with other digital tools that support different aspects of OHM such as:

SHiNeMaS: A digital tool recording seed lots’ history, phenotyping, and cultural practices. This will be adapted to support participatory breeding programs, including the constitution and development of OHM;
SeedLinked: A user-friendly platform enabling simple, decentralized cultivar evaluation designs and incorporating real-time multi-actor feedback (from farmer to consumer). It also allows for extensive and heterogeneous data inputs through smartphone;
European router database: A database with up-to-date information on organic seeds’ availability, linking to national databases.

So, what does OHMTrack do for those working with organic seeds and organic heterogenous materials?

Help breeders, seed producers, traders and authorities tracking OHM easily;
Trace the exchange of seed lots between different organisations;
Streamline OHM notification.

OHMTrack is being develop at the time of writing. An alpha-version was released in October 2023 to project partners to be tested during 2024. The feedback received from these project partners will help make improvements for the final version of the tool. The progress of OHMTrack development was presented during “OHM traceability workshops” between July and September 2023.

LiveSeeding is a 4-year Innovation Action on organic seed and plant breeding to accelerate sustainable and diverse food systems in Europe, which started in October 2022. It provides science-based evidence and best practice solutions to help achieve 100 % organic seed. The project has a budget of 6.6 million Euro, funded by the European Union, the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). To deliver on such an ambitious goal, LiveSeeding brings together 37 organisations from a wide range of sectors operating in 16 European countries.

Learn more about and follow the project on www.liveseeding.eu, LinkedIn, X and Facebook.

For more information on:

Organic seeds, organic plant breeding and IFOAM Organics Europe’s work on this issue, read our paper on sustainability in organic breeding, watch the LIVESEED project’s video on organic plant breeding or visit our website and contact [email protected];

LiveSeeding and IFOAM Organics Europe’s role, contact [email protected];

IFOAM Organics Europe members can find more information on the member extranet and background materials in the arguments database on the member extranet (main messages, arguments/FAQs, visuals & videos). Contact [email protected] for access rights (issues).

For information about what you can gain from being a member, read our membership page and contact [email protected].