Newsletter: November 2022

Quality Seed | Quality Life

November 2022 Newsletter

Welcome to APSA’s November 2022 Newsletter! No time to read, download and listen to our podcast. Download here. 

Table of Contents 

Introduction / Address from APSA ED

Greetings members and associates, and welcome to the 2022 November newsletter and podcast. On behalf of the APSA Secretariat, EC and OB, let me thank all delegates who made it out Bangkok earlier this month to make the 2022 Asian Seed Congress a success beyond all expectations! It was our pleasure to finally get to meet many of you in person. 

 

Despite all that has happened in the past several years, it is clear that APSA is stronger than ever, and that we continue to have a critical role in bringing forward our objective to ensure farmers continue to get quality seed. 

Please do read our ASC 2022 wrap up story here, as well as our main news release here, and find photos from the event here.

Congratulations to Mr. Pachok Pongpanich and Associate Professor Dr. Petcharat Thammabenjapone – they are truly deserving of gratitude and recognition as our 2022 APSA Awardees, which you can read about here. (Read their full interview in the magazine below).

 

 

Let me also take this opportunity to congratulate and welcome APSA’s new President, Dr. Manish Patel, and say thank you to outgoing and Immediate Past President Mr. Wichai Laocharoenpornkul. It has been a privilege to work with you and I look forward to maintaining strong momentum in ensuring the sustainability of our association.

Let me also congratulate and welcome APSA’s new Vice President, Mr. Koh Teck Wah, who was elected during our board meeting on November 18. The EC also elected  Mr. Takahiro Ando as our new treasurer, and I look forward to working with all of these capable executives as APSA’s Office Bearers. 

With that, I’d also like to thank all retiring board members: Dr. Senthilnathan Sengottuvelu; Dr. Sumitra Kantrong and Mr. Wei-Ting Chen and Dr. Abdul Awal Mintoo. We also thank and welcome back several EC members re-elected for their second term: Mr Koh Teck Wah, Dr. Chua Kim Aik; and Mr. Takahiro Ando. 

 

 Furthermore, a warm welcome to the EC newly elected board members: Ms Chia-Hui Chang; Mr Farhan Tahir; Dr. Frisco Malabanan; Dr. Md. Ali Afzaland; Mr. Rahul Pagar; and Mr. John Mizicko. 

 

 

Aside from the election, finance and presidents report, our 2022 AGM also saw through a vote to amend our constitution as well as the announcement of the location and date of our next two AGMs and Asian Seed Congresses. The full minutes of the AGM will be shared with members through our members portal, and you can also read details here

Finally, let me thank all of our newly-appointed technical committee chairs and co-chairs as shown in this photo.

 

 

More details about them below in Technical Affairs section, as well as on our website here.  

There are also summaries of other important activities and initiatives, including our recent collaboration with the International Seed Testing Association to organize a Quality Assurance workshop. Let me take this opportunity to thank our talented experts and resource persons at ISTA and the DoA, Thailand. Don’t miss the details below. 

 

 

And, now we are almost at the end of 2022. Next month, we will end the year on a high note by sharing with members an initial version of our ‘Year in Review’ publication, which documents all of APSA’s initiatives and activities this past year. Stay tuned, and be sure to download the latest magazine below, as well as getting updates on all of APSA Events, Technical Affairs and Industry News.

Stay safe and healthy.

If you have any suggestions on our activities, the key issues you are facing in your seed business and possible collaborations, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at may@apsaseed.org. 

May Chodchoey,
APSA Executive Director
may@apsaseed.org

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THANK YOU to our digital media sponsors

 

APSA MEMBERSHIP Reminders and Updates 

As of November 30, 2022, APSA has 504 members, including 417 retained members from 2019 – 2022 and 87 mew APSA Members this year; our members represent 44 countries and territorities, including 24 countries/territories inside the APAC region and 20 countries/territories outside the APAC region.

Asian Seed Congress 2022 Update

The Asian Seed Congress 2022 held in Bangkok, Thailand from the 14th to the 18th of November 2022 at the Centara Grand and Bangkok Convention Centre, we successfully organizing the Asian Seed Congress 2022 with more than 1,200 Participates attend the Asian Seed Congress 2022 with more than 43 Countries inside & outside APAC region.

All delegates, please fill out our ASC 2022 Survey here

We welcome all to attend the Asian Seed Congress 2023, which will be held in Christchurch, New Zealand in November 2023.

If you have any questions, or if there is anything else we can assist you with please don’t hesitate to contact me.

