On 31 May 2011 during the ISF World Seed Congress in Belfast three leading European seed enhancement and coating companies, Elsoms, INCOTEC and Suet, have signed a Cooperation Agreement with the Anti-Infringement Bureau on Intellectual Property Rights of Plant Material (AIB). The parties agreed to a protocol aiming to prevent the conditioning of illegally multiplied seeds that are protected by plant breeders rights.

Casper van Kempen, AIB’s managing director, welcomes this initiative: “This agreement will give AIB an extra tool to track and trace the illegal production of seeds protected by plant breeders rights that are being offered to the seed conditioning companies for coating and priming.”

Jan Willem Breukink, INCOTEC’s CEO, commented: “We are very pleased with this initiative as in this way we can give our contribution to avoid the illegal production of protected vegetable varieties owned by our customers. In this way we want to show that we take our responsibility as reliable seed enhancers and that we think in the interest of our customers. We want to keep our industry healthy, what we believe at the end is also the interest of the growers”.

The new protocol will enter into effect on 1 September 2011.

The vegetable seed industry, with an estimated turnover of Euro 2,8 billion, invests heavily in innovation to deliver high value products to the food chain.

AIB was established in 2008 by the vegetable seed industry, to prevent and fight illegal propagation of its protected varieties. For more information on AIB and its activities, see the website www.aib-seeds.com.