Brussels, 02/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The defenders of farm seeds took advantage of a meeting on Wednesday between Nicole Fontaine's agricultural advisor and the German Green, Wilhelm Graef zu Baringdorf, Chair of the EP's Agriculture Committee, to denounce the "constant pressure" exercised by some industrialists in the sector on farmers to use certified seeds. The representatives of the trade union organisations that make up the European Union of Farm Seeds and Plants (UESPF) handed in, at the end of these talks, a document recalling their demands and their joint proposals. They are calling for the abolition of the principle of taxing farm seeds (enshrined in a regulation dating back to 1994) and certain plant CMO provisions that oblige farmers to plant approved seeds to be able to benefit from direct CAP aid. This battle between small-scale seed producers - who want to have the right to take advantage of nature and its capacity to reproduce - and the industrialists in the seeds sector who hold patents, comes within the framework of a large-scale legal procedure: for UESPD, the aim is to support the some 4,500 small German farmers currently being prosecuted for having refused to transmit to the German patents union information on who supplies them with seed, the heart of the problem being the obligation, for farmers, to pay duty on certified seeds.