 

Mr. Komsak Kamjing (Bobbie)

APSA Membership Coordination Manager

 komsak@apsaseed.org 

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Events

Awareness Raising Event on ePhyto

APSA, in collaboration with the Thai Seed Trade Association (THASTA), the International Seed Federation (ISF), the Thai Fruit and Vegetable Producer Association and the Thai Airfreight Forwarders Association, cordially invite all seed and ag produce traders to join our Awareness Raising Event on electronic phytosanitary certificate (ePhyto) implementation in Thailand, ASEAN and beyond, which will be held virtually on Wednesday the 7th of December 2022 from 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm (GMT+7).

The online event, implemented by The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH or GIZ with support from the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, will update on the IPPC ePhyto solution project in Thailand, including the Department of Agriculture (DOA) deployment of ePhyto certificates as well as connecting to the IPPC Hub through the ASEAN National Single Window (NSW).

This event is open to the public and is FREE for all to attend. But pre-registration is required.

For more details on the event, agenda and how to register, please visit the official event page at https://web.apsaseed.org/events/ephyto-awareness-raising-event

2022 APSA Cucurbinars Thank God It’s Friday – Session 6 on Melon 

On Friday the 16th of December 2022, APSA will be holding the 6th and final session of the 2022 APSA Cucurbinars Thank God It’s Friday. This Session will focus on Melons and will feature 2 guest speakers: Dr. Sat Pal Sharma, Principal Vegetable Breeder, Department of Vegetable Science, Punjab Agricultural University, and Dr. Manash Chatterjee, Co-founder and Director, Viridian Seeds Ltd.

For more details on agenda and how to attend, please visit the official event page at https://web.apsaseed.org/events/2022-apsa-cucurbinars-tgif-session-6 

  

International Symposium on Data Driven Breeding

APSA, in collaboration with SIP Japan, The University of Tokyo, Listen Filed. Co., Ltd., Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Kasetsart University (KU), and the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) will be holding the International Symposium on Data Driven Breeding from 20 – 22 February 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand. This event gives great exchange of information among scientists, breeders and system developers and is essential for further development for data-driven breeding. At the symposium, scientists and breeders from Thailand and neighboring countries as well as Japan will exchange information about current status of practical and data-driven breeding. It is expected that the symposium will be an opportunity for further development and dissemination of breeding methods that contribute to the development of agriculture in Asia. Registration Fee to participate in this event is only 75 USD per person, with a maximum of 75 participants allowed.

 

For more information regarding the event, its agenda and how to register, please visit the official event page at https://web.apsaseed.org/events/intl-ddb-symposium

If you have any questions regarding upcoming APSA events, or if there is anything else I can assist you with please do not hesitate to contact me.

Mike Kingapayom

APSA Event Manager

 mike@apsaseed.org

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Public-Private Partnerships

Welcome to Technical Affairs update. The same as before, let’s start with the APSA-WorldVeg Vegetable Breeding Consortium.

Registration for the 2023 APSA-WorldVeg Vegetable Breeding Consortium will be announced soon. Click here to learn more about the consortium benefits. Better benefits are provided to 2023 Consortium members including an increase of free lines from 10 to 15, add hybrids in the exclusive lines, more training opportunities, and setting up an annual meeting to discuss special project ideas.

The special project entitled “Growing new markets with better bitter gourd genetics: WorldVeg's monoecious, gynoecious and predominantly female lines of different market segments developed through recurrent selection to breed breakthrough hybrids” will be launched under the APSA-WorldVeg Vegetable Breeding Consortium in January 2023, for 2023 APSA-WorldVeg Vegetable Breeding Consortium members . The details of the project can be found by the link here. Currently we have reached the maximum number of participating companies. The agreement signing and payment process will start soon.

If you have any problem or need help from APSA Secretariat, pls contact APSA Partnership Program Manager Ms. Xiaofeng Li at xiaofeng@apsaseed.org

Ms. Xiaofeng Li

APSA Partnership Program Manager

xiaofeng@apsaseed.org

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Technical Affairs Updates

Starting with an update from our Standing Committee on Seed Technology:

We are pleased to welcome the new SC Seed Technology Co-Chair, Mr Farhan Tahir of Haji Sons who was officially appointed by APSA Executive Committee this month. We trust that Mr Tahir will contribute a lot to the group and there will be more exciting initiatives next year. Aside from this, the committee was excited to see each other physically in the upcoming APSA ASC Techno Commercial Demonstration Program held on November 16th with four companies exhibiting, including: Ms. Dorien van Engelenburg of Agro Business Solutions, Mr. Maximilian Mayer of Wintersteiger AG, Mr Zhou Xusheng of Wuhan Qingfa-hesheng Seed and Dr Rob Pronk / Dr Tomoko Sakata from Incotec. This is a pioneering platform to promote various seed technology aspects to APSA members.

