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Hans W Reiners joins CropLife International as President

02 Jun '05

3 min read

German chemical & agricultural company BASF announced Mr. Hans W. Reiners began his two-year term as president of CropLife International, the global federation representing the plant science industry.

Hans Reiners, president of BASF Agricultural Products, succeeds Syngenta CEO, Michael Pragnell as president of the federation. Prior to his election, Reiners served a two-year term as CropLife International's vice president.

One of Hans Reiners's priorities during his term will be to raise CropLife's profile on innovation. “We need to raise awareness of the innovative power of the plant science industry and what this innovation is doing to improve our lives,” said Reiners.

Reiners stressed that the plant science industry spends more on research and development than any other industry after pharmaceuticals. “This innovation is bringing better crop protection solutions and plant biotechnology products, resulting in increased agricultural productivity, better food, and a better environment,” he said. “Agriculture is generally associated with food, feed and fiber, but a look at the political agendas in many countries hints at the contribution that crops will be making to securing our energy supply.”

“Intellectual property rights, data protection and their enforcement are key factors enabling the innovation process, both in crop protection and agricultural biotechnology,” he said. “Everyone acknowledges that we need to do a better job of addressing anti-intellectual property sentiment, highlighting the importance of intellectual property protection to economic prosperity and growth. On the other hand, we also need to be responsive to the issue of equality and access to agriculture technologies by the rural poor. What we need are more workable ideas about how to accomplish this,” Reiners said.

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