French Seed Industry Association's Call for Freedom to Innovate

The Union of French Seed Industry (UFS), at the end of the General Assembly held in Paris on November 8, are eager to meet and fulfill demands of the society, the impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy reform and the political decisions of the G20 and WTO through innovation. UFS President Francois Desprez opined that, "To play the role expected, we need to be assured there is a freedom to conduct research using the most innovative techniques and to have greater access to genetic resources."

The pronouncement  was made to address the issues raised by seed companies to have a clear and realistic framework to enable them to produce and sell their seeds in France and abroad without incurring unreasonable or restrictive interpretation of the guidelines. Deprez further added that "the orders are piling up, and sometimes regulations contradict each other without an objective assessment of the consequences of implementation made. This framework should be imposed under the same conditions to all operators on the seed market."

See the original article In French at  http://www.ufs-semenciers.org/actualites/Documents/CP_UFS_AG_2011.pdf