The annual Vegetable and Flower Seed Conference hosted by the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), gives world seed trade participants a place to conduct business with each other for several days, while also keeping them abreast of trends and technologies affecting seed development and availability. Two dozen or so countries were represented. Among them were several dozen Chinese, one of whom we interviewed. Both Southeast AgNet and AgNet West radio networks reach growers in both these major U. S. vegetable production regions, and we found a number of questions to ask from that perspective.
ASTA President Andy Lavigne reviews some of the news and issues discussed at this week’s Vegetable and Flower Seed Conference near Phoenix, AZ. Among other things, LaVigne discusses the diversification of the world’s seed market as some large multi-national companies leave niches for other smaller start up companies to serve.
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ASTA Chairman Blake Curtis talks about ASTA, the 2013 Vegetable and Flower Seed Conference this week near Phoenix, and more specifically about the role ASTA is playing to pull various world seed productoin interests together to address the important issues facing the industry.
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As a follow up in the ASTA leadership interview series, we also discussed seed issues important for growers to consider with John Schoenecker, who is Director of Intellectual Property with HM. CLAUSE Vegetable Seeds. Shoenecker discusses some of the operations of ASTA and how it impacts development of the seeds farmers plant each season.
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Niels Louwaars is the Managing Director of a seed association in Holland called Plantum. He asked several questions of the Chinese delegation in a session devoted to China’s seed industry developments, and he has a direct way of explaining the world seed situation that manhy of our farmer listeners might relate to.
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Several dozen Chinese Seed Business officials attended the ASTA 2013 Vegetable and Flower Seed Conference, Among them was Liu Tiebin (right in photo), Chairman of the Vegetable Seed Subcommittee of China’s National Seed Association. Mr. Tiebin is also General Manager of Beijing Beinong Luheng Sci-Tech Development Co., Ltd. A number of independent Chinese seed 
companies have sprouted up in recent years as a result of a change in Chinese law to encourage faster seed industry development in China. We appreciate the help of interpreter Jailai Li in helping us obtain this interesting interview segment.
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