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 Green line - sept/oct 2008
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Scholarships
The Association of Seed Growers from Paraguay (Aprosemp) has granted seven scholarships for professionals working within the seed industry in their country. This will enable the candidates to pursue post graduate studies in Brazil, basically to achieve Master of Science degrees. Resources from Aprosemp have been essentially generated through the collection of the technology fee related to RR soybean, which is yet, one more example of the benefits that can be achieved when the different players in the sector work together for a major cause.
Regional Seed Association
History was made on 18 July in Istanbul, Turkey when the formation of the new regional seed association was announced by 10 member countries of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) region comprising of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This accomplishment was done with a great help from FAO and ICARDA .The association will certainly be closely related to the ISF. Information: Metin Genckol, ECO Secretariat, email registry@ecosecretariat.org
Food Security
The speech of Dr. Marcel Bruins from ISF given at the UN conference on food security earned the desired attention. He has been invited to present his thoughts at UN head office concerning an adequate seed program for countries that have food shortage for the people. The benefits of a seed program are of medium therm but with high returns in many ways.
Market Share
The Brazilian market for soybean seeds has several companies (>20) sharing the offer of new varieties. Within this group, Coodetec has a share equivalent to 28% of the area sown to new soybean varieties. This has been the result of combining well focused research programs with researchers and professionals committed to the company they work for, a rather simple recipe with great success.
Trade
The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), has programmed for next october 31st at Geneva a Symposium on contracts in relation to plant breeders' rights. Contracts are an essential part of the seed trade, involving many aspects besides the law itself, like seed technology and culture.
Focus
The International Seed Federation (ISF) has decided to nominate a director for Seed Technology and Trade and is close to choose the candidate. This decision is a clear trend of the organization to focus on the most important issues, as recommended by common sense. ISF has really, few people working in the office and this extra help can be easily seen as useful.
Investment
Eleven years after the plant protection act in Brazil, seed business has presented big changes, where the most important is the number of plant breeding programs owned by seed producers. This trend changed the way seed business is done where some breeding program are not licensing their materials and the percentage of seed sold by the owner of the variety, in soybeans, reached in the crop year of 2007/08 more than 15%.
ISF
Turkey will be the place of the 2009 ISF congress. The country has a dynamic seed industry with an adequate law frame where maize, wheat, barley, vegetables, potato and turf grass are the main crops. Imports and exports are easily done due to its new laws and close follow up of the Turkey seed association on this matters. Unnecessary paper work makes the thing hard to occur. For sure the ISF congress of 2009 will have and environment for seed business.
Bioregulators
The Soybean Division at Embrapa has reported on the benefits of growth regulators as an efficient technology to boost plant efficiency and enhance productivity. The publication released specifically refers to the Stimulate® bioregulator, from the Stoller Company of Brazil, which enhances the development of the root system, lateral branching and the establishment of a balanced hormonal system. All these features provide to the plants the capacity to react more effectively to adverse environmental conditions. This is the basis for enhanced productivity.
On the WEB
The international Seed Testing Association (ISTA) has a site on the WEB for its scientific publication "Seed Science and Technology" . This movement makes access much easier to those that need to do reviews on the subject. The system is working fine as SEED News had the opportunity to use it.
Good example
ASTA members share a pride in the accomplishments they have been responsible for, far beyond what the founding fathers of the association could have ever imagined 125 years ago."Speaking on behalf of the seed industry, we look forward to many more years of working together to create an environment that fosters innovation to bring the highest quality seed to market and to meet the needs of consumers around the world," said ASTA President and CEO Andy LaVigne. Founded in 1883, the American Seed Trade Association has about 750 companies involved in seed production and distribution, plant breeding, and related industries in North America. As an authority on plant germplasm, ASTA advocates science and policy issues of industry importance.
Safeners
A crop protection agent needs to spare the crop and control the weeds. For this, safeners are used. These substances are added to crop protection agents to protect crops from the damaging effects of herbicides. With the use of GM cultivars that are naturally resistant to herbicide, the use of safeners are becoming an economic alternative and many companies are working in this direction. Safeners applied to the seed seem to be the best choice due to the amount and the precision.
Seed certification
Last July in Chicago, USA the OECD annual meeting took place to discuss the seed certification schemes that are of increasing usage around the world. The main discussion, as expected, was the necessity of harmonization among the countries. At the meeting two countries joined the organization, India and Moldavia. The OECD seed schemes were born in 1958.
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