December 2023
On 5 December 2023, the Biocontrol Coalition held our first meeting with agrifood stakeholders to discuss how facilitating biocontrol innovation would help farmers, consumers, and environmentalists meet their objectives. Farmer interests were well represented with COPA-COGECA, the European Landowners Organisation (ELO) and IFOAM-Organics Europe all attending. A consumer perspective was added by the Consumer Choice Centre (CCC). We outlined the difficulties the industry faces in bringing innovative biocontrol products to market and why it is vital for stakeholders to add their voices to our call for rethinking the regulatory framework to be more innovation-friendly while ensuring high levels of safety, health, and environmental protection. The stakeholders were extremely engaged and asked lots of great questions. All parties agreed to continue the conversation in the new year.