Brussels, Belgium
March 19, 2013

ESA’s quality assurance scheme for seed treat-ment and treated seed (the so-called "European Seed Treatment Assurance ESTA”) receives a strong push with the hiring of Amalia Kafka as new dedicated Manager for the ESTA scheme.

ESTA combines a number of elements to guaran-tee professional, high quality seed treatment applications such as independent certification of treatment sites by accredited auditors, defined quality reference values with a uniform testing protocol, and safe use information and respective labeling for users.

Only ESTA certified treatment facilities are au-thorised to use the ESTA logo on their products, documenting compliance and facilitating the movement of treated seed throughout the European Union’s common market.

Amalia Kafka will focus on the implementation and further development of the scheme and its overall management. She will also support the relevant ESA Work-ing Groups on seed treatment technologies and plant protection products.

Amalia is Greek and graduated from Wageningen University, Netherlands, with an MSc in Plant Science and an MSc in Food Safety & Food Quality Management; she also holds an MSc in Plant Protection from the Agricultural University of Athens, Greece. Before joining ESA, Amalia worked as auditor for the certification of products of Protected Designation of Origin and Protected Geographical Indication and has been part of research projects of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). She also worked with a think tank on a comprehensive bee health report which was published early 2013.

“The recruitment of Amalia will give another strong push to our ESTA scheme and its uptake throughout Europe!” comments Garlich v. Essen, Secretary General of ESA. “And it shows ESA’s commitment and determination to work for high quality seed treatment which is a key technology benefiting European farmers and growers as well as the environment and society at large”.

Website: http://www.euroseeds.org

Published: March 19, 2013