Message from the President

This is the last "Message" of my Presidency. In fact, after the next meeting, to be held in Sao Pedro (Brazil) on 20–22 September 2006, we will have a new President who will steer the Commission into the future.

During the time of my Presidency, the management of ICUMSA has became more and more problematic for several reasons. Not only was it difficult to promote the collaboration of Associate Referees for various Subjects, but it has been extremely difficult in some cases to find Referees to deal with all Subjects.

After the ballot changing Article V of our By-Laws (see ICUMSA News No. 53 – January 2005), I promised to post the Reports on our website well in advance of the next meeting. Unfortunately, I received only a few Reports before the deadline of the end of April and, even now, some Reports are still missing. This means that it has not been possible to plan a provisional program for our meeting in Brazil. In addition, at the time of preparing this message, some Referees are not in the list of Participants. In this situation it is difficult to plan a detailed program in advance as we did, for example, in Atlanta.

Notwithstanding the difficulties mentioned above, I am looking forward to a fruitful meeting in Brazil. The presence of representatives of 23 out of the 30 National Committees, as well as the presence, as observers, of three new nations (China, Morocco and Nigeria) testify to the importance of ICUMSA.

During the next meeting we have to renew not only the Presidency but also some other Officers and make some very important decisions for ICUMSA and the future. I am sure that we will be able to rejuvenate the Commission and provide a successful way forward into the future.

Referee News

General Subject 5 – Cane
In the last ICUMSA News, I announced that, following the suggestions of the Indian National Committee, the new Referee of General Subject 5 (GS5) – Cane – was Dr. Y.S. Nerkar. Due to the sudden retirement of Dr. Nerkar, the vacancy of the Refereeship of the GS5 is now covered by Dr. A.S. Patil, Director, Agricultural Research & Extension, Vasantdada Sugar Institute, Manjari (Bk). Tal. Haveli, Pune, Maharashtra – 4 12 307, India (E mail: ashoksitarampatil@rediffmail.com, Fax +91 20 26902244, Phone +91 20 26902232.
Despite some difficulties in contacting Associate Referees and the short timescale, Dr. Patil has prepared a Report to be discussed in Brazil.