The Third Annual Balkan Week of Plant Health, organized by Plant Protection Institute and National Service for Plant Protection took place during the period May 12-16, 2008. The programme of the event included scientific sessions on Pest Risk Analysis, Pest Diagnostics, and Food Quality and Safety. Outstanding plant protection scientists and Phytosanitary operative officials from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Slovakia, Germany, Italy, Spain and Holland took part in the event.
The Second Balkan Week of Plant health took place at Plant Protection Institute, Kostinbrod in the period 31st
May – 1st June 2007. The event was held under the auspices of The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The
Second Balkan Week of Plant Health was organized on the line of project PlantProCENTRE in the Sixth Framework Programme
and personally with the cooperation of Director General of National Service for Plant Protection, Dr. Ventsislav
Todorov. The purpose was meeting of Balkan and European scientists from leading research centers for exchange of
information and possibilities for collaboration in the field of plant protection and phytosanitary control. Outstanding scientists from leading
research centers in Germany, England, Italy, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria took part in the event.
Plant Protection Institute (PPI) was established on January
14, 1936, with Decree ? 14 of Tsar Boris III, based on the existing
Service for Plant Protection. Prof. Dimitar Atanasov, a phytopathologist
formerly working at the Faculty of Agronomy, Sofia University,
was the first Director of PPI and the establishment of the Institute
is mainly a result of his efforts. Prof. Dimitar Atanasov is
the first Bulgarian to study agronomy in the USA. He graduated
the Michigan School of Agriculture and Natural Sciences and
obtained his PhD degree at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
He returned to Bulgaria in 1925 to work as a Professor at the
Phytopathology Department of the Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry,
Sofia University, as asked by Prof. Mollov and Prof. Stranski,
giving up his position as a professor in the Netherlands and
declining the offer of Wisconsin University to continue his
work there.
The scientific work of Prof. Atanasov is connected to the development
of Plant Protection science in Bulgaria.
