Official Newsletter of the WANA Seed Network
No. 37,
June 2009
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Announcements of meetings, seminars, workshops and training courses appear in this section. Please send in announcements for national, regional, or international workshops, seminars and training courses organized in your country for inclusion in the next issue.
Conferences
Second World Seed Conference, 8-10 September 2009, FAO, Rome. The conference under the theme 'Responding to the Challenges of Changing world-the role of new plant varieties and high quality seed in agriculture is jointly organized by FAO, OECD, UPOV, ISF and ISTA. This event is aimed at a cross section of the seed industry from policy makers and senior managers of government agencies to professionals such as plant breeders, seed specialists, researchers to farmers' associations and consumer organizations. It also include breeding companies, breeders' associations, certification agencies, seed producers, seed trade associations, technology companies, academic institutions, and international breeding and seed research centers. The conference will be held over three days, organized into two events: Expert Forum, 8-9 September 2009 and Policy Forum, 10 September 2009.
The aim of the Expert Forum is to provide information and facilitate discussion on means of encouraging the development of new plant varieties and the production and distribution of high quality seed. The Policy Forum will review the conclusions of the Expert Forum on means to provide an enabling environment that encourages the development of new varieties and facilitates the production and distribution of high quality seed.
The Expert Forum will be in English only whereas the Policy Forum will have simultaneous translation in Arabic, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. Further information on the conference can be obtained at: http://www.worldseedconference.org.
International Conference on Food Security and Climate Change in Dry Areas, 12-15 October 2009, Amman, Jordan. An International Conference on Food Security and Climate Change in Dry Areas, organized by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and Jordan's Ministry of Agriculture, will be held 12-15 October 2009 in Amman, Jordan. Conference themes include impacts of climate change on natural resource availability, agricultural production systems and environmental degradation in dry areas, mitigation, adaptation and ecosystem resilience strategies: natural resource management, crop improvement, etc, and policy and institutional options to ensure an enabling environment to cope with climate change impacts. For more information, please contact n.haddad@cgiar.org or visit the website (http://www.icarda.org/Announcement/2009/IntlConfrnc_FoodSecurity/
FoodSecurityAndClimateChangeInDryAreas_2009.htm).
International Conference on Food Security in the Arab Countries: New Challenges and Opportunities in the Context of Price Volatility, 2-4 of March 2010, Muscat, Oman. The objective of this conference is to bring together researchers, experts, policy makers and other practitioners from the Arab region and the world to present and discuss food security in its domestic and international dimensions and in the light of the recent global food crisis. The organizing committee welcomes conceptual and empirical research papers as well as case studies on food policies of particular Arab countries to alleviate the effects of the global price surge.
The Conference will be held at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), the premier university in the Sultanate of Oman. For more information please contact: Dr Houcine Boughanmi, Department of Natural Resource Economics, College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, PO Box 34, Al-Khod 123, Oman; Tel: +968-2414 1243/968-24141244; Fax: +968-244-13418; E.mal: boughanh@squ.edu.om
International Seed Testing Congress 2010, 16-22 June 2010, Cologne, Germany. This is a triennial congress organized by ISTA Secretariat. During the Congress, the 29th ISTA Seed Symposium will be organized from 16-18 June 2009 under the theme Application and improvement of established and advanced technologies in seed testing. The Symposium will be made up of five oral sessions and two poster sessions, each of 2 hours, covering the same topics. A lead speaker who is well known in the field of seed science and technology will chair each oral session.
Intending participants are encouraged to present oral and poster papers dealing with a range of topics under five themes. The research reported in offered papers can cover both the scientific basis of aspects of seed quality and its technological application in seed testing. In all sessions, we welcome papers based on both established seed testing methods and those using new or advanced technologies such as automated and computer-based methods and non-destructive techniques. Papers may be on crop species, flowers, trees and shrubs and new and potential cultivated species. We encourage papers on both tropical and temperate species.
Papers should be submitted online only in the form of an abstract in English of 1600 characters (maximum). Papers will be presented orally and in poster form in English, both forms having equal status. As the number of oral presentations will be limited by time constraints, oral presentation of your paper may not be possible and you may be asked to present your paper as a poster. The selection of papers for oral presentation will be by the Scientific Program Advisory Committee.
The timetable for submission and acceptance of papers is as follows:
October 2008: First call for papers.
15 July 2009: Deadline for submission of papers. Papers reviewed by the Scientific Program Advisory Committee.
17 September 2009: Authors of papers considered for oral presentation contacted for further information on experimental results, additional to the abstract.
1 November 2009: Authors informed whether papers have been accepted for oral or poster presentation.
1 March 2010: Deadline for payment of registration fee for authors of accepted oral papers. If the presenter of an oral paper has not registered, the paper will be replaced in the program and deadline for acceptance of an invitation to present an offered oral paper as a poster
2 April 2010: Deadline for payment of registration fee for authors of accepted poster papers. If none of the poster authors has registered by this time, it will not be possible to present the poster and the abstract will not be published.
Authors of proposed papers are encouraged to explore possible sources of funding for their attendance at the symposium as early as possible. ISTA cannot offer any financial support to authors of papers. However, a letter of acceptance of a paper for presentation (subject to funding) can be provided to assist in funding applications after 1 November 2009.
ISTA Workshops
ISTA Workshop on Quality Assurance in Seed Testing, 19-23 October 2009, Palmerston North, New Zealand. For more information visit: http://www.seedtest.org/en/workshopdetail---1--1113--210--74.html
ISTA Workshop on Variety Testing - an introduction, using protein electrophoresis and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) for GMO Detection, 9-13 November 2009, Indo-American Hybrid Seeds (India) Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore, India. For more information visit:
http://www.seedtest.org/en/workshopdetail---1--1113--210--76.html
ISTA Seed Health Workshop, 2-5 March 2010, GEVES-SNES, Angers, France. For more information visit: http://www.seedtest.org/en/workshopdetail---1--1113--210--75.html
ISTA Workshop on Species and Variety Testing / Proteinelectrophoresis, 11-13 June 2010, Bundessortenamt (Federal Plant Variety Office), Hanover, Germany. For more information visit: http://www.seedtest.org/en/workshopdetail---1--1113--210--78.html
ISTA Workshop on Viability and Germination Testing, 9-14 June 2010, Landwirtschaftliches Technologie Zentrum (Agricultural Technology Park) Augustenberg, Karlsruhe, Germany. For more information visit: http://www.seedtest.org/en/workshopdetail---1--1113--210--77.html
Courses
UPOV Distance Learning Course Dl-205: Introduction to the UPOV System of Plant Variety Protection under the UPOV Convention, 2 November to 6 December 2009. For on-line registration, please visit the website (http://www.upov.int/en/about/training.html)