Regretfully, the GM Adventitious Presence (GMAP) issue has been the major one and is likely to remain so for a while. We must work to persuade legislators to produce realistic and economically acceptable GMAP thresholds both for 'approved events' following the passage of the Labelling legislation and for traces of 'not-yet-approved events' in trials. This should also cover events that are authorised and widely used in countries with comparable legislation for environmental, safety and public health assessments. Up to now this has all seemed rather academic to some seed people,  but when GM becomes more widely grown and trialled in the near future the work ESA has been doing to work for realistic thresholds will have been worth it for all of us in this industry.

Another issue is the potential withdrawal of agrochemicals used for seed treatment (we have  helped 'save' Thiram); even more importantly on the positive side,  seed treatment is a most cost-effective and environmentally friendly  'vehicle' for delivery of agrochem benefits and we are working with  the agrochem industry to help us both in this respect.

Yet another is organic seed: our members have been spending large amounts of time and  money gearing themselves up to provide seed in conformity with the EU rules for organic farming which, some years ago, were announced as  becoming obligatory from next year on. Now members' investments in this field are threatened by the European Commission and Member States moving their goal-posts in this respect.