I attended a talk many years ago given a representative of a major seed
company .
Most commercial seeds were not then grown in the UK, I guess this is still
the case.
I now forget a lot of the detail the talk was given in the 1970s
The US was a major supplier of flower seeds, New Zealand for peas and beans,
Morocco another major source.
Brasicca seeds were grown in Essex- the only UK mention!

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
In message , Paul
Anderson writes
Joanne said the following on 30/08/2004 16:54:

Yes, go to the government's DEFRA website for info:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/planth/impexp.htm
"Paul Anderson" wrote in
message
...

Anyone know what restrictions there are with regard to importing
seeds
into the UK?

Been there and gave up. It's written in Double Dutch Latin. I'm want to
import some chili seeds but can't find a simple answer on the site.

Import from where? The rules allow import of small quantities of seed in
commercial sealed packaging from almost anywhere in the world. I have
never had any problems bring back seeds from abroad.

There are tight restrictions on Cites listed plant seed. But that never
seems to stop them being sold across national borders.

Plants can be a real nightmare since the cost of phytosanitary
certificates, paperwork and inspection scales with the number of species
imported. A friend got caught out by some US grown "bargain" rare
plants.

The price he paid the nursery was a huge bargain, but after all of
officialdom had added their fees they were *very* expensive.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown