Brussels, Belgium
December 8, 2023
As the current year comes to an end, the EU is at a crossroads, determining the future of its plant breeding and seed sectors. Climate change, marked by extreme weather and emerging pests, poses threats to the success of decades-long efforts in plant breeding. With legislative initiatives on new genomic techniques and a modernized seed marketing framework, proposed in July, the EU has a chance to reinforce its leadership in plant breeding and ensure high-quality seed while safeguarding its security. Euroseeds, along with 35 national seed associations and numerous plant breeding businesses, urges EU Member States and Parliament Members to support innovation for a resilient and sustainable food system.
The call is clear: Europe must harness its own potential for a prosperous agricultural future.
Euroseeds statement
Seeding innovation - let’s grow the future!
Now!
As the year 2023 comes to its end, the European Union is also moving closer to important decisions that will determine the future of its plant breeding and seed sector and have significant impact on the entire European agri-food chain.
Plant breeding innovation has been the key driver of productivity gains along that chain for decades with more than two-thirds of these gains attributed to the genetic progress coming from our public and private plant breeding efforts. It is based on these efforts that Europe has become a leader in plant breeding, seed supply and agricultural production, contributing to food security and ever- more healthy diets both in Europe and worldwide.
Today, this success is threatened by the growing challenges of climate change that puts our crops at risk from more extreme weather patterns of droughts and flooding, combined with new pests and diseases that thrive under these new conditions. At the same time, plant breeding and agricultural production need to contribute their part to the preservation of our natural resources, assuring sustainable food supply from less available land and reducing our reliance on critical inputs such as pesticides or fertilizers.
The European Union itself holds the keys to open the doors to continued innovation and to successfully mastering these challenges. The two legislative initiatives on novel genomic techniques and on a modernised framework for seed marketing proposed by the Commission in July have the potential to boost Europe’s progress and leadership in plant breeding and high-quality seed security, supporting the transition towards a resilient, truly sustainable food system.
Euroseeds, its 35 national seed associations, and the thousands of plant breeding and seed businesses jointly represented by us, call upon EU Member States and Members of the European Parliament to enable plant breeding to contribute, with the best available science and tools, and with EU rules that enable innovation to the benefit of agriculture and citizens.
Europe must and Europe can grow it’s own future. Let’s start growing that future – now!
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