European Seed Association

Type	Advocacy Group
Industry	Plant Breeding/ Biotechnology
Founded	November 2000
Headquarters	Brussels, Belgium
Key people	Christoph Amberger, President Garlich von Essen, Secretary General
Website	www.euroseeds.org

In that sense, ESA lobbies on all seed related issues and specifically on:

Seed marketing, incl. GM and organic seed
Intellectual Property Rights (Plant Breeders Rights, Biotech Patents, etc.)
Plant/ seed health (phytosanitary rules; seed treatments)
Biodiversity and access to genetic resources
Land use and food production
Competitiveness of the EU agri-food chain

It also aims at solving collective problems of its membership like e.g. market access in third countries.

Fields of interst declared by the organization are:

Agriculture and Rural Development
Climate Action
Consumer Affairs
Energy
Enterprise
Environment
Food Safety
Internal Market
Public Health
Research and Technology
Trade

It has been granted observer status with::

International Seed Federation (ISF), International Union for the Protection of new Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) International Seed Testing Assocation (ISTA) International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)

EVENTS

MEMBERSHIP

ESA PRESIDENTS

2009 – 2012: Christoph Amberger, KWS Saat AG (DE) 2006 – 2009: Francois Desprez, Francois Desprez (FR) 2003 – 2006: Sten Moberg, Svalöf Weibull (SE) 2000 – 2003: Anthony Keeling, Elsoms Seed (UK)

EXTERNAL LINKS

ESA Homepage http://www.euroseeds.org

ESA Annual Meeting http://esa.conceptum.eu/