News

The SME Fund 2024 offers an unparalleled opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to receive financial support for intellectual property (IP) services, including protecting plant varieties. As the application deadline of December 5, 2024, approaches, we spoke with Sara Piva, International Cooperation Officer at the CPVO (Community Plant Variety Office), to discuss the significance of this fund for plant breeders and how they can make the most of it.

The Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) held a technical training meeting on rice, gathering experts from across Europe to discuss advancements in Distinctness, Uniformity, and Stability (DUS) testing. 

The event took place from August 27 to August 28, 2024, at the CREA-DC, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Plant Protection and Certification, located in Vercelli, Italy. This meeting highlighted CPVO's ongoing efforts to refine plant variety protection technical protocols and brought

Yesterday marked a significant milestone as President Ursula von der Leyen presented the Political Guidelines for the next European Commission (2024-2029). As we chart the path forward, it's essential to align our objectives at the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) with these visionary guidelines to bolster Europe's competitiveness, sustainability, and innovation.

President Ursula von der Leyen highlights the importance of engaging with stakeholders in the agricultural sector to address the challenges and opportunities faced by European farmers. She states:

"I want to

Welcome back to our 'Plant Breeding Success Stories', where we share interviews from SMEs across the Plant Breeding sector. In the second part of this interview, we're chatting with FitzGerald Nurseries, an Irish company based in Stonyford, Kilkenny. The first part of this interview can be found here.

CPVO: Can you provide examples of how PVRs have helped Beotanics compete in the market against larger players?

FitzGerald Nurseries: Beotanics is thriving thanks to the protection granted by PVRs. It has 20 years of experience and breeder networks and gets to specialize and also

Welcome back to our 'Plant Breeding Success Stories', where we share interviews from SMEs across the Plant Breeding sector. In this article, we're chatting with FitzGerald Nurseries, an Irish company based in Stonyford, Kilkenny.

CPVO: Could you briefly describe the work of FitzGerald Nurseries?

FitzGerald Nurseries: Our operations are built on the foundation of registering and representing intellectual property (IP) to carve out an innovative niche in various crops, which are now produced on an unprecedented scale in Europe. FitzGerald Nurseries focuses on ornamental plants,

Welcome back to another article in our ‘Plant Breeding Success Stories’ series. This series of articles highlights a selection of plant breeders and companies across the EU, giving us a deeper insight into how the plant varieties of the future are developed.

In this article we’re talking to Fidélio Alegria, CEO of Sjaak van Schie B.V. 

CPVO: Can you briefly describe the primary focus and operations of Sjaak van Schie B.V.? How has your company evolved since its inception?

Fidélio Alegria: Sjaak van Schie B.V. operates across all phases of the production