California Seed Law: exclusions: noncommercial seed sharing.

The California Seed Law (the seed law) regulates seed sold in California, and generally requires agricultural and vegetable seed that is sold in the state to be labeled in accordance with specified provisions. Specified penalties are prescribed for violating the provisions of the seed law. This bill would exclude from the labeling requirements of the seed law seed distributed or received by noncommercial seed sharing activity, as defined by the bill. The bill would authorize the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to require any entity that conducts noncommercial seed sharing activity to provide notification of its activity on a form created by the secretary. The bill would state that the Legislature declares, among other things, that the seed law is intended to support noncommercial seed sharing activities. The bill would authorize the Department of Food and Agriculture to post on its Internet Web site information about noncommercial seed sharing activity.