The proceedings of the 2nd World Seed Conference, held on 8-10 September 2009 at FAO Headquarters, Rome, are now available, entitled Responding to the challenges of a changing world: The role of new plant varieties and high quality seed in agriculture. They contain the presentations, discussions and conclusions from the one-day Policy Forum and the five sessions of the two-day Expert Forum, dedicated respectively to the role of plant breeding in meeting the multiple challenges of a fast-changing world; importance of plant genetic resources for plant breeding - access and benefit sharing; plant variety protection; importance of quality seed in agriculture; and facilitation of trade and market development. The conference was organised by FAO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), International Seed Federation (ISF) and International Seed Testing Association (ISTA). See http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/am490e/am490e00.htm or contact [email protected] for more information.