88 / SEEDWORLD.COM OCTOBER 2017 STATUS ARGENTINA A delegation from the International Maize Alliance (MAIZALL), including National Corn Growers Association past presi- dent and MAIZALL current president Pam Johnson, met with their South American counterparts in Argentina to collaborate on strategic planning for MAIZALL and to meet with a number of senior Argentine government officials. While the participants in MAIZALL compete for markets abroad, they came together to reaffirm their commitment to and discuss their work toward common goals that benefit corn farm- ers in America, Brazil and Argentina. MAIZALL works to: enhance public support for trade, grow public under- standing of and support for biotechnology; encourage transparent, predictable, science-based regulatory sys- tems; promote synchronicity in approval processes; and encourage trade-enabling low level presence policies. During the meetings, the board also re-established its priority activities. It was determined that tier one priorities included: working through the World Trade Organization (WTO) to engage China and Europe; advancing harmonization; increasing outreach in Africa; and improving communica- tions. In addition to these top- tier goals, the partners will also continue addressing crop protection and maximum world STATUS A look at seed industry developments around the globe. Farmers in coordination with plant breeders, researchers and governments work to improve policy and the crops they produce, and thus, their conditions — regardless of what continent they happen to be on. residue level issues and advancing sustainability. The MAIZALL Board met with the Ministry of Agro-Industry of Argentina, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange, the Institute for International Agriculture Negotiations, ArgenBio, the Argentina Seed Association, Aapresid, and the Agriculture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies. These meetings focused pri- marily on efforts to cooperate on access issues in markets such as China and the African continent. MAIZALL received substantial feedback on how they could continue to collab- orate to further these initia- tives. Additionally, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange invited MAIZALL to participate in a side event to the WTO Ministerial in December 2017. MAIZALL was formalized in June of 2013 with the sign- ing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The alli- ance is a farmer led, private sector partnership of three countries and four associa- tions representing the major maize producers and export- ers of the Americas: MAIZAR (Argentina); ABRAMILHO (Brazil); the National Corn Growers Association and the U.S. Grains Council. STATUS INDIA More than 23 farmers from seven states, including policymakers, government officials and researchers came together for a round- table conference to promote sustainable methods of seed innovation using traditional technology by Indian farmers. The conference was con- ducted as part of a collabora- tion among the Max Planck Institute, Leeds University and The Art of Living. Speakers included Mrinalini Kochupillai, senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition; Natalie Kopytko and Gregory Radick from Leeds University; Pitambar Shrestha, regional coordina- tor of LI-BIRD, Nepal; Kishore Kumar Sharma from Assam Agricultural University; and Suman Sahai, chair of the Gene Campaign. One of the highlights of the conference was the explora- tion of the theme of seed innovation keeping in mind the condition of the Indian farmers, more than 90 percent of whom cultivate on less than two hectares of land. The need to buy expen- sive seeds, which usually require fertilizers and other inputs, deeply contributes to the debt cycle. “Innovation does not just happen in a laboratory, but also in the farm, as the farm- ers have an understanding of the crop beyond its physical properties,” Sahai said. The conference also noted that so far, research on agricultural techniques has primarily been conducted on large landholdings in water- rich regions. And so it has failed to produce the same