Jan. 23, 2014
The European Parliament’s Committee for Agriculture recently adopted with a broad majority on an own-initiative report on plant breeding, looking at options and recommendations to improve crop quality and yields in Europe and highlighting the major issues facing Europe’s farmers and breeders in guaranteeing food security for Europe’s 500 million consumers and a growing world population. European Seed Association(ESA) welcomes this initiative as an opportunity for an informed and constructive debate on the value and role of plant breeding in modern societies.
The EP Report clearly shows that Europe needs to build on its competitive advantage and continue to invest in research & development, to develop and use new plant breeding techniques and to provide support to long-term partnerships between government, industry and research organisations to stimulate innovation. “Plant breeding is one of the key input sectors for the development of a sustainable and productive European agriculture”, comments Garlich v. Essen, Secretary General of ESA. “Without an effective and competitive plant breeding sector, we seriously reduce our options to respond to agricultural and societal demands”.
The Report acknowledges the importance of preserving, maintaining and characterising genetic resources and upholds the principle of guaranteeing access to genetic re-sources for further breeding, a principle enshrined in the EU’s specific intellectual property system governing the plant breeding sector and in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture. “Access to genetic resources is a key driver for plant breeding innovation”, comments v. Essen. “Unfortunately, the current EU approach to the implementation of the Nagoya protocol fails to address this point”.
While the Report raises some concerns in view of larger multinational undertakings, it still provides a fair picture of the specificities of the European seed market characterised by a highly diverse set of companies, investing in many different varieties that are adapted to very different climatic conditions. “We are proud of the research effort of our sector, investing up to 20% of its annual turnover on further research to meet the needs of Europe’s farmers. While this commitment is shared by all companies, it is particularly impressive with the small and medium sized enterprises”.
This can at least partly be explained by the unique EU seed legislation: “Back in the 1960s, European legislators understood full well the strategic importance of the plant breeding sector when they set up the EU seed legislation. We are glad to see that this Report recognises the value of that legislation for maintaining the competitiveness of SMEs, providing a level playing field for all operators and stimulating plant breeding innovation”.
ESA specifically welcomes the very forward-looking recommendation of the AGRI Committee towards the European Commission to develop an overall strategy on agricultural inputs, especially in relation to plant breeding, and on assuring a skilled workforce capable of combining classical breeding with new techniques and technologies. “We are working very hard with EU farmers and the public research sector within the European Technology Platform Plants for the Future to develop an Education Action Plan for the EU plant sector. We therefore welcome these specific recommendations and will be looking forward to presenting our ideas later this year”.
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