Another session was the APSA Technical Session for Seed Technology on November 17th, where the committee presented the newest project implementation of APSA Seed Academy Program and had a panel discussion on “Ensuring high quality seed through the contribution of seed technology”. Participants also learned a lot from the technology presentations of the two “Most Influential Seed Technologist” Awardees: Mr Michel Devarrewaere as an awardee from the Private Sector and Dr S. Rajendra Prasad as an awardee from public sector.

Next let us move to an update from the Standing Committee on International Trade & Quarantine

We are pleased to warmly welcome the new SC ITQ Co-Chair, Mr John Mizicko from Eurofins Biodiagnostics who was officially appointed by APSA Executive Committee. Mr Mizicko is already a member of SC ITQ so he is very much familiar with the group and he has been a great source of support to the group all along.

On another note, the committee had a great time in the ASC November Technical Session on SC ITQ held on November 15th. It was a productive session to have Mr. Patipol Kornkamonpruk present on the Investment Opportunity in Thailand, followed by the ePhyto & lab accreditation in Thailand: update and way forward by Mr Chaisak Ringluen. Then, Dr Rose Souza Richards presented online for a topic on International Efforts on Seed Health, Dr Shivendra Bajaj gave an update of the STDF project, Dr Szabolcs Ruthner gave a presentation on Plant Breeding Innovation (PBI): Global view on policy and position from seed sector and lastly Ms Alice Ingabire presented a topic of Enabling environment for seed sector development.

On November 3rd, DOA Thailand made an announcement regarding the ePhyto and lab accreditation. Key highlights are:

  1. Anyone would like to request the Phytosanitary certificate; the form has to be submitted through an electronic platform or ePhyto.
  2. Adding that the seed health testing for phytosanitary certificate should be done by the Department of Agriculture, Thailand or in the laboratory that has been accredited by the DoA, TH.

This shows a great progress from TH DoA and it is a great result of working together between THASTA, APSA, ISF and CLA. More details in Thailand seed industry news below.

Let us move to an update from the Standing Committee on Intellectual Property Rights and Biodiversity

It was a successful event for the APSA Technical Session for IPR & Biodiversity held on November 16. Starting from the Summary of Governing Body (GB 9) of the ITPGRFA and Digital Sequencing Information by Dr Shivendra Bajaj, Discussion on the “Access and Benefit Sharing: Facilitated mechanism or obstructive mechanism?” by Mr Ashwani Kumar (India), Dr Lorna E. Herradura (Philippines) and Mr Eiji Hatato (Japan). The session continued with a presentation from the Co-Chair, Mr. Francois Burgaud on the Interrelation between farmers’ rights and breeders’ rights on the private and non-commercial use of protected plant varieties, followed by the topic of “Perspective from ASFARNET-PH (Asian Farmer Regional Network, Philippines) on the usage of seeds and new developed varieties” by Mr Reynaldo Cabanao. After that Mr Manabu Suzuki had an online presentation on “Role of the UPOV system in providing benefits to farmers” and Mr Fabrice Mattei presented the last topic on “Freedom to operate strategies: How to conduct plant varieties clearance search prior to R&D and commercial activities”.

Aside from this, the campaign Say No To Seed Piracy initiated by SC IPR & Biodiversity committee was launched during the ASC, with several of the campaign posters posted throughout the venue. And we asked delegates to take a selfie and post it on their social media public profiles with the hash tag #SayNoToSeedPiracy.

The winner is Viraj Prasad Mohapatra, whose post on Facebook garnered 233 likes. His inspiring message was

“It’s indeed a great pleasure for me to advocate for the most important concern of this Global Seeds Fraternity at a platform like Asian Seeds Congress 2022 organised by APSA: The Asia and Pacific Seed Association.  I request every responsible persona here to get the awareness on seeds piracy. It’s a much bigger threat than our predictions. Please be a voice and stand for the Change”

Last but not least, we are pleased to inform you that New Zealand’s Plant Variety Rights Bill was passed by the Parliament on November 22nd, to replace legislation first designed in 1987. Since June last year, APSA, ISF, CIOPORA, AFSTA and the New Zealand Grain and Seed Trade Association has been contributing in public consultation and providing comments of this bill. This is another step of success from the partnership on policy advocacy. More details on the seed industry news in New Zealand.

Next is the Special Interest Group for Field Crops:

We are pleased to welcome the new SIG Field Crops Co-Chair, Dr MD Ali Afzal from Krishibid Seed who was officially appointed by APSA Executive Committee. Dr Afzal has fruitful experiences regarding field crops and seed technology. We look forward to more exciting activities next year.

