Stephen Flack has responsibility for the management of the ACC work on the APHA contract for agricultural DUS and seed certification of agricultural species in England and Wales. Throughout his career, Stephen has worked mainly with crop certification, initially of potatoes and later for all agricultural crop species covered by the UK Seeds regulations, especially with the non-cereal crops. He has also been responsible for DUS (Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability) testing of sugar beet, field beans and for potato variety trials.
Stephen Flack manages the NIAB role of OECD co-ordinating centre for the OECD seed schemes and provides technical advice to the secretariat and scheme members as well as writing technical papers and participating in all ad-hoc working groups of the schemes.
Stephen is a qualified crop inspector and lectures on inspectors training courses and PHSI seed sampler courses as necessary.
He participates in the NFU Herbage Technical Levy Fund meetings and the UK Seed Certification and Official Supervision Committee. Stephen is the Chair of the Herbage Seed Technical Working Group, hosted annually by NIAB.
Within NIAB he fulfils the roles of Quality Manager (ISO) and Safety Officer.