U of A adjusts to seed industry changes: January 2000 Soybeans Today

Soybeans Today January 2000

U of A adjusts to seed industry changes

By Howell Medders

The U of A is responding to protect the interests of Arkansas producers.

The soybean seed industry has changed dramatically due to transgenic varieties, more restrictions on saving seed and concentrated corporate ownership.

The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture plays a major role in developing improved varieties and making seed available to producers. Soybean breeding and variety testing are supported in part by the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board.

"We are modernizing our programs to assure that they continue to serve the interests of Arkansas producers," Charles J. Scifres, associate vice president for agriculture-research, said.

The division established the Arkansas Crop Variety Improvement Program (ACVIP) to provide oversight for all activities involved in developing and releasing new varieties, producing and marketing foundation seed and variety testing. Don Dombek is ACVIP coordinator.

"Providing crop varieties adapted to Arkansas and assuring access to seed of public varieties is a basic function of the Division of Agriculture," said Scifres, who is chief operating officer of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

Following are two major seed industry changes and how the U of A is responding to protect Arkansas producers.

Issue: Transgenic technology allows the owner of a patented transformation process (for a trait such as herbicide tolerance) to transform an unprotected public variety and have exclusive ownership of the transformed variety.

Response: The U of A and other public agencies have increased use of "plant variety protection" (PVP) to protect the use of public varieties.

Patents and PVP will not be used to prohibit growers from saving seed for their own use. They will be used to protect the university's property rights in the transgenic conversion of an Arkansas variety or breeding line.

Issue: The great number of soybean varieties now on the market creates confusion about which are best adapted to local conditions. Producers tend to buy varieties with the greatest visibility in advertising and promotion campaigns.

Currently, all seed dealers have equal access to public varieties, so none have a proprietary interest in promoting a public variety. If everybody owns it, nobody owns it.

Response: The division is working with Arkansas seed dealers and producers to develop "marketing groups" with exclusive rights to the sale of a public soybean variety. Ownership will create an incentive for group members to promote a variety.

The marketing group concept is developed with four requirements:

Doesn't prevent producers from saving seed for their own use.
Open to all qualified parties.
Every member participates in promotion.
Nominal fee to defray foundation seed and research costs.

"We are doing our best to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing seed industry environment in ways that will best serve the interests of Arkansas producers," Scifres said.

"We are being very careful in the changes we make, but we know that the greatest risk is to do nothing to try to respond to the dramatic changes occurring in crop genetics technology and marketing."

Soybeans Today January 2000
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For additional information about any board-related activity contact:

Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board
ATTN: Warren Carter
P.O. Box 31
Little Rock, AR 72203-0031
Phone: 501-228-1265