The committee had another successful ASC Technical Session for Field Crops on November 16 with three prominent speakers under the theme of Awareness Raising to Protect Illegal Practice for Field Crops. Starting from Mr Marc Cool who presented on the General information on IP in Field Crops and infringement challenges, then Mr Surya Rao Rongali presented the topic of Seeds End to End Security. The last presenter, Dr Cui Yehan presented online on the topic of China's new PVP Regulation amendment and the IP enforcement.

And now to SIG on Vegetables and Ornamentals:

We are pleased to welcome the new SIG Veg & Orn Chair, Mr Rahul Pagar from HM Clause India and the  Co-Chair, Ms Linda Chang from Known-You Seed who were officially appointed by APSA Executive Committee. Mr Rahul was the ex-Chair in WIC and Mr Linda is very active in WIC and DRT groups so we trust that their expertise will contribute very much to the SIG Veg & Orn.

The committee also had a fruitful session during ASC Technical Session for Vegetables & Ornamentals on November 15. Starting with the Regulatory landscape for new breeding techniques (NBT) in Asia by Ms Sonny Tababa and the NBT policy in Thailand by Dr Boonyanath Nathwong. Then Prof. Davide Cammarano continued an online presentation topic of “The projected decline of processing tomato production due to climate change”. Mr Sanjay Bisht presented on the APSA University Connect Program as an initiative project from WIC.

Last but not least, all technical sessions videos are available for public viewing via Youtube here.

Moving to updates from the SIG on Vegetables and Ornamentals subgroups, The Working Group of Integrated Vegetable Seed Companies or WIC, the R&D advisory committee and the Disease Resistance Terminology Working Group or DRT

Starting with WIC updates:

WIC had a second official meeting on November 13, 2022 with 20 companies joining physically and three companies joining online. A total of 26 WIC members and observers joined the meeting, in which members discussed several few burning issues in APAC region, the University Connect program and way forward for the group. In the meeting the new Chair and Co-Chair were elected. We are pleased to inform you that Mr Takahiro Ando is the new WIC Chair and Mr Harendra Singh is the new Co-Chair. All WIC members would like to convey a sincere appreciation to the former Chair Mr Rahul Pagar and former Co-Chair Mr Sanjay Bisht for their great contribution in WIC group. The committee agreed to meet next year for the midterm WIC meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.

Next is an update from the R&D Advisory Group

This month the group had a successful event on the APSA Cucurbinars 2022 – Thank God It’s Friday (TGIF) Session 5 on Other Gourds held on November 25.  Moderated by R&D Co-Chair Dr John R Sheedy, the first speaker, Dr. B.Varalakshmi, Principal Scientist, Division of Vegetable Crops, ICAR-IIHR had an interesting presentation on “Trait specific breeding in Ridge gourd at ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru followed by a presentation from Dr Wirulda Pootakham, Researcher (Genomics), National Omics Center, NSTDA Thailand on “Nuclear, mitochondrial and chloroplast genome of luffa and its implications for molecular breeding”. Paid companies who missed the live session will be receiving an email notification to access presentations and recordings.

Last but not least is an update from Disease Resistance Terminology Working Group or DRT WG,

The DRT Watermelon Fusarium Wilt subgroup is still working on document preparations for watermelon seed request from USDA and GEVES. As for the Bitter Gourd Powdery Mildew subgroup, APSA received a response from the Indian National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) to submit additional documents and are about to re-submit the document. Stay tuned for more updates next month.

This is all for now for SC/SIG updates. All minutes of SIG/SC meetings can be viewed by APSA members by logging in to the APSA website and heading to the members area. Thank you very much and stay tuned for more updates next month. Should you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Kunaporn Phuntunil

APSA Technical Coordination Manager

kuna@apsaseed.org

 

Kunaporn Phuntunil

APSA Technical Coordination Manager

kuna@apsaseed.org

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Seed Industry News

International

Seed Industry Representatives Attend FAO’s Global Conference on Sustainable Plant Production: Taking place in early November 2022 in Rome, the Global Conference on Sustainable Plant Production was organized by the FAO as part of the ISF Midterm Meetings and attended by representatives of the global seed sector. . .
ISF Midterm Meetings took place in Rome: The ISF Midterm Meetings, held in Rome, were attended by over 250 delegates from the global seed sector . . .

FAO Global Conference on Green Development Industries: Report: The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has published its report from its FAO Global Conference on Green Development of Seed Industries event last year. . . .

