Brussels, Belgium
October 16, 2013

ESA European Seed Association ended its 2013 Annual Meeting in Warsaw on Tuesday evening. With more than 850 participants from Europe as well as an increasing number of delegates from other parts of the world, the Congress marked yet another all-time record for the association.

“We are very, very satisfied with this year’s Annual Meeting.”, Garlich v. Essen, Secretary General of ESA, commented. “We had a perfect location, highly interesting presentations from the seed sector as well as from many of our partners in the agri-food chain – and of course more delegates from more companies and countries than ever.”

Main subjects of discussion during the three days were the revision of the EU’s seed marketing (now known as plant reproductive material) legislation, plant health rules and organisation of official controls for new varieties and seed. This was also reflected in the closing General Assembly which was addressed by Stanisława Okularczyk, advisor to the Polish Minister for Agriculture and by the Secretary General of the European Farmers and Cooperatives Organisation COPA-COGECA, Pekka Pesonen, and attended by many other representatives from Polish politics and administration as well as seed related international bodies such as the Community Plant Variety Office, the International Seed Testing Association, the European Patent Office and the Union for the Protection of Plant Varieties.

“I think we had a very fruitful exchange on the Commission’s proposal, specifically between the seed companies and their customers, the European farmers and vegetable growers. And we apparently have the same concern that the many derogations and exemptions in the proposal will weaken the system and provide less traceability, quality and health control and with that consumer and environmental protection.”, von Essen summarises the debate between seed companies, the farming sector and national regulators.

Other items that featured high on the agenda were the implementation of the association’s quality assurance scheme for seed treatment crop protection ESTA (European Seed Treatment Assurance), the international trade negotiations between Europe and other countries as well as improvements in the EU’s research agenda to take more account of the needs of agricultural productivity and food security.

“There is no shortage of short term as well as long term issues affecting the seed sector”, von Essen points out. “We will surely have a lot to do until we have our next Congress in Lisbon in October 2014”.
 

Website: http://www.euroseeds.org

Published: October 16, 2013