The European Seed Association ESA today concluded its 204 Annual Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, celebrating a record attendance of more than 900 attendees from Europe and worldwide.
“We again had more people coming from outside Europe – which is a clear indication of the strong international position and cooperative way of working of the European seed sector” said Garlich v. Essen, Secretary General of ESA in analysis of this success.
Next to a large number of detailed discussions on technical and crop specific issues, this year’s ESA Congress focused specifically on the need for a stronger outreach of the sector to media and interested public as a basis and precondition for later advocacy on specific regulatory or policy issues. To do so, ESA presented its new “Speak up for Seeds!” vision document to its membership which shall become a cornerstone of the association’s communication campaign in the future.
“ ‘Speak up for Seeds!’ is really our call upon decision makers in Europe – but also to our customers, Europe’s farmers and growers as well as to ourselves.”, von Essen explains. “We feel the plant breeding and seed production sector has an impressive and exciting story to tell and can and must play a central role in addressing the grand challenges of food security, healthy lifestyles and climate change.”
Consequently, these challenges and the sector’s approach to tackling them feature prominently in the ‘Speak up for Seeds’ vision.
“We hope this document will be the start for a better understanding of what we do and why it is important to speak up for seeds” von Essen underlined at the presentation, pointing out that specific follow-up outreach activities are planned for the coming months.
For more information
European Seed Association
Ana ASCENÇÃO E SILVA, Manager Communications
T: +32 2 743 28 60