Agricultural policies in Europe are quite ambitious.
Recently, we have been working a lot
on sustainability and climate change.
At KWS we fully support that.
At the same time, it's also important to find a good way how to get there,
because you need to involve
all the main stakeholders in the dialog towards these goals.
I like to think about myself as someone able to translate technical
and difficult messages to something that people from outside
the sector can understand, decision makers can understand.
And then being able to take the good decisions when it comes to legislation.
So it is important to work on governmental affairs in Brussels
because all the main laws having an impact on our company
and our sector are decided in Brussels by the European Parliament,
the Commission and the governments sitting in the Council
that when decision makers work on a piece of legislation
that could have an impact on us, they should be aware
of what could be the consequences of these legislations.
Governmental affairs is about establishing connection or relationship
with the decision makers, institutions and also relevant stakeholders.
KWS is fully transparent.
And we always had this approach when coming to relationship
with institutions and with the decision makers, and that's important.
We launched a couple of years ago a web page dedicated to breeding methods
or other relevant information on our varieties
so that all interested parties – farmers NGOs, decision makers –
can have a look at what we do and have all the information they need.
We are currently working
on two main dossiers for us.
One is the revision of the Seed Marketing Directive
so that is the backbone of our industry. At the same time
the Commission is also proposing a new piece of legislation
on new genomic techniques and it is trying to find
a good regulatory framework for those breeding methods.
I love working for the breeding sector
because we are at the beginning of the agri food chain.
What we eat comes from breeders
in the first place.
The varieties our breeders develop can really make a difference
when it comes to climate change or when it comes to reduction of inputs,
but at the same time to maintain a good income for the farmers.