Seed World Europe: Reporting From Euroseeds – Day 1 – Seed World

Welcome to the Euroseeds 2024 congress in Copenhagen!!!  We hope you all had a safe trip to the Danish capital, and a good welcome evening last night. It is always great to catch up with friends and colleagues. 

For those who’d like to catch up on their Danish, here’s a few words to brush up on the local language:

 The trading floor and the exhibition booths are open from 08.00 and will close for the day at 18.30. For those of you who are not busy on the trading floor or in the booths, it will be a full day today, with four Section meetings, and no less than 8 InnovAction Stage presentations.

The day will kick off with a meeting of the Section Cereals and Pulses (08.30-10.30) providing a spotlight on Denmark, where Nils Elmegaard of the Danish Seed Council and Asbjørn Børsting of Variety Denmark will give an overview of the Danish agriculture and seed sector. This is followed by a presentation of Andreas Wais of ISTA, who will talk about ISTA’s e-certificate and how this is making the certification process faster, safer, and cheaper. 

Throughout the day you will be able to attend 4 sessions of the Euroseeds InnovAction Stage, where in each of the sessions, 2 of the 12 finalists will be presenting their innovations. If you’re interested in the latest innovations in the plant breeding and seed sector, make sure to head towards the specific InnovAction Stage, on the Ground Floor of the Tivoli Hotel. The presentations will be held from 10.00-11.00; 13.00-14.00; 15.30-16.30 and from 17.30-18.30. Don’t miss it!

Before lunch, from 11.00-13.00 you can catch the Oil and Fibre Section with three interesting topics. First, Jenna Luchman of BASF will give an update on the EU draft regulation on packaging and waste management and will dive into the question of whether this regulation is a threat to seed bags. Second, Patrick Kabouw, the chair of the Euroseeds CSTP, will discuss biologicals, and whether these are a hope, or a hype. And last but not least, Etienne Bouquet of Corteva will talk about the EU deforestation legislation. 

After lunch, from 14.00-16.00, you can attend the Section Forage and Grasses. Attendees will be presented with the Euroseeds view on IP by Francesca Garbato of Euroseeds, followed by a panel debate with Yolanda Huerta from UPOV and Nuria Urquia Fernandez of the CPVO. You will also receive an update from the Working Group Illegal Seed Practices, and Jared Onsando of Euroseeds will speak about the new EU PRM legislation, with a specific focus on heterogeneous material and small packages.

The Maize and Sorghum Section will be the last Section meeting of the day (16.30-18.30), where Csaba Gaspar of the OECD Seed Schemes will speak about their initiatives to strengthen seed certification capacities in developing countries, particularly in Africa. And Amrit Nanda of Plant ETP will speak about ‘Trends in EU public investment in plant breeding R&I – from FP7 to Horizon Europe’. 

Seed World Europe will be on the ground covering the event. Come say hi to the Seed World Europe team: Editorial Director Marcel Bruins, Business Director EMEA Ewa Józefowicz Amador, and President Shawn Brook will be conducting interviews and attending sessions.

If you‘d like to learn more about what else is on the program of the Euroseeds congress, please see here: https://euroseedscongress.com/programme/

In case you wish to share your thoughts on social media, and find out what others are saying, make sure to use the hashtag #Euroseeds2024