GB9 in October in India: October 3: The 9th session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which took place in New Delhi on 19-24 September 2022, concluded with an agreement to restart discussions on enhancing the functioning of the Multilateral System of the Treaty and the implementation of Article 9 of the Treaty which addresses Farmers' Rights.. . .

WTO Trade Dialogue on seeds: “Improved Seed Trade; Unlocking Global Food Security”, September 22: A panel of experts joined a WTO Trade Dialogue on Food webinar to discuss the most urgent topics in international food trade and the role of the seed sector in ensuring global food security. . . .

Read more on International Seed Industry News.

India

India issues SOPs for genome edited plants: Following the easing of regulations on SDN-1 and SDN-2 genome-edited plants which are free of exogenous DNA by India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in March 2022, the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology has issued a memorandum . . .

More from India seed industry news

Indonesia

The Indonesian Seed Association, Asbenindo has provided an overview of seed industry regulations in the world’s third most populous country.

More from Indonesia Seed Industry news.

Japan

Japan drops PepMV egg plant seed testing regulation: The Japan delegation to the World Trade Organization has announced the country’s decision to withdraw its requirement for imported egg plant seeds to be tested for pepino mosaic virus . . . 

More from Japan seed industry news

New Zealand

Plant breeders welcome new Plant Variety Rights legislation: New Zealand’s industry body for plant breeders has welcomed the passage of the Plant Variety Rights Bill. The PVR Bill, replaces legislation first designed in 1987, was passed by the Parliament. . . 

Public Consultation to update legume and nut seed pest list: The New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries recently held a public consultation to amend its Import Health Standard (IHS): Seeds for Sowing (155.02.05). . . .
 

More from New Zealand seed industry news

Pakistan

More rain than ever’ causes untold devastation for farmers, lives and infrastructure: August 22: Farmers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) have been devastated by torrential downpours that have resulted in the flooding of their crops. . . .

More from Pakistan seed industry news

Philippines

Philippines confirms release of properly-packed SPS compliant seeds: The Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) on September 20 circulated a memorandum to confirm interim measures to allow certain seeds to be released for distribution without insecticide treatment were evaluated and deemed sufficient. . .

More from Philippines seed industry news

Thailand

Thailand green lights authorization of third-party seed health labs: Thailand's Department of Agriculture has issued a notification dated November 11, 2022, concerning new regulations on the application and issuance of phytosanitary certificates and phytosanitary certificates for re-export. . . .

Thailand ePhyto exchange system online with ASEAN and China: July 1: Exporters of seeds and other agricultural products and produce from Thailand are now eligible to apply for electronic phytosanitary (ePhyto) certificates online. . . .

New regulation for cannabis flowers in force: A new decree that went into effect on November 12, 2022, from Thailand's Ministry of Health tightened rules concerning the growing and sale of cannabis. The new decree, which was published in the Official Gazette, replaces the original June 16 announcement to legalize cannabis.

More from Thailand seed industry news

The above is only a sample of what’s new. For more of all the latest news updates from around the region, visit our respective news portals by country:

Seed Industry News by country in alphabetical order

Australia

Bangladesh

Cambodia

China

India

Indonesia

Japan

Korea, South

Laos

Malaysia

Myanmar

Nepal

New Zealand

Pakistan

Philippines

Singapore

Sri Lanka

Thailand

Turkey

Vietnam

Central Asia

Middle East

International

 

 

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Sponsorship & Advertising Opportunities

As part of APSA’s digitalization and digitization strategy, in 2022 we’re offering active members even more ways to directly reach Asia-Pacific seed industry decision makers directly -- in their inbox, on their desktop PCs, laptops, smartphone, tablets, and phablets alike, through our exciting new affiliate, sponsorship, marketing, communication, advertising and publicity opportunities.

We are pleased to announce our 2022 Digital Media Sponsorship Rates and Media Kit:


 

Don’t hesitate, INQUIRE NOW!

Email: (komsak@apsaseed.org) or Mike (mike@apsaseed.org)

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Asian Seed magazine Vol. 28 No.4 (Quarter 4, October - November 2022)

No password required

In the fourth and final issue of Asian Seed and Planting Material for volume 28, we have facts and figures about our host country of the 2022 Asian Seed Congress, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand from 14 to 18 November. We also feature exclusive interviews with the two 2022 APSA awardees, as well as with the director general of the Department of Agriculture, Thailand and the first Asian President of the International Seed Testing Association. There's also an article from the SeaWorld group about the rising contra season seed production potential of South America, in addition to statistics analysis of the Asia Pacific sowing seed trade trends leading into the pandemic, as well as coming out of it.

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