ESA Mission Statement

ESA is the voice of the European seed industry, representing the interests of those active in research, breeding, production and marketing of seeds of agricultural, horticultural and ornamental plant species.

Plants from seed are the origin of all food, provide innovative and environmentally friendly industrial products and beautify our landscape.

ESA's mission is to work for:

effective protection of intellectual property rights relating to plants and seeds;
fair and proportionate regulation of the European seed industry;
freedom of choice for customers (farmers, growers, industry, consumers) in supplying seeds as a result of innovative, diverse technologies and production methods;

ESA'S primary task is to represent the European seed industry via the European institutions and their representatives, i.e. the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission. Furthermore, ESA is in continuous contact with other EU bodies like e.g. the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO), with other industry associations dealing with agriculture and biotechnology, with non-governmental organisations, the international press and the wider interested public. With that, ESA is also designed and set-up as the central contact point for all those interested in the seed business and 'green biotechnology' such as Members of the European Parliament, civil servants from the European Commission, related industries, other governmental or non-governmental organisations and the media.

More and more, the policies and legislation of the European Union have taken over competences from EU Member States and increasingly, legal as well as commercial issues are dealt with on a multitude of organisational levels on which the EU and its institutions play an important and sometimes decisive role.

Apart from classical agricultural issues such as the EU's market organisations and seed marketing Directives, especially environmental issues, food safety and consumer protection as well as ethical questions related to the use of modern technologies, liability rules as well as competition law and intellectual property regulations more and more have direct implications for plant breeding, seed production and marketing in the European Union. Seeds are the starting point to all food and feed production and today must also be seen as the first step towards clean and sustainable products for industrial and other non-food uses such as bio-fuels.

With a view to the regulations of external trade such as within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), questions regarding rules for the trade of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), agreed and sustainable standards for the adventitious presence of such GMOs in seeds of non-transgenic plant varieties as well as phytosanitary rules and regulations have or will have important consequences for the European seed industry.

In this context, the WTO agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) is of direct importance for plant breeders. Be it by specific plant variety protection systems or by patents, the strong and increasingly important impact of such systems on the future development plant breeding both in Europe itself as well as vis-à-vis other regions of the world has to be taken into account.